Man With A Movie Camera

‘This experimental work attempts at creating a truly international absolute language of cinema, based on it's total separation from the language of theatre and literature.’ (from the opening credits)

This magnificent, moving film, surprising and groundbreaking in its advanced editing techniques, and possibly simply the best film of all time, depicts urban life in Moscow, Kyiv and Odessa in the late 1920s. There are no actors. From morning to evening, Soviet citizens are shown at work and in their leisure time. Insofar as one can speak of protagonists at all, these are the cameraman mentioned in the title, the film editor and the modern Soviet Union.

‘Man With A Movie Camera’ is famous for the many cinematic techniques that Vertov invented, employed or further developed, such as multiple exposures, time-lapse, slow motion, still frames, match cuts, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, reverse shots and stop-motion animation.

The soundtrack for this silent film is by Jason Swinscoe and The Cinematic Orchestra.