A tree. A baby. Machinery. A basketball match. An old lady. Homeless people. Piles of smoke. A busy street. The merry-go-round. A cinema. Another homeless person asleep. A woman who dresses up. In a nutcase, everything is incredibly annoying. This film did not invent the jump cut, the 'montage of attractions,' or the Gestalt-like editing practice. Its 65 minutes seem like 6.5 hours of pure boredom. A waste of time, therefore. A bad example of what has since been labeled 'precursor,' even 'inventive historical classicism.' It's just a succession of random shots, taken by a leisurely director who, in his free time, vaguely edited it. It tried to capture the feel and rhythms of a modern city (Moscow) as well as the joy of living and working in the Worker's Paradise. Stylistically and modernly speaking, the closest comparison would be, for example, with Koyannisqqatsi or Arne Sucksdorf's Rhythms of a City. But Vertov suffers by comparison with any other documentary filmmaker. He is far from being a "must" for filmmakers or film buffs. A revolutionary film? Absolutely not. It did not represent any advance. Berlin: the Symphony of the City, dated 1927, or Joris Ivens' Rain, dated 1929, would best qualify for such epithet, and yet that would be an exaggeration. A documentary? There is a great difference between documentary and propaganda. A documentary generally shows life as it is, while propaganda shows what a filmmaker wants to show in order to make a point and convince others of some idea (usually political or economical). Vertov is frank propaganda. His concept of artistic social responsibility was derived from Stalinist notions and later incorporated into Nazi concepts. His goal was to glorify the Soviet regime. In 1929 Stalin consolidated his power in Russia and was about to embark on what was one of the most brutal and bloody regimes in history. Vertov perhaps did not know then whereto the regime would lead, but he did continue to make films that praised Stalin (Kolybelnaya, for example). Let no artist be condemned just for working for the state. I like Eisenstein, for example. If you must rent and watch The Man With a Movie Camera, do it with a solid perspective, regardless of... taste.
Review of Man with a Movie Camera
