Man with a Movie Camera

Original title: Chelovek s kino-apparatom

19291929
UU
1h 8m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

A man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.A man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.A man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.

IMDb RATING

8.4/10

24K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Dziga Vertov
Writer
- Dziga Vertov(scenario)
Stars
- Mikhail Kaufman
- Elizaveta Svilova(uncredited)

Top credits

See production, box office & company info

See more at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 1 nomination

Videos1

Trailer 1:05

Trailer

Photos103

Vladimir Stenberg and Georgii Stenberg in Chelovek s kino-apparatom (1929)

Michael Nyman, Vladimir Stenberg, and Georgii Stenberg in Chelovek s kino-apparatom (1929)

Top cast

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Mikhail Kaufman

The Cameramanas The Cameraman

Elizaveta Svilova

Woman editing filmas Woman editing film
(uncredited)

Storyline

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This playful film is at once a documentary of a day in the life of the Soviet Union, a documentary of the filming of said documentary, and a depiction of an audience watching the film. Even the editing of the film is documented. We often see the cameraman who is purportedly making the film, but we rarely, if ever, see any of the footage he seems to be in the act of shooting! —George S. Davis

experimental film soviet union avant garde city symphony eye 50 more

Taglines
- The Greatest Documentary Ever Made.
Genres
- Documentary
- Music
Certificate
- U
Parents guide

Did you know

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Trivia
A revelation in its day, the film was noted for introducing all sorts of camera techniques to audiences. Some of these include double exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, backward footage, and stop motion animation.

Crazy credits
At the beginning there is a long explanation of what this film is about and that it is of experimental origin.

Alternate versions
Kino International, by arrangement with the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography, released a version in 1996 produced by David Shepard and copyrighted by Film Preservation Associates. It runs 68 minutes and has new original music composed and performed by the Alloy Orchestra following the written instructions from the director, Dziga Vertov. The music has been copyrighted by Junk Metal Music in 1996.

Connections
Edited from Kinoglaz (1924)

User reviews142

Review

Top review

8/10

A Misconception

While I thoroughly enjoyed this film (for several reasons previously mentioned), I think it is important to clear up a one thing that has been repeatedly mistaken in these user comments.

This was NOT produced under Lenin's Soviet Regime, but rather shortly after Stalin took over in 1928. The government, then, disapproved of Vertov's film style, not seeing the proletariat message but rather only the formalistic errors that they saw as inherent. After passing directives to forbid formalist methods of production (most likely specifically for Eisenstein and Vertov), Vertov moved to Kiev to produce this film, where I apparently the government was less strict.

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