The Movie Camera with a Man: Dziga Vertov, Kinokchestvo, and Symphonies of the Cyborg

This is the first part of what I will be presenting today.

Dziga Vertov was an innovator in several ways. His films were experimental to such a degree that the lead film makers of his day did not understand what it was he was up to. He did not like using title in his films. If he had to use them they were kept to a minimum. Through some of these artistic choices he seems a bit antagonistic to words, yet words have a privileged position for him. After all, he changed his name from Denis Kaufman to Dziga Vertov which according to Aufderheide means “spinning top” (39). A name which’s meaning he controls. He also produced a rather large ouvre of philosophical/theoretical writings concerning filmmaking where one of his pet projects was to construct neologisms in order to make sure everyone knew when he was talking about the cinematography of others or the kinochestvo of his own making. In the manifesto of the Kinoks (Vertov, his brother Mikhail Kaufman, and his editor/wife Elizaveta Svilova), or sometimes referred to as The Council of Three, there is even a call for the death of cinematography for the sake of cinema’s survival. I could go on here about all the cinematic work Vertov produced for the communist regimes. Many scholars have argued the propagandistic qualities of films, which seems slightly unneccesary as one of them even was called Three Songs About Lenin (1934) and was stamped by Vertov as a devotional piece. In this paper I will focus on Vertovs theoretical writings, filled with innovations and tangents worthy of science fiction writers, in relationship to Cyborg theory of today and his Magnum Opus The Man with a Movie Camera (1929).

When speaking of cyborgs, or cybernetic organisms, theorists like Donna Haraway argue that human thought have long made the distinction between what is grown and what is made. the grown refers to the organic, and the made refers to the produced. Yet they argue that the line between the two has been blurred. Machines which evolve, humans who are unable to survive without the technology in their bodies, et cetera. In our language we have metaphorically blurred the line as well, when we constantly and rather consistently refer to our brains as machines. For example when we refer to mind as having the cogs/wheels turning, running out of steam, being rusty, not operating, et cetera (Lakoff & Johnson 27).

Vertov seems to be onto this blurring already in the 1920s. In the previously mentioned manifesto “We: Variant of a Manifesto,” he and his comrades attack the romance films of the day as being to introspective. They state: "The 'psychological' prevents man from being as precise as a stopwatch; it interferes with his desire for kinship with the machine" (Vertov 7). They establish this desire in humans to merge with machines, or rather to morph into them and mate the grown with the made. There is a romanticism of the technological; a level of perfection humans need to aspire to. "Hurrah for the poetry of machines, propelled and driving; the poetry of levers, wheels and wings of steel; the iron cry of movements; the blinding grimaces of red-hot streams" (9). The machines are what carries the poetry, the symphonic. Humans are just not as reliable, yet. That moment will come. But until then they will focus on filming the poetically mechanical. "For his inability to control his movements, WE temporarily exclude man as a subject for film. Our path leads through the poetry of machines, from the bungling citizen to the perfect electric man" (7-8).

So what are we to make of this when we watch The Man with the Movie Camera? The associational editing compares human bodily functions and the functions of our society’s products. The double exposition merges human eyes with video cameras. The focus on the machines makes the humans seem like mere tools of the machines. The relationship between the grown and the made is in constant focus. Which gives and which takes? Which is in control and which is controlled? Which subsumes the other? What visual hierarchy do we see?

Further Reading:

• Aufderheide, Patricia. Documentary Film - A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. Print. 
• Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. Print. 
• Bordwell, David. “Dziga Vertov: An Introduction.” Film Comment 8, 1 (Spring  1972): 38–42. Print. 
• Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books, 1991. Print. 
• Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 2003. Print. 
• Petric, Vlada. Constructivism in Film: The Man with the Movie Camera, a Cinematic Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987. Print. 
• Roberts, Graham. The Man with the Movie Camera. London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2000. Print. 
• Vertov, Dziga. Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov. Ed. Annette Michelson. Trans. Kevin O’Brien. Berkeley: U of California P, 1984. Print.

 Viewing:

• Kinoglaz (1924)
• The Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
• Three Songs About Lenin (1934)

Is there such a thing as a "pure" documentary film?

Is there such a thing as a "pure" documentary film? Many of us assume documentary films portray real people taking part in real life events shown from an unbiased point of view. Unfortunately, there are many ways a documentary film's integrity may be compromised. It is important to remember that in most cases the individual making the documentary film has his/her own agenda and perspective that they wish to convey. It is rare when a documentary film is not biased to fit the filmmaker's own point of view. The filmmaker may manipulate the audience in their use of film angles and editing cuts, the film's musical score, or may delete portions of interviews to conceal any statements made that don't agree with their own perspective. Often times, the film's sponsors may have certain requirements on how the finished film turns out, in order to fit their own agenda. In some cases, the subjects themselves have input into how they are portrayed in the final film product. Also, keep in mind the simple presence of a camera crew will often times cause the subject to behave in a manor inconsistent with how they would behave otherwise. In my opinion the least realistic documentaries are the ones that seem to focus on the filmmaker themselves. It's hard to create an unbiased film when the prominent subject of the film is yourself. To me, the performative and participatory modes seem the least true to life. A recent trend in documentary films seems to be attempting to make a star out of the filmmaker as seen in films such as Roger and Me(1989) and Super-Size Me (2004). It seems to me that in order for a documentary to be truly "pure" it would need to be compiled solely from surveillance camera footage with the subjects being unaware that they are being filmed. Furthermore the film's sponsors as well as the filmmakers would have to be wholly neutral on the topic that their film addresses, with the film giving both sides of the issue equal consideration. While these conditions continue to not be met by documentary films, I will continue to view them as glorified propaganda films.