Man with a

Movie Camera
(1929)
Sergei Eisenstein Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov
Esfir Shub Dziga Vertov
 Dziga Vertov
(David /Denis Kaufman)
b. 1896, Białystok, Poland; d. 1954, Moscow, Russia

Jewish family; studied music and medicine in

Petrograd; wrote poetry, experimented with sound
design

Pseudonym : dynamic, Futurist associations

“Vertov” comes from the Russian verb to spin, “vertet’”

“Dziga” resembles the Russian word for “gypsy”

(Roma), “tsigan” or:

Ukrainian for a “spinning top,” the whirring of film on

an editing table or the click of a camera shutter
 Dziga Vertov
1918 began editing Kino-nedelya (“Cine-
week” newsreel)

1922 Kino-Pravda (“Cine-Truth” newsreel),

like the newspaper Pravda (Truth) started by
Lenin

1924 Kino-glaz (“Cine-Eye” usually trans. as

“Kino-Eye”)

1922: published “We. A Variant of a

Manifesto”

1923: “Cine-Eyes. A Revolution”

 WE. VARIANT OF A
MANIFESTO

We call ourselves kinoks –– as

opposed to “cinematographers,” a
herd of junkmen doing rather well
peddling their rags.
We see no connection between true
kinochestvo and the cunning and
calculation of the profiteers.
We consider the psychological
Russo-German film drama ––
weighed down with apparitions
and childhood memories –– an
absurdity.
 WE. VARIANT OF A
MANIFESTO

WE proclaim the old films, based on

the romance, theatrical films and
the like, to be leprous.
-Keep away from them! -Keep your
eyes off them!
-They're mortally dangerous!
-Contagious!
WE affirm the future of cinema art
by denying its present.
"Cinematography' must die so
that the art of cinema may live.
 WE are cleansing kinochestvo of
foreign matter – of music, litera-
ture, and theater; we seek our own
rhythm, one lifted from nowhere
else, and we find it in the
movements of things.
 WE invite you:
- to flee-
the sweet embraces of the romance,
the poison of the psychological novel,
the clutches of the theater of
adultery; to turn your back on music,
-to flee-
out into the open, into four-
dimensions (three+time), in search
of our own material, our meter and
rhythm.
Key Concepts & Terms
Kino-Eye (kino-glaz) :
mechanical eye, better than
the human eye

Kinok(s): cine-eye group

“life caught unawares”:

observational cinema

Kino-Pravda: literally, “cinema

truth” (like the newspaper),
but also: cinéma vérité
(1960s)

“Non-played” : documentary,
non-fiction
 Kino-Eye Group
(kinoki / kinoks)

Spouse: Elizaveta Svilova (editor, director in

USSR)

Brother: Mikhail Kaufman (cameraman,

director in USSR)

Various cinematographers & graphic artists;

(assoc. with LEF [Left Front of the Arts])

[Brother: Boris Kaufman, cameraman in

France and Hollywood, Academy Award for
On the Waterfront, 1954]
Kino-eye group: D. Vertov (seated on left), E. Svilova (seated at piano)
M. Kaufman (standing, second from left)
Kino-eye group: D. Vertov (seated on left), E. Svilova (seated at piano)
M. Kaufman (standing, second from left)
Kino-eye group: D. Vertov (seated on left), E. Svilova (seated at piano)
M. Kaufman (standing, second from left)
Kino-eye group: D. Vertov (seated on left), E. Svilova (seated at piano)
M. Kaufman (standing, second from left)
Vertov Films
1918 Kino-Nedelya newsreel
1922 Kino-Pravda newsreel
1924 Kino-Eye
1926 Stride, Soviet!
1926 6th Part of the World
1928 The Eleventh Year
1929 Man with a Movie Camera
1931 Enthusiasm / Symphony of the Donbas
1934 Three Songs of Lenin
1937 Lullaby
1938 Three Heroines
1942 For You at the Front
 Sight & Sound poll
“Greatest Films of All Time”

Man with a Movie Camera

#8 in 2012
#9 in 2022

Battleship Potemkin
#6 in 1992
#11 in 2012
#54 in 2022
Man with a Movie Camera
(1929)

VUFKU Ukrainian film studio

(partially independent)
No plot
No actors
No sets
No intertitles

Title: “chelovek” (person, not man)

“kinoapparat” (film apparatus, not
just camera)
 The film Man with a Movie Camera
represents
AN EXPERIMENTATION IN THE CINEMATIC
COMMUNICATION
Of visual phenomena
WITHOUT THE USE OF INTERTITLES
(a film without intertitles)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF A SCENARIO
(a film without a scenario)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF THEATRE
(a film without actors, without sets, etc.)
This new experimentation work by Kino-Eye
is directed towards the creation of an
authentically international absolute
language of cinema on the basis of its
complete separation from the language of
theatre and literature.
“The organizer of the experiment” (Dziga Vertov)
“The man with a movie camera” (Mikhail Kaufman)
“The woman with an editing bench” (Elizaveta Svilova)
The star (French-made Debrie Parvo ‘L’ camera)
“The guest star” (Esfir Shub)
Special musical guests: The Alloy Orchestra