5. Man With A Movie Camera Legitimised Documentary Film-Making As A Form
No list of influential documentaries would be complete without Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera, the film that spawned the documentary as a form. The film presents urban life in the Soviet cities of Kiev, Kharkov, Moscow and Odessa. It's completely free from narrative, and shows many Soviet citizens going about their daily lives, working and socialising. Vertov was part of a movement known as the kinoks, a movement that rejected so-called staged cinema that featured actors, sets and fabrication. Vertov believed that cameras were totally unbiased pieces of technology, and could be used to record complete and utter truth. The film features no dialogue and no explanation, and merely observes society. It also features an extensive range of cinematic techniques including slow motion, jump cuts, freeze frames, tracking shots, stop-motion animation and double exposure. One of Vertov's famous quotes is Long live life as it is without Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera displaying the intrinsic magic of documentary film-making, many of the documentaries on this list simply wouldn't exist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z97Pa0ICpn8
Brian Wilson
Contributor
Commonly found reading, sitting firmly in a seat at the cinema (bottle of water and a Freddo bar, please) or listening to the Mountain Goats.
See more from
Brian