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Your Looking at Movies textbook has a nice quote about Vertov and his film on page 428.
Vertov shows us how to frame reality and movement: through the human eye and the camera eye, or through windows and shutters. But to confound us, he also shows us--through such devices as the freeze-frame, split screen, stop-action, slow motion, and fast motion--how the cinematographer and editor can transform the movements of life into something that is unpredictable. He not only proves that the camera has a life of its own, but also reminds us of the editor, who is putting all of this footage together. Reality may be in the control of the artist, his camera, and its tricks, but it also finds definition within the editor's presentation and, ultimately, the viewer's perception.
In your first well-developed paragraph, please discuss this quote in relation to a five minute piece of Man With a Movie Camera. Be sure to describe shots cinematically, as if I've never seen the film before. Discuss elements of editing, such as the juxtaposition of shots, rhythm, montage, etc.
In your second well-developed paragraph, discuss this quote in relation to a film of your choice. Try to be as specific as possible in your descriptions and speak cinematically when you discuss the film.
Out of the entire hour long movie I found the beginning to be the best cinematically because of the way it manipulates the viewer’s anticipation of the movie by creating scenes that create the feeling of anticipation within itself. The film opens with preparation to screen a film at a late 1920s theater. The man with the camera is seen entering the theater and soon the interior of the theater is presented using medium takes. A man winds up the film, hands pull open the curtains, and a woman opens the barrier to let people. Most importantly chairs begin to open by themselves using stop motion, literally inviting people to sit and watch. As the shots progress the length of each gets shorter and shorter creating the tone that the scene is leading up to something. The shots go from the audience filing into seats to the chair and back again, the shots getting shorter each time, as the anticipation builds. The juxtaposition of the shots and pace of the takes Next the orchestra is presented close up, the instrument filling most of the frame, hands unmoving and waiting. The musicians are then shown from farther away although the camera is still close, and the musicians are still unmoving statues, or bows a fraction of an inch from the strings. Suddenly the musicians begin to play and the anticipation of the scene is over but the anticipation for the film has just begun. Overall through superb editing and filming technique Vertov incites emotion out of anyone who watches the film.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly to how Voltez used the camera and editing techniques to portray the feeling of anticipation the movie New Moon uses such techniques to incite panic, fear, and suspense to its viewers. As the main protagonist runs to save her love interest slow motion is employed to the never ending panic of the situation. Just like The Man With The Camera the scene also uses quick takes between two subjects to create suspense and anticipation. The camera flicks between the two, sometimes mingling around the crowd in a shakey manner as if from the eyes of the protagonist herself. Just like in The Man with The Camera the scene creates the feeling of anxiety to the viewer.
In the scene where the train runs over a man who is stuck under it, the arrangement and composition of the shots are extremely significant to the message it gives off to the viewer. The scene begins off with a focused shot on a flock of pigeons. A low angle shot is used to illustrate that the pigeons are hiked up on a ledge of some old type of building. The shot then switches to pigeons walking on the ground and a high angle is used as the pigeons appear to be placed down below the camera. Then the shot flickers to one where the birds are flying away and an enlarged image of a building is seen in the bottom right corner. Then the focus switches to the railroad track and a more wide shot is used and the landscape is shown. The viewer is able to see the railroad tracks and watch the car run over the tracks. The shots then flicker off to different images that work to give the viewer a better understanding of what is happening in the scene. It provides more information so that the viewer can see different perspectives as the scene goes on. The shot then flickers to the train tracks once again and a man can be seen laying down on his knees upon the tracks. In the background of the shot, an approaching train can be seen. The focus is on the man who is simply laying there and not moving even as the train approaches which build up anxiety. The camera switches to a closed framed shot of the man now under the train as it zooms by. The shots flicker from the man underneath and the windows of the train and the man can be seen struggling underneath. This builds up the anxiety of the viewer because they are anxious to know the events to come. Then, the next shot is sped up as the train zooms past extremely fast. Parallel editing is also used in this scene as different actions are being shown. For example, the viewer can see the train moving past which is happening at the same time that the woman is getting up from her bed. This parallel editing is significant because it shows multiple actions going on simultaneously.
ReplyDeleteA film where the quote can be applied to is Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock. A lot of parallel editing is used in that film. In the scene where Marien's sister tries to sneak into Normans' house, the camera shots flicker from her entering the house to Sam distracting Norman. This parallel editing in this context builds up anxiety for the viewer because it leaves them wondering what is going to happen next. They are aware that Sam is distracting Norman and that Marien's sister is in the house without the knowledge of Norman. It is also known that at any point this could go wrong and the distraction may fail. This keeps the viewers interested to see how it turns out and also shows two different events occurring simultaneously. Low angle shots are also used as Marien's sister walks up the stairs which can signify that whatever is in that house might be dangerous.
Dziga Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera" is an experimental study into the power of editing over audience perspective and interpretation. In broad terms, the movie itself seems lacking in focus, openly admitting in the beginning how it cut out all aspects of film making beyond its editing and having no true discernible story within the assorted events taking place. In this, however, Vertov uses his film to show how the structure of film allow us to create and interpret the meaning behind scenes and cuts for ourselves. Beginning at 4 minutes, after the introduction of the theater, the sequence begins with a pan towards a closed window and is immediately cut to a close up of unlit streetlamps, showing that the scene takes place in daytime. Following this, the shots cut to close ups of a woman sleeping, implied to be inside the house from earlier, intercut with pictures of people looking with interest towards her general direction. As such, it is implied how the camera lens acts to allow the audience to peer into an otherwise private and intimate location. Furthering this, the shots continue to cut to shots of people sleeping in public areas, perhaps showing how film takes such private matters into the public domain in the first place. Afterwards, the film continues to establish location by shifting its focus to showing wide shots of neighborhoods, and then close ups of babies in cribs, possibly as an indication of the naivete of the people on screen, occasionally unaware they are being filmed. Shots then switch between more lavish houses and storefronts and mannequins, possibly to further the director's mindset in how the camera manipulates its subjects to their best possible versions. Afterwards shots of still streets, factories and machinery are cut in a montage of shots that gradually decrease in length, each unrelated to the other but all emphasizing the dormancy of the morning, yet building up to the beginning of the work day. Then it cuts to a man with a video camera getting picked up by a partner and driving-which, again, shows a quick cut to the poster of people looking in interest, implying how the camera man brings in the audience to the scenes-and aerial views and medium shots of the car as it drives off to some unknown destination are shown in sequence. The last shots of the section show a man lying prone on a train track as a train drives towards him. The shot is long and still, and the approaching train builds tension until it almost hits, as quick cuts between the train moving, a foot getting stuck on the tracks, and a man standing next to the train build the tension, as the audience is unsure whether the man managed to get out of the way in time. All of this analysis is based entirely in the editing and the way shots were cut between each other.
ReplyDeleteChristopher Nolan's "Memento" is particularly impressive in its editing in how it presents its story anachronistically. The protagonist of the film suffers from short-term memory loss, and as such the film cuts between his individual experiences, beginning from the end of the plot and cutting to scenes from the actual beginning, each intersecting each other until they both converge at the center, wherein the true twist of the film is revealed. As the editing cuts wherever the protagonist loses his memory, it allows for the audience to unravel the true plot of the film in a way that a chronological film wouldn't be able to accomplish.
In Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Vertov creates a silent documentary-type movie that is experimental in nature and which explores the ideas of reality and movement through cinematic editing devices. Beginning at 54:36, the next shot both pans right and tilts downward with shaky movement that is reminiscent of dizziness and the disorientation as a result of cutting from stormy, wind-blown palms to a city. The shot stops on a storefront for a few seconds, then pans right and tilts up to a sign that reads, "Proletarian film theater", reminding us of the diegetic audience watching this movie. The shot then pans and tilts again in the same way to a split screen of The Man with the Movie Camera (henceforth, The Man) on top of what appears to be a building. In perspective, he is much bigger than the rest of the buildings around him, implying his omniscient role in his documentary experiment and alluding to the visual motif of an eye within a camera lens watching everything like a god. A few shots later in the "Bierhalle", a man pours alcohol into a glass over which a shot of The Man is superimposed, which juxtaposes the previous shot of The Man seeming very large in comparison to his surroundings; both, however, imply The Man's omniscient perspective in that he seems to be able to get around everywhere to record people's day-to-day life.
ReplyDeleteA few shots later, some bottles of beer are poured, then placed next to a woman's face looking up at the men, which occurs twice. As some of the beer splashes on her, it shows that she is overlooked, but is always looking at everyone else, like The Man. With a shaky, handheld camera, the next shot tracks in, then cuts on action with a tracking out shot of similar bottles lined in rows, then shakes again—as if to mimic being drunk and unsteady—until a building is revealed. Once again, Vertov cuts the shot by tilting the camera to the sky, then bringing it back down on a different building, distorting the audience's sense of spatial relationships. This cut is repeated twice, the next one using the ground to make the transition and the third again using the sky, once more panning in general to the right as if the world is spinning.
In the workers' club, two games, one of checkers and another of chess, are set up by the players mysteriously sweeping their hands across the board and all the pieces line up. These close-up shots were likely made either through stop-action or by editing that part of the film to play backwards. The next sequence is of a fair-haired women shooting at targets with a rifle in a shooting alley. As she stares down a swastika on a 2D lady's hat, the shots cut back and forth between the woman and her target using parallel editing. As her concentration intensifies, the rhythm of the cuts increase until the woman's finger pulls the trigger and the center of the swastika now sports a small dent from the bullet. This pattern repeats as the woman shoots at her next target, the house, but an abrupt cut shows a bullet pinging off of the rows of bottles seen earlier and a different woman shooting the bottles down one by one with stop-action editing.
Around 58:27, a figure playing on everyday household items is intercut with shots of the same several people laughing and smiling all in different locations. Similar to the Kuleshov effect, though these shots aren’t directly related to each other, the intercutting creates a new meaning and relationship between them. As the figure plays on his found instruments faster and more erratically, the rhythmic montage increases as well, culminating in a multitude of superimposed shots over each other. At the height of this rhythm, the tempo suddenly breaks as a high-angle long shot of the audience watching the film is cut in, reminding us of their presence watching with us. In this such way does the camera take on a life of its own through its cinematography and the editor plays their tricks on our expectations. (cont.)
(cont.) This quote can also be applied to The General (Buster Keaton, 1926) during the train chase scenes. Parallel editing is used often to cut between the pursuers and the pursued to create dramatic tension. Keaton cuts between the antics that the Union spies and Johnny Grey try to pull on each other, increasing the rhythm of the cuts as their booby traps are about to be revealed. Because they don’t know what the other has planned for them and we do, the parallel editing creates dramatic irony and suspenseful anticipation.
ReplyDeleteMan With A Movie Camera (1929) is an interesting venture into the effects of editing on the viewers perception of reality. In the scene where a man gets run over by a train, Vertov’s arrangement of shots helps create meaning throughout the scene. The scene begins with a shot of a flock of pigeons perched on a building. Later in the scene, Vertov cuts to a man kneeling on the train tracks. Vertov creates suspense in this shot by showing the train quickly approaching the man, who doesn’t even move as the train plows forwards directly towards him. Vertov uses quick shots to show the frantic action as the man is run over by the train. Vertov cuts back and forth between shots of the man struggling under the train and the train speeding forward. Vertov also uses parallel editing to create meaning in this scene. When the man is shown kneeling on the tracks, Vertov cuts to a shot of a woman struggling in her sleep. As the train gets closer to the man, the woman grows more frantic, and the shots of her become more frequent. This shows the imminent danger the man is in. When the man is run over by the train, the woman wakes up from her frantic slumber. This could possibly show a connection between the man and the woman
ReplyDeleteBill Pope, the cinematographer of The Matrix (1999), uses many of the techniques mentioned in the quote. The most famous example of this is the slow-motion editing used in “the bullet dodge scene.” Vertov also used slow-motion in Man With A Movie Camera to show a woman throwing a discus. Pope borrowed this technique to create one of the most famous scenes of all time.
Man With a Movie Camera, directed by Dziga Vertov is a film about a man who goes around various things with his movie camera. Throughout the film, many filming and editing techniques are used to create images on screen that are very intriguing. He utilized these techniques to demonstrate the many different ways a shot could be expressed. Towards the end of the movie, there is a scene of a group of people watching a movie in a theater. One of the images that appear on the movie theater screen was what looked like a normal movie camera. Vertov uses stop motion in this scene to produce the illusion that the camera can move and operate by itself, or in other words it came alive. The stop motion that Vertov used created a sense of antirealism within those specific shots. Vertov also utilizes double exposure to create antirealism and split screen to express how two events are going on at the same time without using parallel editing.
ReplyDeleteOne film that this quote could relate to is Mean Girls, directed by Mark Waters. In the iconic phone call scene, there is splitscreen editing used not only to express the four characters actions at the same time, but also to simultaneously express each character's emotions and facial expressions. Showing all four shots at the same time helped to make the scene have a lot of depth and emphasize the amount of tension that is being created between the characters. Although each individual split screen frame was shot with open framing, the overall framing seems to be relatively closed. This could represent how each character thinks that everything's going fine in their little bubbles, but in reality or as a whole, all of the characters are being lured into a bad “trap” that will be hard to escape.
Vertov's work, Man With a Movie Camera, shows the world through the camera lens, encouraging the viewer to see things differently by using various film techniques, such as split screen and fast motion. For example, a section of the film shows shots which are less than a second long, as well as playing in a quick motion. These pictures are of things moving; a woman turns a film reel, a person plays a rapidly on the piano, someone types on a typewriter. Some of these shots are even repeated for the few minute time period, emphasizing the quick and intense movement. Before this section of rapid motions, the action is all true to real life time. Then, there's this increase where some of these basic actions become fast-paced, which creates an intense, yet productive feelings for the audience compared to the gentle, average atmosphere created before this change.
ReplyDeleteThis quote based on Vertov's film works in response to hundreds and thousands of other works. Specifically, it compares to Hitchcock's renowned film, Psycho. During the famous shower scene, shots become shorter and shorter in order to build increasing tension. This alerts the viewer something might be at work, however, they are not sure what is about to occur. The use of the camera and its ability to take short, quick clips aids Hitchcock in the element of suspense, and even a bit of surprise. Marion takes her shower and the water pours onto her body; a simple, everyday occurrence turns into dreadful suspense and the sinister event which approaches her life faster and faster with the use of every shot.
In Dziga Vertov's "Man With the Moving Camera", the very first shot is a split screen of a camera and a man approaching with another camera. This shot was made to make the man appear as if he were significantly smaller than the camera and standing on top of it. After this shot, there is an image of the top of a building from a very high perspective and then back to the man on top of the camera, indicating that the very small man on the camera was filming the top of the building because he was up so high. This is a really good example of Eisenstein's Theory of Montage because these two shots with seemingly no correlation are stitched together adding new meaning to the context of the scene. After this "scene", Vertov uses a lot of eye level freeze frames of was seems to be different areas of an auditorium like the stage and the seats. Then there are a lot of close-ups of the preparation of an upcoming performance like setting up cameras, opening the curtains, opening the theater, etc. It also looked like stop-action was used when the chairs unfolded. After that, there were more freeze frames, and this time it was of the orchestra playing, but they were completely still.
ReplyDeleteAnother film that can be discussed in relation to this quote is John Hughes' "The Breakfast Club"(1985). Hughes' film ends with a freeze frame of one of the main characters, John Bender, fist pumping at the sky, being one of the most iconic scenes in the movie. The freeze frame then fades to black indicating that the movie is over.
Brianna: Interesting choice, The Breakfast Club. That last shot, the freeze frame actually pays homage to the final shot in Truffaut's The 400 Blows, which we will watch later this year. I had never thought about it in relation to Man With a Movie Camera! Good eye.
DeleteMan with a Movie Camera is an interesting look into the versatility of film as an art form and the power of editing. One of the sections in the movie was composed extreme close-ups of a camera lense cut with shots of people just waking up. The opening shot is a close up of a pair of hands setting up a camera. Next we are presented with a high angle medium shot of a seemingly homeless man rolling over and waking up on the streets. The shot that follows is noticeable shorter, depicting an extreme close up of a hand cranking a handle on the side of a camera. We then see another shot of the homeless man, this time with a close up view of his face still lying on the street. This sequence of shots, cutting between the extreme close up of the hand-cranked camera and the close up of the homeless man’s face is repeated two more times, however the placement of the on-screen camera switches from one side of the screen to the other. The sequence is then broken by an extreme close up shot of a camera lense. Next, we see an eye-level shot of a woman sweeping the streets, moving from the right side of the screen to the center as she does so. The film then cuts to a long shot of a man waking up on a bench in the bottom-center of the screen. We then see another extreme close-up of the camera lense, followed by a similar shot of the man on the bench, this time sitting upright in the middle of the screen. The next shot is a landscape of a town square with some sort of speaker in the middle of the street. The sequence that follows cuts between medium shots of a woman hunched over washing her face from a basin in the middle of the screen and close up high angle shots of hose water spraying pillars on a building. Next, we see a low angle shot of a woman cleaning while standing on a window ledge. Next we see a series of increasingly-short close up shots depicting a woman drying her face with a towel, window blinds opening and closing, a camera lense, and flowers. The final shot in this section is an extreme close up of the camera lense closing. I really liked this part of the film because it emphasized the idea that film can be anything that you want it to be. The camera captures images from all different locations at different angles, and editing techniques make it possible to combine the shots in any arrangement that the filmmaker chooses.
ReplyDeleteThis quote can also be applied to the film Psycho for its use of editing. Two scenes in this film stuck out to me for their compilations of contrasting shots. The first scene is the famous shower scene, which uses approximately 70 shots to show the murder of Marion by the mysterious “Mother” figure. This scene cut between close ups of Marion in the shower and the mother approaching her with a knife, shrouded in darkness. Once the mother begins to attack her, the shots become shorter and more varied in subject, including high angle shots of the attack and close up shots of blood pooling on the floor around Marion’s feet. At the end of the scene, there is a match cut between an extreme close up of the shower drain with blood still running down it, and Marion’s lifeless eye. The other scene depicted Marion’s sister, Lila, approaching the Bates house to search for answers. It cuts between high angle shots of Lila walking up the hill toward the house and eye-level shots of the house’s front door. As she gets closer to the door, the shots become shorter and shorter, which heightens the suspense of the scene.
Dziga Vertov’s 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera is a fascinating experiment that studies what editing alone can do to a film’s meaning, as well as how it affects the audience’s perception of the film. This film lacks a concrete narrative, and admits so in the opening slates of the film. Instead, Man with a Movie Camera acts as a guidebook to the meaning of various shots and cuts. The opening shot of the film is a then unheard of split-screen shot, in which it appears as if a man is setting up a tripod whilst standing on a larger camera. This opening shot establishes the camera itself as the focal point of the film. A collection of one second shots interchanging with the establishing shot take the point of view of the camera as the filmmaker finds the best shot to take. The scene eventually transitions to a long shot of a large, empty theatre. The following shots show the viewer various aspects of theatre via medium shots from the aisle and the stage, in addition to close-ups of certain elements of the theatre such as the light and the curtains. These shots establish the grandiose nature of the theatre and emphasizes the quiet that precedes the storm of people to come. The movie camera occupies the next shot in a close-up signifying the importance of the camera, as well as that a movie showing is soon happening. The cameraman enters the frame and starts setting up the camera. Shots of the curtain opening and the seats of the chairs coming down enhance the viewer’s anticipation of what is to come. A close-up of the velvet rope opening indicates that the theater is open, and people begin to flood into the theatre. Shots of people entering the theatre interchange with shots of the chairs opening. The chairs opening seems to act as a welcome to the patrons of the theatre. A close-up of a single chair opening then suggests that the theatre is running out of available seating as the theatre gets more and more crowded. A close-up of a chair opening and the very same chair being occupied by a woman and her young child signals that all the seats are filled and that the movie will soon begin. The dimming of the theatre’s main light source solidifies that fact. The following close-up shots of the orchestra members tuning their instruments further builds suspense for the viewer. The anticipation reaches a peak through multiple short-take shots of the musicians sitting at the ready with their instruments, but not playing them. The cameraman turns on the projector and the musicians start playing, which acts as segue into the next part of the film. Vertov’s editing is greatly reminiscent of Eisenstein’s theory of montage: numerous seemingly unrelated shots culminating to form one major idea. Vertov’s main goal with this scene, and overall this film, was to show the power of editing in terms of creating a narrative.
ReplyDeleteOne significant use of a Vertov-created technique - the split-screen shot - occurs in Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 concert movie/documentary Woodstock. Almost the entirety of the film is shown with split-screen shots. One side of the split-screen was dedicated to the artist performing, while the other side was dedicated to showing the actions of the concert-goers. To use a split-screen in a documentary was a risky move for Wadleigh, especially because split-screens were uncommon in nonfiction films. His use of the split-screen is effective, however, as it gives the viewer an idea of the grand nature of Woodstock, as it simultaneously shows the ground-breaking music being played and the thousands of people attending the concert.
Great example, Oscar! This movie was just on TCM last night at around 3am!
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