Described by director Dziga Vertov as an experiment in the language of pure cinema, "The Man With the Movie Camera" is perhaps the most dazzling and sophisticated, not only of Soviet, but of world silent cinema. In part it is a "city symphony," although its urban landscape is actually a film synthesis of shots taken in Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and elsewhere. In part, it is a panorama of and a manifesto on the nature of socialist society in the late 1920s. But it is especially a revelation of the possibilities of non-acted, non-fiction films: We see the cinema projectionist show the reel we are actually viewing; the "star" is the film's actual cameraman at work; the shots we see him take will reappear elsewhere as we see the film editor create emotional and intellectual moments from unrelated lengths of footage. Music by the Alloy Orchestra.
