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Sorry, everyone. I haven't submitted the final grades yet. Don't panic!

Final Grades by eldritch00eldritch00, 03 Apr 2009 00:38

The Man with a Movie Camera is anepitome of groundbreaking Russian political cinema, circa 1920, because of how it manifests film as a political and/or ideological medium. Dziga Vertov utilized it to advance certain principles in cinema. He remarked,

“The film drama is the Opium of the people…down with Bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios…long live life as it is!”

This statement gives people a holistic glimpse of Vertov’s ideologies in the film, all of which areshown through the Kino- eye or the cinema eye.

Reality captured: Kino-Pravda

The Russian film world during Vertov’s time was heavily into fiction. His antidote, in response to the film‘s condition as a “dying organism“, was “reality.” This notion won Lenin’s support, who declared that since people were drawn to theatres by nonsense films, then must be a counter for this through films that deal with world realities. This paved the way for the authorized launching of Kino-Pravda, or film-truth, headed by Vertov.

In the film, Vertov manifest this notion of making film straight from, or by capturing “life caught unaware” through the camera. This means that the film will have to be made without any acting and manipulated apparatus apart from the camera. It rejects staged cinema with its cast, plots, and set designs. It is a cinema of fact, one that captures the real, un-manipulated world. In this sense, the documentary is superior to fiction, because film should depict the world, life, as they are without the aid of theatrical apparatus.

Various shots exemplify this principle. The camera depicts daily life and routines in Moscow. All the shots were directed to random people— some of which were aware they were being filmed while some remained unsuspicious. The point is these people were not cast for the film, they did not follow some script and just went about with their activities. The reality shots included cycles and images of industrial Russia and technology, the factories and laborers, the production processes of the film, landscapes, sports events, musical performances and other leisure activities. People marry and divorce; a funeral and a birth take place. All these are captured as soon as the camera’s eye opens in the beginning until it closes at the film’s end.

Reality as seen through the cinema eye: Kino-eye

The film truth is aided by another of Vertov’s key propositions on the capacity of the film and the camera. The following text provide Vertov’s early outline of the film:

“I am the kino-eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, show you the world only as I can see it.Now and forever I free myself from human immobility. I am in constant motion. I draw near, then away from objects. I crawl under. I crawl on top. I move apace with a galloping horse. I plunge full speed into the crowd (…) manoeuvring in the chaos of movement, recording movement, starting with movements composed of the most complex combinations.Freed from the rule of sixteen to seventeen frames per second, free of the limits of time and space. I put together any given points in the universe,no matter where I have recorded them. My path leads to the creation of fresh perception of the world. I decipher in new ways a world unknown to you.”

This is in line with his project of exhausting reality through the camera’s cinema eye, which essentially extends the limitations of humans’ commonplace ways of seeing. Such a project enables an experience of reality-transcendence while shooting reality at the same time. The camera’s eye travels, simultaneously and freely, even to the point of invincibility, where the human eye may not have the liberty of doing so and thus, showing the viewers a more conscious, detailed and transcendental view. Also, this may be linked to Vertov’s ideals of how cinema should be— transcending and realist at the same time, in motion, and revealing of new sights and, the term used as a construct, worlds in contrast to the traditional fiction-heavy narratives of his time.

In the first few moments of the film, we see an empty theatre in different angles and points of view. One is through curtains, which was voyeur-like; another is a wide shot from the entrance door and is thus a very inclusive view— in it is the screen, the empty chairs, the floor. Through this, one gets the feeling that the camera has a control of what it can capture, as the audiences see through the camera’s eye while watching. To further this, the camera zooms in to rather minute details such as when seats of chairs are slowly moving down— suggestive of the fact that these are about to be used by yet-to-arrive audiences. By shooting and choosing such scenes, Vertov shows how utilizing film, cameras in specific, can come with great control on perspective; and control, too, by showing the minute things that take place, which the human eye may usually neglect or may not normally have access to.

This consciousness is prevalent throughout the film. There are scenes where one sees the cameraman, a film character, pointing his device from different vantage points— from the top of a building, a moving car, on top of a bigger camera in the opening scene, through a window. Along with these are sudden scenes of immense intensity and activity, many of which take place behind closed doors and walls— people signing contracts for divorce, a lady in slumber, a woman beautified inside a parlor. Apart from reflexive scenes that show the man with the movie camera are close ups of the camera itself, examples of which are the scenes where viewers are shown a zoomed in perspective of the camera’s eye as it blinks. Apart from the man holding it, all these make the camera an important character in the film, because of the control, even power in a political sense, it enables the director and the viewer to have by using it and seeing what it shoots, respectively.

mmc-cameraeye1.jpg mmc-cam-reflected-in-cam.jpg
(stills that depict the Kino-eye)

Montage: Elevation of Labor, Productionism, Socialism and Marxism

The use of montage in Man with the Movie Camera was a juxtaposition of shots that shows the difference between still photography and cinema, and to achieve an organic whole. But perhaps more importantly is the exemplification of processes, and this is where the elevation of production processes and labor surfaces.

The film shows shots of the very ways it was created— a cameraman in the midst of shooting scenes, the editor handling rolls of film, and the projectionist. This is in line with the Productionist doctrine where the work, the process of production, is of aesthetic value, and not the end-product. Apart from processes of filmmaking, labor is elevated by filming scenes that were paralleled to the working class. The camera zooms in to several activities of workers such as those that take place in factories and street-selling. It also compares elite women riding carriages to commonly dressed and worked up faces of other women who just walk in the streets, some even barefoot.

Vertov’s ideological milieu in the film is early Soviet communism and Marxism. These are fleshed out by providing positive shots of Russian economy and industry— happy workers and the strength of industry in Russia, the importance of factories and machines as fundamental to an ideal society. One sees that the machine is in harmony with its workers, as in the notion proposed in an ideal communist setting. Productive recreation and leisure is juxtaposed to self-serving shots of the elite who are more concerned with vanity in beauty parlors and vices. The working class, the labor and production processes of immense activity and relevance, are given their rightful and essential places in the daily life/routine of Moscow from sunrise to sundown.

mmc-filmstrip-1.jpg mmc-filmstrip-2.jpgmmc-match3.jpg mmc-match3a.jpgmontage8a.jpg montage8b.jpgmmc-worker1.jpg

(1st pair: the production process) (2nd pair: productive labor) (3rd pair worker juxtaposed with the bourgeoisie) (last still: worker in harmony with the machine)

—-

Sources and Helpful Links

Notes on Ideological Undertones and Vertov's Theories in the Film
Movie Stills
Film Career and Biography of Dziga Vertov
Kino-Pravda
Insightful Film Review
Another Insightful Review and Assessment

submitted by 052328

by arrowtootharrowtooth, 27 Mar 2009 13:27

Hi sir, here's the link for my web work at last!

http://eldritch00.wikidot.com/appadurai

There are lots of pictures there but i they don't come out, please do check the preview of the image files in the files section of the said page.

Thank you very much.

Gershom Chua

-_-

Okay. Do Appadurai, Gershom and Kat. But do it well! With multimedia and substantial discussion!

Re: INSTRUCTIONS: WebWork by eldritch00eldritch00, 27 Mar 2009 11:49

hi sir. i had just finished my webwork for the appadurai article and have already posted it. but when i checked here i found out gershom was also doing it. would it be okay for the both of us to do it? i looked at the complete reading list just this afternoon around 1pm to make sure that no one used it already and there was no link so i presumed it to be free to use?

what do we do sir?

Re: INSTRUCTIONS: WebWork by KatDeeKatDee, 27 Mar 2009 11:35

Hi Sir,

I'm doing Appadurai now and am typing the webwork typing the web work section by section already.

I was wondering why the pictures that I have uploaded to the files section of the page and inserted in the work do not come out. Every time I check the files in the file manager, the pictures are there and they show previews of it, but when I save my web work with the inserted pictures on it the pictures just appear as boxes with exes on them. How do I fix this problem?

Thank you.

Gershom Chua

I know you're all either busy with the last requirements for your classes or getting ready to have a good time this summer (enjoy!), but I just found out that this little thing I linked to a couple of months ago? It just turned into an absolute fiasco. That link gives you a background, but if you have more time and you want to follow the abuse that went on, click here.

Okay…

Perhaps this time I can consider two takes on Herman-Chomsky without cancelling one or the other. I do think you should try your hand at Appadurai though. Whatever happens anyway, I'll consider your Herman-Chomsky WebWork as part of your grade.

Technically, it can still be challenged though. But yeah, okay.

Re: INSTRUCTIONS: WebWork by eldritch00eldritch00, 27 Mar 2009 05:23

Sir, what happens if he doesn't post it there? I wouldn't want to resort to a challenge since it's already Friday and risk having someone's webwork cancelled. I'm trying to look into Appadurai but if I'd find it too hard to find examples for, may I go back to Herman-Chomsky? That is if you would allow us to have our webworks exist and considered at the same time.

Thank you.

Gershom Chua

Continue with your WebWork, and post it under herman-chomsky. You and Luigi can challenge each other, but only if he posts there, as well.

Hello, Luigi! Are you reading this? You should be! *grins*

Re: INSTRUCTIONS: WebWork by eldritch00eldritch00, 27 Mar 2009 04:13

Sir, I am about halfway through my webwork for herman-chomsky and since Luigi just posted his under edwardherman-noamchomsky I wasn't able to know that there already was a webwork done for said reading when I checked for available readings as recent as last Monday, 23 March 2009. Since I am already well into the reading, would you allow me to continue on with my webwork on the reading? thank you.

Sir, if you would much rather for the ease of communication, my cellphone number is 0926-6724082.

Thank you.

Gershom Chua

oh alright, thanks sir. I made a new one, its not about racism anymore though. Its found at http://eldritch00.wikidot.com/meehan

Re: Webwork by Paolo CastilloPaolo Castillo, 26 Mar 2009 06:49

hi. i got this from a thread from a web site called unfiction.

Looks like ARMAZ was just put up recently by a couple of jokers. I just did a russian whois search and turned up this lot. Check out the nservers!

They just bought it when the book came out to f*ck with us. Wish I'd read the book earlier and snagged that domain. I truly do. Sorry for all the fuss.

domain: ARMAZ.RU
type: CORPORATE
nserver: som-ns-1.fsck.com.
nserver: eero.baz.org.
state: REGISTERED, DELEGATED
org: Anonyme Company "Datacenter Luxembourg"
phone: +352 26 19 16 24
phone: +352 26 19 16 1
fax-no: +352 26 20 29 96
e-mail: infoSPLATdclux.com
registrar: RUCENTER-REG-RIPN
created: 2003.02.10
payed-till: 2004.02.10
source: RIPN

in this case, art is not copying reality. instead, reality is copying art. :D

stellanor@armaz.ru by daryldeveradaryldevera, 25 Mar 2009 15:06

You're all doing very good with your online requirements…but do glance over the corner and fill your heart with pity for poor Band of Outsiders, forlorn, ignored.

sir, do i need to do any revisions on my webwork?

Re: INSTRUCTIONS: WebWork by nickydaeznickydaez, 25 Mar 2009 13:34
Re: INSTRUCTIONS: WebWork by eldritch00eldritch00, 25 Mar 2009 13:32

The problem is that you're challenging the work of a student who has already graduated. I'll count this as recitation points, but you still need to "own" a theorist for your WebWork. What you've done is very good, so I'm pretty sure you can still do something race-related for another theorist.

Re: Webwork by eldritch00eldritch00, 25 Mar 2009 13:31

sir, i just posted by site.
it's http://eldritch00.wikidot.com/mulvey
please let me know if i need to change anything:)

-michelle pang
com105 a

Re: INSTRUCTIONS: WebWork by michpmichp, 25 Mar 2009 09:59
Re: INSTRUCTIONS: WebWork by luigi meerluigi meer, 25 Mar 2009 07:01
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