Man with a movie camera essay

Discuss how far your chosen films reflect aesthetic qualities associated with a particular film movement. 

In both apprapodenise and man with a movie camera there are asthetic qualities that reflect different film movements and in this essay i will explore a few. 

Roughly a third of the way through the film, Vertov uses a sequence involving trains and trams in order to celebrate communistic expansion and innovation in the Soviet Union. He praises this new technological advance via the use of muscular film making. The use of trains is a link to the lumiere brothers and how they presented real life through their work  and experimentation of different individual elements in film. This shows Vertov to be darring and a leader in the way of soviet montage. One of the ways this is most prevalent is through the use of split screen and a canted camera angle. This is reflective of the social hierarchy as the rich on the right get richer whilst the poor on the left get poorer. Vertov was one of the first to do split screen he did that by covering half the camera lens then filming the scene then doing the inverse for the next scene. In the cutting room by Elisaveta svilova, these two scenes would be put together to create the split screen. 


The Kuleshov effect, in which meaning is created via the juxtaposition of shots, is evident in the cut between the bicycle and the train in which we can see the old technology compared to the new technology. This enlightens the idea of futurism {and constructivism making this form of art corespond with the real world that is where the soviet union dismisses the old technology of the bicycle and praises the new transport of trains showing how their society has advanced and moved fowards. This technological advance reflects constructivism within the soviet union. 

The next scene starts to speed up whilst we see trams move past multiple times. This reflects time moving very quickly as society starts to speed up with new advances in life. This is also a praise for the soviet union advancing at a quicker pace than other countries. This is reflective of the ideal that Vertov holds of the trains and trams presenting the ideas of society moving forward and advancing. This is juxtaposing to the traditional architecture behind which represent the 'old ways' which was run by the borgioursie. These methods are seen as outdated and Vertov tries to get that idea to the spectator through his work. One way he does that is the us of the Kuleshov effect showing how the Russian people react being proud of their country. In the next cut the scene has been sped up as a metaphor for how russia is moving into the future much quicker, Vertov shows the trams in front of the church to emphasise that the rulling class is now in a thing of the past. The arcitecture of the church represents that it is then juxtaposed to the tram representing the equality as where before there would have been horse and carts for just the rich now there are trams for all people.


Futhermore, in this sequence, Vertov shows a horse and a cart 'disappearing' into the split screen, itself a technical innovation. Howe created this new 'split-screen' by filming the scene with half covered and repeating with the other covered. Therefore the horse disappears behind as Kaufman advances forward. This is reflective of the constructivist and futurist inspirations behind this film: the idea of leaving the old technology such as horse and carts and moving forward to a modern equal society, with technological advances such as trains and tram leaving behind the social hierarchy that plagues the society in the past.



here is the improved first draft, sorry for how long this has taken but i found every time i tried to write i got more confused i have spent a lot of time looking over the notes and now feel i have a better understanding so i would appreciate if you could tell me what i am missing and maybe dont fully understand as seem through this essay. thank you :)