From:
Date: Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: Scheduled Film for 30 April 2010
To: rdca25@gmail.com
Eileen, Sophia, Mamie, Charlene, Juliet, Karen, Joseph, Candy Jiang, Chin, Alice Wang, Alice Huang, April, Christine, Abby, Katherine, Max, Tiffany, Vincent, Tina, David, Hilary, Carolina, Emily, Finna, Holly, Candy Cheng, Anne, Vicky Lin, Violet, Ida, Ivana, John, Hansel, Jeanette, Vivian Lin, Hazel, Vivian Yang, Christoper, Cherry, Anna, Tiger, Minnie, Irving,
EileenThis is the first time I see the silent film. This film has lots of cinematic technique. It uses the image to tell the story. The image in this film can speak. The most impressed scene to me is when all the people wake up. One of the scene have bunches of flower. The scene begins with the blur image but later the scene has the same flower with the clear image. I think it means when you wake up and open your eyes you will have the blur sight first and slowly become clear. The scene keeps blinking. I think it means the eyes blink. The film is full of the vision stimulation. This film is interesting and skillful that it can present the story without any lines and the audiences can understand what it wants to say.
SophiaMan with a Movie Camera is an experimental movie which there is no actors in the whole film. The most impressing part is the use of Montage made by the filmmaker. Composed by short shots, montage becomes the main editing method in this film. The film starts with a camera machine. It implies the power and influence made by the camera. From the filmmaker's subjective viewpoints of camera, the viewers see the shot from different angles and different position, like several close-ups and tilt shots. In addition, there are a lot of familiar items appeared continuously on the screen. For viewers, they are familiar with the transportation cars crossing on the street, swaying pendulum, shutters and so on. Also, the background music plays an important role in the film. The same rhythm is repeated again and again. The filmmaker use background music to separate his film into several parts. Or we can say the silence among montage sequences are thought to be pauses in the film. Apparently, piano composes the main tune in music. Added by drums, trumpets and other instruments, the background music becomes more special and attractive.
MamieThe director makes good use of montage in this movie. It is a silent movie but it is composed of several pictures. As a result, it may be hard to understand this movie. Since there is no narration, the movie is like a sequence of photos showing the fact. We have to rely on the music cue to guess what the director wants to convey. For example, sprightly rhythm music shows the daily life of citizens. We can see their life easily by the quick cut of scenes. However, I think some cuts are so quick that make me dizzy. I think that using this montage method combined with music is to show the normal life and fact to the public. On the other hand, a quick cut of workers doing the same thing has ironic meaning. Because the music rhythm is so fast that makes worker in the scene do their jobs more automatically. They are like machines doing the repetitive thing. In a capitalism society, profits are the most important thing. In my humble opinion, this is satiric because humans are no different from machines.
CharleneThat's very unusual for me to see this kind of "movie". I also doubted that, is it really a movie or just a sequence of shots gathered together in a more logical way? I can say that this film can be both boring and interesting. There are no dialogues, characters, and storylines. It just shows a series of movement (in either fast or slow motion) or a still material (like buildings). And each of them is associated in certain aspects. For example, some shots are taken as similar images and some shots are taken as contrast images. He interchanges the human beings' scenes and the machines scenes frequently. Maybe he wants to show the improvement of that time. I appreciate the special effect of the collapsed building. That seems really cool, and actually, it is presumed as a metaphor of the end of high culture, as stated in the handouts. It must reflect the social situation at that time (1929). On the other hand, I think the background music really matches the film. Like its opening, the boards of the chairs are lowering, with perfect match with the music, adding interesting effect.
JulietIn my opinion, the director, Dziga Vertov, indeed makes good use of sounds. Vertov connects actions with sounds, and different sounds enhance distinct atmosphere. For example, in the theater scene, we hear a light song, and see chairs unfolded in tempo. Moreover, while Vertov focuses on different works in the city, we can see people do their works in a quick tempo. In fact, it is interesting to coordinate sounds and actions. For me, this technique impresses me a lot. What's more, I commend two scenes that contrast with each other in this film. In the first scene, we can see a couple asks an official to conduct their marriage certificate. Also, in this scene, Vertov utilizes the classical wedding song—"Bridal March". However, suddenly, Vertov changes the happy tune into a gloomy one, and cuts into the next scene which a couple is handling their divorce. As far as I am concerned, using montage and changing the tunes in these two scenes successfully make a contrast. Undoubtedly, this contrast impresses audiences, and makes them strongly feel the different atmosphere in these two scenes
Karen
Man With a Movie Camera is very different from most of the movies we have seen. It doesn't have a plot, but one scene is related to the next scene or the scene before. The editing seems complicated because of its many different techniques such as split screen and overlapped image. Fast editing and the underscore make this movie powerful and full of energy. Most of the soundtrack is rhythmic and I think music and sound effects is really an essential element in this film. I like the music so much that I search on the internet for the soundtrack as soon as I went back home. However, I found out that there are so many different versions of soundtracks that it took me a lot of time to search for the right version. In addition to the background music, the content and how this film is presented are interesting as well. I have never seen a movie like this one. I think the director is trying to capture every moment and the various view of a modern life, by using many cinematic techniques and shooting from a variety of angles. This film is fascinating and worth seeing in many aspects.
JosephThe most interesting point of this film lies in elaborate arrangements of numbers of scenes that the director took. Originally, different scenes have their own meanings. If without skillful editing, those scenes will have strong connection between each other. Because of the help from director's wife, who took the responsibility of this important process, the film gives the audience reflection not only about its theme, but also its cinematic methods.
In terms of cinematic methods used in this film, the most successful one is double exposure. It can reveal the break or the unity of one scene. Besides this, it also suggests one of the main ideas which the director wanted to express: camera can go everywhere. For example, the cinematographer stands on the camera and is shown in the glass. The speed of the shot also contributes a lot to the success. The director skillfully chose when to take slow motion and when to use fast one. Asides these two, there are freeze frames. When emphasizing athletics, he used slow motion, resulting in our focus on human body. While showing being occupied, however, he took fast motion to express the idea of being busy. Each choice and every arrangement all has purpose, and it makes the film stood out.
Candy JiangIn this silent film, The Man with the Movie Camera, background music seems to play an important role. The roaring sound of the train awakes the whole city. Later, with the melody of the background music becoming faster and faster, the activity of the whole city moves faster and faster as well. What's worth mentioning is the repetition of the same melody. That familiar melody occurs again and again which makes me think that it can be called a familiar "image," though it is not an "image" at all. In my interpretation, the melody represents the hustle and bustle of the city life. Moreover, some melodies match the image well. With a close-up to the paper for wedding registration, a wedding-related melody is audible. Interestingly, for the close-up of a paper for divorce registration, the wedding-related melody occurs as well but this time with some melodies and notes being changed, turning into a weird and sad tone. Another example of sound-and-image match is when people plays piano with the intercutting of people using spoon and other things to make sounds. Here the image perfectly relates with the background music which contains the elements of piano and sounds that sound like the striking of two metals.
The using of scale can be seen in the film: A small photographer at the top of the huge camera, a little man in the big glass wine cup, and a oversized wine bottle. Besides scale, it is quite interesting that Vertov chose to use close-ups to shot each instruments of the orchestra instead of using a long shot as I usually saw in other movies. Last but not the least, Vertov used a handheld camera to film the basketball and the football match. As the textbook said, handheld camera creates a jumpy feeling, and this jumpy feeling here causes a sense of excitement of the game.
Chin
This is a silent movie. Well, I don't think it is silent at all because I was quite enjoy the background music and I always think that the music is very important in such silent music. There are almost every cinematic technique was used in this movie. However, I think only the double exposure caught my attention because I think it is quite new for me. In my opinion, this will be a good movie to revise all the cinematic techniques we had learn so far. In addition to the double exposure, there were some shots contrast. These shots show some comparison to each other but they are hard to discover because it is a hard job to link those shots together. To be honest, this is a movie which force me to fall asleep. By the way, I am quite enjoying the music to substitute for dialogue.
Alice Wang"Man With A Movie Camera" is a Soviet film that consists of several cuts and hardly has a plot throughout the whole movie. The film is mainly based on the associations of the shots since there's no plot, these associations does the work of expressing the message. Many scenes in the film are given special meanings due to the different way of using the camera, adding life to the shots, which is also the main idea of the movie- putting emphasis on the power of the eye of a camera. One of the most impressive methods of the cinema the director Dziga Vertov frequently used in this movie is double exposure. The way this technique is used to combine two images can indicate an important subtext. For instance, the shot showing a collapsed building with the use of a double exposure may suggest the falling of a dominant culture and the technique also makes the image of the photographer standing on the camera possible. Another impressing use of the method of cinema is slow motion. The scene of the athletes competing was filmed with slow motions and even to a stop, showing the beauty and the strength of the bodies of human beings in an interesting way.
Alice HuangThe unique parts of this silent and black-and-white film are some special effects the director use, use of montage shots, and, most obvious of all, different kinds of music the director uses. These techniques are used to illustrate different time in one day, which is also the theme of this old movie.
First of all, it's a little surprising for me that the director at that time is able to makes use of some special effects. The beginning scene in which the man with a camera stands on another exaggeratedly large camera is the first special effects. Though I call it a special effect, it's just a continuing sequence with a static picture attached below. It may be old-fashioned and out of date for audience nowadays, but I think it might be a breakthrough then.
I'm not sure whether it's correct to say that the sequence of lots of sleeping people is the use of montage. The director shoots on different people sleeping at different places at the same time, implying the idea that it's a peaceful time for resting. Other scenes such as the man is shooting people riding on the car or people taking the carriage all gives some hints about the movie to the audience.
The most intriguing part of this movie is the music the director uses. In each segment, the music changes into another one which is suitable or appropriate for the next section. Not only does the director apply music in normal speed, but he also arranges the order differently according to speed and content.
Though most of the time I don't understand what the director wants to convey, the three parts mentioned above provide people who are accustomed to Hollywood movies a new chance to watch over different kind of filming techniques.
April
The film is like a demonstration on how the filming production works. It is like a film within a film, an endless cycle. The melody changes whenever there is a major transformation in the shooting technique or there is a lapse of time. The films starts from the beginning of the day, dawn, when every one still in their heavy sleep. Afterwards, people wake up and all the real-life postures are recorded, without pretence, by the camera held by the man. The director may suggest that film should be the record of daily life, instead of "acting." Also, at the end of the movie, there is a sequence of the must-gone-through-experience, like sickness, death, and birth.
ChristineThe Modernism work Man With A Movie Camera, which contained numbers of montage shots, gave us the idea that films were ambiguous and at the same time arbitrary. The former is that uncontinuous fragments usually with allegory images were given to the audience, so the idea and meaning depended on indivisual. The latter is that the audience believes what he believes and no other meaning is aceppted or we can say that audience is manipulated by framing which gave arbitrary images. Depending on above, I think the director of Man With A Movie Camera wanted to challenge our concept about films, espacially the cinema realism. Editing, fast motion, slow motion are shown in montage shots to tell us that movie editing produce a world that seems real but mostly not. With silent underscore, audience will focus more on the images and observe the process of editing images and that's probably what the director wanted.
The camera angles, cinema techneques are also shown in the movie process. Through the camera, images can be still or moving, dissolved or split, contiuous or jumping. However, no matter what, things we saw on the film are the cameraperson's point of view, which is arbitrary. And that's what Modernism is, to break tradition and challenge the ideas to be unnormal.
AbbyThe film "Man with a Movie Camera" is such long time ago. It is the kind of move that I would not see it in my life if without the Film and Literature class. At the beginning part, it's like when you browse the photos on either Facebook or Flickr with background music. They are the sequence of photos. And I have noticed that the light is like the candle flame, it is flickering. There are even some repetitions of the photos. I really can't get the idea or message the director want to express through out this movie. In the middle of the film, there is a part where many athletes appear and do different kinds of sports. I still can not get the point but I notice that there are slow motion and fast motion there. And not only the visual part is different, the background music changes its tempo, too, due to the visual part. Furthermore, the title is closely related in the film. There is always a man with a camera, who looks like shooting things. I found it amazing that there is no plot in the whole film, or it is because I am too dumb to figure out the message within the shots.
Katherine
This movie is really strange. I think I lack the ability to appreciate it. But I think the way it shows us is quite special and worth being discussed. In the film the man with a camera appears a lot. And we can see lots of senesce and different people with different facial expressions and behaviors. And it use many close shot to focus on their face to let us know their feelings and emotions through the frame. Sometimes it uses slow motion, sometimes it used fast motions, I somehow can't get the picture that why he wanted it this way. I think I have to make a further study about it.
MaxThis is movie is very different from all the others we have seen, for there no plot in the film. All its meanings come from the comparison among scenes. It starts from the morning when everyone starts to wake up, followed by people's working. By giving a lot of scenes from different people, places and time, it seems like we viewers are watching the environment around us, which makes me reflect on myself—Did I miss anything happening around me? Some people laugh happily while others almost cries. Some people pass away, while some is born. Some get married while some divorce. The trains going in different directions is an important fimilar image and symble indicating these differences among people. In the eyes of a photographer, we observe many asepcts of human's daily life, which indicates we should treasure what we have had and do not miss anything around us.
TiffanyThis film is not logic at all because it focuses mainly on the movement of camera rather than the plot. There are plenty of montages using in the film and sometimes these montages are related, such as the relationship between washing woman and awaken city. In addition, the effect of freeze frames is most interesting for me because viewers can clearly know the significant effect of shots which control how viewers read the film. Through this silent film, people can easily understand the usage of shots, such as pan shots, canted angle, and high or low angle shots.
VincentThis film is without sound from the beginning to the end. As it says when the movie starts,
the whole film is experimental. The film describe a day of a city, or a day of a cameraperson.
And Beyond what it looks like, I think the film , the director try to tell us the meaning of movie, or cinematography. Nowadays, most people who watch movies only care about if the storys are good. Most of my friends who attend this class and watched the movie said they can not understand the message this film tried to deliver. Well, I don't know how much or how deep I know this film, but I think I can catch the rhythm and beauty that the film reveal not because of the story but the shots and the life they captured.
TinaThis movie is very experimental. It does not have any dialogue or plot, but use sophisticatedly edited images to convey the operation of a movie camera. The most frequently used technique is editing familiar images, such as the cameraman and the various rotating circular structures. The movie starts with a long montage of motionless scenes. These scenes are actually establishing the shooting spot that later the cameraman will shoot. Mostly when the cameraman appears with his movie camera, there follows a sequence of continuously rotating circles, like printing machines or sewing machines, implying that the movie camera is at work.
DavidMan with a Movie Camera is full of all kinds of cinematic techniques. It does not have a narrative plot, so the montage and the music are very important in the film. Different music is corresponding to different motifs. As a beginner of "looking at movies," I cannot really understand the association between the scenes. Sitting in front of the screen, I thought I was not seeing the movie but tolerating it. Skills like double exposure, split screen cannot attract my attention for an hour, and the music repeated again and again. I have not been able to appreciate such a non-narrative film yet.
Hilary"Man with a movie camera" is a very old film. There is no conversation in this film. At first I thought that I was going to look a pantomime just like Charlie Chaplin's, but it isn't that funny. I was a little bit upset. To tell the truth, I feel this movie is a little bit boring, because there's no story, no actor, and no dialogue.
Its underscore music makes the tempo of this film much faster. There are plenty of different ways how to shoot. It helps me to review chapter4. There are lots of cinematographic' skill, such as slow motion, fast motion, dolly shot, Dutch angle shot, close-up and so on. It tells me that I can go everywhere with my camera, then I will get surprising consequences. Or maybe I can give a child a camera, and just let him to shoot what he wants. We may see different world.
Carolina"A Man with a Movie Camera" is a highly experimental Russian movie, especially as it is filmed in 1920s when CGI was not created yet. It uses concrete daily-life mages to express his ideas. This silent movie is highlighted by the magnificent usage of editing, double exposure, slow motion, fast motion, and so on. These really impress me because I thought that only computer could do such a masterpiece.
The beginning of the movie is a little bit frightening, not only because of the colorless pictures but also the curious music-score. It was not easy to understand the prologue of the director's explanation as I have to re-watch it again in "Youtube" website. Without storytelling, it requires a more attentive audience.
Every detail has a significant though it is not easy to link them together. The director uses different angle shots to illustrate his thoughts. The train part is astonishing as I kept wondering how they filmed it. With poor equipments (if we compared them with nowadays apparatus), they could create such a suspense of a train crashing into a photographer.
Another interesting part is the one in which the upper class and the lower class are contrasted in a seris of intercuts - women beautfying their hair and women getting dirty, and men having their beard shaved and men chopping with axes. This is a contrast between the one who is being serve and the one who served other. There is still class division in a communist country. I think the director provided a general overview of Russian at that time. Most of the misenscene should have be taken directly from the real place instead of setting up a studio.
As described in the title of the movie, a man with a camera or just the camera always intersects in between throughout the entire movie. They are just shooting pictures and joined them into one piece of art. This is the power of editing, in which independent images can make a collage.
EmilyThe film, Man with A Movie Camera, is very difficult to understand. Because the film has no plot, it is like a sequence of picture. However, it is clear that the viewers can see the methods of cinema. This film uses many ways which may be used in every movie. This film is based on the method- montage. This film uses many photos to make the viewers associate. There is connection between one shot to another shot. Besides, metaphor is around this film. The director uses many metaphors to indicate the meanings. Contrast is also common in this film. For example: woman and man; vertical and horizontal. This film also uses many double exposures.
FinnaThe editing of Man with a movie camera mainly focuses on accelerated montage and camera eye. The director, Dziga Vertof, uses double exposure and seemingly hidden cameras to capture the images and make the scene more powerful and influential. The usage of montage does not offer the linear motion pictures but the mixing motion of different time. Dziga Vertof reveals what is supposed to be hidden or keep secret to the audience. For example, we can see the camera is put upon the car which is chasing and shooting the carriage.
And I think the idea the camera eye may come from "seeing is believing." At the very beginning of this film, we can see the many scenes of camera which may imply that we should focus more on the tiny things which we always ignore in our daily lives. Through the eye of camera, we can see more complete world. Though the scenes have its own speed, the use of music is still helpful to "speed up."
HollyThis silent film is quite special. I love the film's tempo and the background music. In the beginning, the film is composed of several still shots, just like several beautiful pictures in a row. The woman is sleeping and then on the empty streets there is only one car running with one man holding the movie camera. The long shot is taken to present the car's movement through the street. Those buildings are shot from the low angle and the clouds flowing by gently, adding colors to this quiet scene. Then the slow tempo begins to accelerate with the change of the background music. I think this movie is successful because its scenes match to the music appropriately. Especially in the silent film, the music plays the important role for the interpretation of the shots. When we feel the subtle changes of the music, we expect the scenes to follow the music and making something difference. In my viewpoint, I think this film is an epitome of the industrial revolution. As the speed become faster and faster, the people in the town wake up. We can even observe the contrast between the wealthy and the poor or the labors. As some ladies try on the new shoes, then the shot shift fast for some men working hard in a dark place. It's interesting that the people in the factory wrapping the cigarettes moving faster and faster, and we can find how skilled they are in this period of time for they do not seem to make any mistakes. At the end of the movie, there is one scene with the camera moving by itself. Suddenly, you feel you are in a different world, like in a cartoon or one comic book. The camera becomes like a robot. This shot is very cute. This movie interprets the time and the space successfully. That makes me impressed.
Candy ChengAfter watching the movie, I am a little confused about it. First of all, I can't quite understand what the story is talking about. In my opinion, there seems to be a person using his camera recording the city life of people. He starts from morning to afternoon and then evening. The people he focuses on are very funny because their actions are related to the background music! It is quite special and I can see the director's hard working toward the movie. When the atmosphere is sleepy and quiet, the music is slow and peaceful. On the contrary, when the atmosphere is bustling, the background music becomes louder and funnier. In short, I learn some different things from the movie, and I hope I can realize them someday.
Anne
The movie is famous for its editing. The director, Dziga Vertov, used lots of way to shot a scene ,even though some are for experiment. One of the method of cinema is double exposure which I am curious and interested about. In the beginning of the movie, the director used double exposure to let the man with a movie camera stand on a big camera. This scene is so dramatic and interesting for me. It looks pretty natural ,and I spend few more seconds to figure it out that was a second exposure. This two object are perfectly matched ,the perspective , the angle and the position all make sense. Besides, the director used other double exposure on street scene , which make me feel the street is much more busier. Others , such as buildings and rail road ,the director let them tilt and symmetry looks much more dramatic and come with the background music, all of them just perfectly matched. In the movie ,one scene I love most is that there are some solders on the cable car on the street, the accompany music is a band and add some sound of ambulance . That scene express the nerve and urgent without any literal but with music and shot. I think that's the magic the movie can be.
Vicky LinActually, I really can not fully understand what this movie is talking about. What I remember is there are a lot of montages, and the director connects many different scenes together. At the first sight, I may not have the ability to understand there are some relationships among there individual scenes. Some of them are easier for us to associate with, for example, in the very beginning of the movie, there are a series of shots those are related to movie, such as a camera, a row of seats in the theater. However, besides this part, I really can not understand what other scenes mean. Maybe I need to see this movie again, and then I may realize more what the director tries to talk about.
VioletThis movie was started from a double exposure shot, and this is interesting for me, but such a famous scene so I'd rather not to mention that. I just impressed to such a great method of cinematography at that age.
I think that the director prefer to take some series of images, such as a series of different people who are sleeping and the series of similar image like buildings, horses, trees and windows. It so suggestive, for example there are three instrument to see; the camera, window and eyes. It tells us that there were a lot of way to watch the whole world, but the director prefers to watch and show through the camera rather than subjective and inexact personal eyes. Moreover, by getting out of narrative, not alike others, the director's rebelling was started. Also the DP refuses to take picture of staged situation.
In aspect of image, there are many stationary scene rather than dynamic at first. In the front of this movie is very calm, just like the scene of sleeping people. But through flowing of the film the city changed more active and beautiful by the camera taking. Even though this film has not any special story but still has some repetition of suggestive image. For instance, there are the crossing scenes from some close up with mannequins to some long shot with buildings in freeze-fame.
And it is totally my subjective opinion, during watch this movie I just thinking about the German film <Wings of Desire> (Ernst Wilhelm Wenders, 1987), because of this film shows us lots of scenes that sceneries and people of the city, and <Man with a Movie Camera> does too. But differently in <Wings of Desire> shows us the city through angle's view and <Man with a Movie Camera> shows us the city through the movie camera. And similarly the city is seen beautiful to audience by passing the film.
Ida
Though the moving camera, we see a typical day of the Soviet society. However, Vertov do not shot it in a typical way, instead he uses a lot of cinematography, including fast and slow editing, double exposure, different angles and even animations, which make the film much more artistic. Also, by using some metaphors or analogies, Vertov links the surreal world of workers, machines or even filmmaking industry with the Soviet reality. (Sometimes, Vertov even shots his family member.) However, to be honest, I think that this movie is quite difficult. As there is no plot and simply use the association montage but not the attraction montage, it is very hard to figure out the logic. But I still think that it is a very good movie as it somehow changes my way to view the world.
IvanaI think the film is different from what we see before. It has no plot, no main characters. The only sound it has is the underscore which matches perfectly with the movie. I enjoy the underscore very much. Its temple and volume are adjusted based on the temple of the shot. I also learn much about cinematography through the film. However, when seeing the movie, I can hardly figure out the relationship between shots, nor can I associate with any metaphor. After the film, I understand the significance of plot planning since a simple plot is much more attractive to me.
JohnAt the beginning of this film, I though it will be an adventure film, because the music was intense and made me nervous. But just few minutes later, the music turned to interesting and funny. It seems to be a comedy now. And then, the type of music changed again. I was totally confused. I really wanted to know what kind of story is expressing in this film.
Ten minutes later, there had no any actor's lines. I started to realize that this film supposed to be a special one. I though the director want to show lots of skills and techniques of photography. Maybe the techniques that were showed in this movie were common now. But I have to realize that it was made almost hundred years ago! I don't know whether they have computer at that age or not. It really hard to image how did they made so many special effects.
Hansel
The film presents a lot of images and information. Sometimes the images barely change for a while and almost seem like a slide show, make people think of the essence of movie, which is picture. Most of the time, the images change rapidly. The images seem random but all together they portray the people's life in the city and the city's rhythms and pace. The music added to the film is great; it enriches the images and prevents it from being dull. The music is more or less distracting, but the film would be boring as a silent film for today's audience
JeanetteDifferent from other silent movies, Man with a Movie Camera uses a rather lively along with mischievous underscore to keep the audience from falling asleep. I like the way Dziga Vertov shows the seat scene at the very beginning. As we all know, seats are created for spectator. Instead of letting us actually see many people walk in and sit down, the director simply lay down the cushion of the seat. From a shot of laying down one row of seat, the second shot (showing two row of seat being lay down)…, the whole scene are thus gradually completed. The audience then also gets the idea of "there are many audiences coming to this show". Another thing I think is interesting is, Vertov always give us a shot of people, decoration…and many others then jump to a shot of buildings (I mean the scene always change between people and building). And this rhythm repeats again and again. Are there any special meaning?
Vivian LinActually, there are no plots and actors in the film. In the beginning of the film, the number one stands up and the next scene; window appears. It seems that there is no relationship between scene and scene, the film is composed of pictures. Quickly editing and montage techniques are used a lot in the film. The woman is washing and the window is being cleaned. The metaphor is associated with the different scenes. The scenes of vertical elevator and the horizontal street occur few times. It was really interesting. When the train rumbles through the field, the man with the camera is almost being striked by the bus. That scene is astonishing for me. Although, it is a slient film, the power of the great quickly editing and the shots are not silent. It gives me a new point of view about montage and the double exposure. I admire the director who uses the camera to SEE the life. At the end of the movie, the eye pops on the camera len that is really impressive.
Hazel
The movie, with the strong Marxist conception of class, shots after the Soviet revolution. It shows the concerns of the workers and laborers. Moreover, it uses lots of cuts to interchange the shots between an individual and the city. Therefore, the audience may associate with the two frames pointing to the equal thing. For instances, the movements of the awakening woman who cleans her face, dries her face and blinks her eyes are alternated with other street scenes. Through the montage cuts, the director presents his ideas and viewpoints more directly without any narrative or description. The camera lenses, in a manner of speaking, are like human's eyes which display the most authentic aspect of the world to the audiences.
Vivian YangThe movie, Man with a movie camera, is quite unique by many perspectives. First of all, it is silent film without
any plot or dialogues. The director simply uses the cinematography to tell the story. For instance, in many sequence
of montage shots, we're informed with some developement of the urban area, including mass transportation and business
growth, etc. Some shots in this film are evidently shown in a rather accelerated speed, which, in my opinion, reflects
exactly what the cinematographer wants audiences to see. That is, we would notice the rapid change of people's
relationships (one couple get married, but then get divorced in the next shot.) and also the tremendous economic
advancement.
Apart from the special cinematography, the underscore also plays a paramount role in this movie. Though the repetition
of background music is inevitable, the melody matches the images perfectly. As far as I am concerned, were it not for the collocation of underscore and cinematography, Man with a movie Camera would not be such a success.
ChristopherThrough this movie, I noticed that many cinematic techniques were used on it, sometimes I can not drew out myself from trying figure out what do they means, those annoying flashing frame and music, and they seemed to never stop.
Well, I may say that it is a creative job and it must have taken editing hundred times more than shooting. I found a great difficulty when I tried to combine those meaning of shots, I think that they are all expressing the same idea something like :" camera can be omnipotent", or maybe my view come out in a brash way, but I do received such a message during my watching.
Beside the artistic expression of camera, the music is kind of confusing; I agree it is appropriate to the frame but things simply become more confusing when they got two.
I have not found any climax of the movie, even finally I gave up to pick it out, who say that a movie have to be having a climax? Sometimes, without a climax it is more cozy to sleep.
CherryAfter watching the whole movie, people can find that there are lots of versus between images use of vertical and horizontal lines. Or we can say many crossed lines are in the movie. For instance, there are picture of brushing teeth (two rows of horizontal teeth and the up-and-down movement of the hand) and the cross line of rails and cars (or the rails and people who walk across rails).
In the beginning, the first image that came to our eye is a camera. I think this may indicate the film is shot from an objective angle not from omniscient angle. Besides, the start is special because like us audience, those who enter the theater to watch a film are just the same as us. You may doubt why there is a stop (there is only tic-tac sound instead of music) in the middle of the preparation of the movie and the scene jump to the cameraman. Not until the change of the scene did I realize there is some problem with the camera part. After the film (inside the movie) start, the photographer uses many static images (like sleeping babies and partial models) to represent the silent atmosphere before people waking up and the start of work. Morning is best started by the sound of birds chirping and the following is the beginning of a busy daily life. We can also find that after waking up, there are many busy images, like the use of rapid running of machines, lots of people and electric trollies are in action on streets. I found a really interesting segment, when there comes to the woman who is in charge of the photo, it seems that the photographer wants to remind audience that pictures are not still, they are just a very short pause of the active actions (like the children who seem to be silent in the photos, in the actual world they are talking to each other). Other interesting part is after we see a couple happily engaged in a place there comes another couple; however, they are going to divorce. There is no change in music melody but only in major and minor keys in the two contrasting scenes and the sad images also related to the latter image of the death.
This film echoes in the beginning and the end, the opening and closing of the camera lenses, which I found it quite interesting.
AnnaThe man with the camera is a well-received silent movie worldwide, however, the totally new art form (silent) is a little bit difficult to comprehend to me at first. Finally, I came to realize why it's called "the man with the camera", knowing that there's no very evident plot in the film and the very motif is to show the audience the power of camera!
The use of double exposure, slow motion and reframing impressed me most. Double exposure, which could be found in suggesting that a birth of a child also represents the rebirth of a city, put the passageway that children emerged and buildings they form in parallel. Slow motion, in which the objects move slower than ordinary so as to provide with a sense of clarity and strength, is used when the athletes were crossing the hurdles; this develops a sense of beauty in audience's mind. Besides, the shot of the half naked woman, using both techniques of reframing (changing into a circle) and close-up, develops a sense of purity. As always, the use of props could be very expressive, exactly like the way in the movie PICNIC, washing with water represents a purity of the character, being baptized and washed from inside.
The movie brings me to a whole new horizon by pointing out that even without story lines, plots and conversations, just by sophisticated editing, (including canted editing, accelerated montage, double exposure, freeze frame, reframe and so on), the camera itself can achieve much more than I could have ever expected.
TigerThe basic structure of this firm is totally different from those we used to see because it is composed in montage without narration. Since there is no a story to follow, to be aware of the interrelationship between each shot it very important. Watching this film is like finding for clues to build up the whole scale it. Double exposure is used many times, for example. At the opening scene the man with a movie camera stands on a bigger camera, which expresses the theme of the film. Slow motion and freeze frames sometimes happen in one shot to cause special effect and attention to the movements, for example in the athletes' scenes. There are scenes that a women doing the edition of the negatives, which occurs between the shots from time to time, and these scene seem to remind the audiences that movies are made up this way, and what we see is just not reality.
MinnieIt was my first silent movie. So I really got shocked while I was watching this. I just saw many scenes with no story and no sound. Everything was very strange.
At the almost end part of this movie, camera man was shown bigger than people in the same flame. I think this means that 'the artist play an important role in their society.' Few days ago, I saw a movie 'V for Vendetta'. The most memorable line was 'The artist use lies to tell the truth.'
The camera let us saw daily life of people in Soviet Union. But as time went by, I could see very strange scenes. For example, a building was broken down by a special technique of camera.
Some people dyed their hair with their incomes, but some people dyed cottons for their incomes. Contrasted scenes show us that, their society isn't fair (or it's already broken down). So the meaning of the broken building is 'Their conviction and ideology was collapsed.' I think 'Man with a movie camera' want to say this through this film.
IrvingThere is no main character, no lines, no script in this movie.
I can't understand what the director want to say.
But in the beginning, I was stunned by the variable scenes.
Maybe there are some abstract connection between them, but I just admire some strange shots or interesting content.
For example, the scene of the rail way, the director took different shots with different angle when the train past by.
When I saw this scene, I feel nervous and exciting.
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