Week #7: Released in 1929, directed by Dziga Vertov, 68 minutes. New to me!

LetterBoxd Score: 5 stars

A city wakes up and the diversity of human experience ensues:

• Getting dressed
• Transit
• Work
• Transit
• Marriage
• Divorce
• Death
• Birth (graphic!)
• Transit
• Sport
• Beach holidays
• Transit
• Drinks
• Mining
• Going to the hospital
• Transit

You can’t make too many of these, but taken in small doses and when you’re in the right headspace, this kind of thing can be really moving. This one worked for me; the editing is sharp and fast; extremely modern. It uses every trick in the book too: double exposure, split screens, stop motion, slow motion (when did we get high quality slow motion?!), frame by frame editing!

But the movie is, in fact, more ambitious than that. It relentlessly calls attention to the its own creation; the only recurring character is the cameraman. It also opens and closes with people watching films in a theater. But the most interesting portion comes in the middle.

There is this fascinating sequence where the editor is working on the film. We see the images like the kind we have been watching, but presented merely as frozen images – photographs. Next we see shots of literal film stock, which lets us see a sequence of still images each slightly different of course. Next, we go back and forth between shots of film and moving images. This deconstruction and de-mystification of the film experience – you are just watching still images in fast sequence, there is no life – it eerie and unnerving. You see the moving image with no feeling associated; it feels like a glimpse of sociopathy.

Why would someone think it’s one of the ten greatest movies ever made?

It’s a wonderful movie, but this one definitely feels like one that gets the boost for being so ahead of it’s time and for pioneering so much visual language. It’s another movie that if someone made today, I’m not sure it would get nearly so much attention.

Next week: City Lights