As the founder of the Soviet Union's "Cine Eyes", Vertov used the method of observing the world through a lens in "The Man with a Camera". Although it is very contemporary, it is difficult for people to realize that this is actually a film In the movies of the 1920s, there are many scenes that still shock me 90 years later.
Just like the title of the film "The Man with the Camera", the cameraman in this film is not only a "mechanic" hiding behind the camera, but the cameraman himself repeatedly appears in the lens carrying the camera, forming a subjective point of view that makes people feel You can also be aware of this viewpoint when looking at other shots. The girl in Chapter 1 blinks, opens and closes the blinds, and zooms in and out of the aperture, creating an analogy that makes it seem like photography is just a normal thing in life (by the way: I think "pointing the lens to the lens" is a interesting thing). The scene in Chapter 4 where the cameraman does his editing work is cross-edited with his other work shots of the workers, and the scene where the cameraman and the miners (?) go down to work in the dark underground together makes people feel This photographer is also a part of the "working class", and the whole work seems to be more realistic and intimate.
The film frequently uses a lot of special shooting and editing techniques. A large number of unusual angles and extreme close-ups were selected in the shooting, such as lying on the track to watch the train pass by, the eyes of the girl who just woke up, and some empty mirrors shooting the busy streets, all of which are invisible to our eyes in our daily life. scene. The "movie eye" breaks this limitation of the human eye and makes ordinary things new again. In editing, a lot of cross-editing, jumping, rewinding, multiple shots appearing in one frame, these scenes from life, but never seen in life are even more surprising.
Another unique feature is the way the director uses montage. The photographer records life as an objective point of view, but what he records is some typical scenes extracted from the sad and joyful life, splicing them together, showing some causal or analogous connections. This kind of record is higher than the trivial daily life of the individual, so it is thought-provoking. There are two in the third chapter: one is that the people registering marriage and divorce are done at the same counter, and their expressions are very different; the other is a funeral caravan and a woman in a hospital who is giving birth . The faces of the mourners were mourning, while the faces of the dead were serene; the mother who gave birth was in agony, and the newborn was as quiet as an angel. As well as the elevators going up and down at the same time, the buses running in the opposite direction at the same time, and the people entering and exiting the gate at the same time, these shots are all leading people to think more deeply.
Also interesting is the structure and logic of the film. It starts with people entering the cinema, and it seems that what follows is what people see in the cinema. And the main body of the later story seems to take place in one day - from the morning when people wake up and all kinds of public transport leave the station; the silent streets gradually become full of traffic, and then people start to work (which embodies the various achievements of Soviet industrialization ), it seems that everyone is full and happy; people play sports after get off work, swim and bask at the beach, innocent children are fascinated by magic, and people happily drink, watch movies, and play chess. This seems to be just a very ordinary day for the Soviet people, but the director, through montage techniques, in the seemingly objective record, let people feel the information that the Soviet socialist construction is in full swing, full of vigor and vitality, and the people are industrious, healthy and very happy.
There is one more thing I want to say about "movie eyes". When I read "Ordinary Fascism", there was an impressive sentence: "Everyone is a human being". When I watched "Private Life of Plants" before, I was shocked when I saw that plants can move like animals in the downgrade. When I watched "Microscopic World", I was also shocked when I saw snails lingering and making love like people under the microscopic lens. I gradually realized that the world I see has huge limitations, and the "general" I saw before is actually a kind of "individual". In today's rapid development of various photographic technologies, "movie eyes" provides a kind of support for our vision from individual to general.
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