‘Man with a Movie Camera’ REVIEW: a must-watch metacinema classic
‘Man with a Movie Camera’ REVIEW: a must-watch metacinema classic
A scene from Man with a Movie Camera (1929).
Art has always been a part of humanity, whether in the 1800s or the Stone Age. It just evolved, changed form into something that we are more familiar and can relate with in modern times. It was present in prehistory, etched in the barks of the trees and in the walls of caves. It was alive in the folk songs and rituals celebrated even to this day. It has always existed, whether in theaters and plays, framed in paintings, sculpted into marbled figures, written to life in prose and poetry, all of these passed on from generation to generation.
Now humans have this sort of fascination with documenting everything in our lives which I believe to be a form of art in itself. Some take pictures to collect in photo albums they will stock on shelves. Some paint, some write, some even take amateur videos in the form of stories on social media to look back at the past, and some… film. Watching this masterpiece makes you think of the time when cinema was first introduced to the world. Everything suddenly feels brand new, as if cameras have the ability to revive anything that’s in front of them.
Imagine, not only can you make art, but you can relive it however many times you’d like to, the experience different each of the time. In paintings, artists try to immortalize the beauty or simplicity of life and everything in between through strokes and dashes. A filmmaker is, in the very basic, an artist that fell in love with the world so much that they attempt to frame moments they deem worthy to share. Dziga Vertov transports the audience back to the ‘20s in Russia with his “movie camera,” his excitement in making movies traceable in each frame. With limited resources, he miraculously made this into a life-changing journey of cinematic history.
The movie has some scenes that justify why some people regard this as ahead of its time. When the man was in the car holding his precious camera, it feels like a sequence straight out of a modern action movie. The one with the marriage and the divorce that pokes fun at life’s mishaps. The “psychomagical” editing like filling the glass with beer and the people suddenly appearing. This is the very definition of “meta” in the context of cinema. Vertov just showed the intricacies of filmmaking by making a film!
The thing to love the most about documentaries is that it does not matter whether there is a story to tell. (or if there is, it doesn’t have to be “good”) The documentary itself will serve as the narrative, a medium of communication from the auteur to the audience exclaiming, “Hey! This is my story! I don’t care if you like it or not, but here’s a 1-hour clip of a monkey playing with a ball!” Man with a Movie Camera is literally a movie showing just that, a man with a movie camera. What makes it a unique and integral piece to cinema is the passion behind it. It looks so simple, but it definitely isn’t as making movies is not easy at all.
