VERTOV | 257

laboratory tests carry the same risk and provide the trained, intelligent simulator
with even more opportunities. Just as the mind hasn' t the time to retain, the eye
has neither the time nor the field of vision to see everything in an expression: the
premonition, the emergence, the evolution, the struggle among the intercurrent
feelings which are eventually composed into an observable outcome, all that is
spread out spontaneously by slow motion. And the magnification of the screen
lets us examine it as in a magnifying glass. There the most alluring falsehoods
lose their force while the truth bursts forth on first sight, strikes the spectator
with the unexpectedness of the evident, and arouses an aesthetic emotion, a
sense of infallible wonderment and pleasure. This feeling happens to each of us
as we experience the unexpected in front of certain newsreel images in which real
gestures become surprising.
Mirrors are unfaithful witnesses without insight (they invert the asymmetrical
features which play such a great role in expression). Who has not wished to consult
an observer such as cinematography daily on the subject of himself, in order to con-
firm his own sincerity, his own force of conviction?
D Z I G A V E R T O V
F i l m D i r e c t o r s : A R e v o l u t i o n
Born Denis Kaufman (1896-1954), Dziga Vertov adopted a pseudonym to evoke a spin-
ning top. Vertov was a filmmaker and theoretician who not only wrote important proc-
lamations and manifestos on the political power of film during the celebrated 1920s of
Soviet cinema but also made one of the most important experimental documentaries in
film history, The Man with a Movie Camera (1929). Working with multiple newsreel teams,
he formed Kino-Eye, a group, dedicated to bringing Marxist principles to the movies,
that included his brother and cameraman, Mikhail Kaufman, and his wife and editor,
Yelizaveta Svilova. (Another brother, Boris Kaufman, became a noted cinematographer
in France and Hollywood.) Writing in the wake of the Russian Revolution and at the end
of the silent era of cinema, Vertov committed completely to the revolutionary capacity
of the cinema to create collective activity and to offer people a new way to see the world
as a place of change. By the 1930s, however, as Stalin's Soviet Union gravitated toward
art forms promoting "socialist realism," Vertov's aesthetic program based in avant-garde
notions of film form was being accused of an artistic elitism that alienated the general
population.
Vertov's writings align historically and intellectually with the Constructivism and
Futurism movements. Like these avant-garde aesthetics, his arguments emphasize the
modern energies of machines, cities, and speed. For him and others, the movies became
the best emblem and vehicle for art's new and modern potential, most notably through
the power of editing or montage. Accordingly, he coined the term "kino-eye" (translated
l n
the selection as "cinema-eye"), for "the documentary cinematic decoding of both the
visible world and that which is invisible to the naked eye," an essentially cinematic way
lL-
258 | PART 3 MODERNISM AND REALISM: DEBATES IN CLASSICAL FILM THEORY
of envisioning a new world. Situated in the dynamic crosscurrents of the 1920s, Vertov's
positions argue vociferously against the dominant mimetic and narrative trends of
Hollywood cinema and for a more dynamic interaction between films and audiences. As
an indication of his always forward thinking, Vertov recognizes even in 1929, just after the
introduction of synchronized sound, that sound could offer another important dimension
to the dialectic powers of the cinema.
"Film Directors: A Revolution" (1923) is one of Vertov's more renowned essays, de-
scribing film's potential to revolutionize the world. Specifically, Vertov argues how movies
(and later radio), by eschewing artificial narratives and stories, not only document reality
but also dramatize how individuals and social groups can productively construct their
reality. Decades later, these iconoclastic positions have resonated most demonstrably
with the different new wave cinemas of the 1960s, particularly with the films of Jean-
Luc Godard, who produced films such as La Chinoise (1967) as part of his "Dziga Vertov
Group," and the poetic and political films of Chris Marker.
READING CUES & KEY CONCEPTS
H Why do you think Vertov feels that the montage constructions of "cinema-eye" sur-
pass the vision of the human eye? Offer an example that supports his ideas from a
particular film.
O Note the unusual writing style and organization of Vertov's essay. Consider how his
writing style complements the themes and arguments in the essay.
H Vertov suggests three stages of film editing and argues for the crucial importance of
the "interval" in the process. Describe those stages, and think of how this interval can
act as an expedient "itinerary" for the eyes of the viewer.
M Key Concepts: Futurists; Cinema-Eye; Montage; Visual "Intervals"
F i l m D i r e c t o r s : A R e v o l u t i o n
Looking at the pictures that have come to us from the West and from America, and
bearing in mind the information we have about the work and experiments abroad
and at home, I arrive at this conclusion: The death sentence passed by film-directors
in 1919 on every film without exception is effective to this very day.
The most thorough observation reveals not a single picture, not a single ex-
periment directed, as they should be, towards the emancipation of the film-camera,
which remains wretchedly enslaved, subordinated to the imperfect, undiscerning
human eye.
We are not protesting at the undermining of literature and the theatre by the
cinema, and we fully sympathize with the use of the cinema for all branches of sci-
ence, but we define these functions of the cinema as sidelines diverging from the
main line.
VERTOV Film Directors: A Revolution | 259
The basic and most important thing is: CINEMA-PERCEPTION OF THE WORLD.
The starting-point is: use of the film-camera as a cinema-eye, more perfect than
the human eye for fathoming the chaos of those visual phenomena which evoke spatial
dimension.
The cinema-eye lives and moves in time and space, apprehends and fixes im-
pressions in quite a different way from that of the human eye. The position of our
bodies at the moment of observation,! the number of features perceived by us in one
or another visual phenomenon in one second of time is not at all binding on the film-
camera, which, the more perfect it is, the more and the better it perceives things.
We cannot make our eyes better than they are already made, but we can perfect
the film-camera without limit.
Up to today the film-cameraman has many a time suffered rebukes about a run-
ning horse which on the screen moved unnaturally slowly (rapid turning of the film-
camera handle), or, conversely, about a tractor which ploughed a field too quickly
(slow turning of the film-camera handle) and so on.
These are accidents, of course, but we are preparing a system, a contrived sys-
tem of cases like these, a system of apparent irregularities which probe into and
organise phenomena.
Up to today we have coerced the film-camera and made it copy the work of our
own eyes. And the better the copying, the more highly was the shot considered.
From today we are liberating the camera and making it work in the opposite
direction, furthest away from copying.
All the weaknesses of the human eye are external. We affirm the cinema-eye,
that gropes in the chaos of movements for a resultant force for its own movement, we
affirm the cinema-eye with its dimension of time and space, growing in its own strength
and its own resources to reach self-affirmation.
. . . I force the spectator to see in the way most advantageous for me to show this or
that visual phenomenon. The eye is subordinated to the will of the film-camera and
directed by it onto those consecutive moments of action, which in the briefest and
clearest way lead the cinema-phrase to the heights or depths of resolution.
For example: a shot of boxing, not from the point of view of a spectator present
at the match, but a shot of the consecutive movements (methods) of the boxers. Or:
a shot of a group of dancersbut not from the viewpoint of a spectator sitting in a
hall with a ballet on stage in front of him.
It is known that a spectator at a ballet watches haphazardly sometimes the
general group of dancers, sometimes separate dancers at random, and some-
times somebody's feet: a series of incoherent impressions, different for each single
spectator.
We must not present the cinema audience with this. The system of consecutive
movements demands shots of the dancers or boxers as an exposition of the tricks
presented one after the other, with the forced transference of the spectator's eyes
onto those successive details which must be seen.
The film-camera drags the eyes of the audience from hands to feet, from feet to eyes,
and so on in the best order possible, and organises details into a regular montage-study.
260 | PART 3 MODERNISM AND REALISM: DEBATES IN CLASSICAL FILM THEORY
You can be walking along the street in Chicago today, in 1923, but I can make you
bow to the late comrade Volodarsky, who in 1918 is walking along a street in Petrograd,
and he will return your bow.
Another example: the coffins of national heroes are lowered into their tombs
(taken in Astrakhan in 1918), the tombs are filled in (Kronstadt, 1921), a gun sa-
lute (Petrograd, 1920), eternal remembrance, hats are removed (Moscow 1922)
such things can be fitted together even from thankless material which was not
specially filmed (see Kino-Pravda No. 13). A further example of this is the mon-
tage of the greetings of the crowd and the montage of the salute of the vehicles
for comrade Lenin [Kino-Pravda No. 14), taken in different places, at different
times.
. . . I am the cinema-eye. I am a constructor.
I have set you down, you who have today been created by me, in a most amazing
room, which did not exist up to this moment, also created by me.
In this room are 12 walls filmed by me in various parts of the world.
Putting together the shots of the walls and other details I was able to arrange
them in an order which pleases you, and which will correctly construct by intervals
the cinema-phrase, which is in fact a room
I am the cinema-eye. I create a man more perfect than Adam was created, I cre-
ate thousands of different people from various preliminary sketches and plans.
I am the cinema-eye.
I take from one person the strongest and deftest hands, from another I take the
strongest and swiftest legs, from a third the most beautiful and expressive head and
1 create a new, perfect man in a mont age. . .
. . . I am the cinema-eye. I am a mechanical eye.
I, a machine, can show you the world as only I can see it.
From today 1 liberate myself for ever from human immobility. lam in perpetual
motion, I approach and move away from objects, I creep up to them, I climb onto
them, I move alongside the muzzle of a running horse, I tear into the crowd at full
speed, I run before the fleeing soldiers, I tip over onto my back, I ascend with aero-
planes, I fall and rise together with falling and rising bodies.
Here am I, the camera, rushing about guided by a resultant force, manoeuvring in the
chaos of motions, fixing motion from motion in the most complex combinations.
Freed from the obligation of 16-17 frames a second, freed from the limits
of time and space, / can contrast any points in the universe, wherever I might fix
them.
My way leads to the creation of a fresh perception of the world. And this is how
I can decipher anew a world unknown to you.
VERTOV Film Directors: A Revolution I 261
. . . Once again let us settle one thing: the eye and the ear.
The ear does not spy and the eye does not eavesdrop.
A division of functions:
The radio-ear-the montaged "I hear!"
The cinema-eyethe montaged "Isee!"
This is for you, citizens, for a start, instead of music, painting, theatre, cinema and
other castrated effusions.
Amid the chaos of motions rushing past, rushing away, rushing forward and collid-
ing togetherinto life there comes simply the eye.
The day of visual impressions has passed. How can a day's impressions be con-
structed into an effective whole in a visual study?
If everything that the eye saw were to be photographed onto a film there would
naturally be confusion. If it were artistically assembled, what was photographed
would be clearer. If the encumbering rubbish were thrown out, it would be still bet-
ter. We shall obtain an organised manual of impressions of the ordinary eye.
The mechanical eyethe film-camera, refusing to use the human eye as a crib,
repelled and attracted by motions, gropes about in the chaos of visual events for the
path for its own motion or oscillation, and experiments by stretching time, breaking up
its motions, or vice versa, absorbing time into itself, swallowing up the years, thereby
schematizing prolonged processes which are inaccessible to the normal eye. . .
.. .To the aid of the machine-age comes.. .the cineaste-pilot, who not only con-
trols the motions of the camera but who trusts in it during spatial experimentation,
and. . . the cineaste-engineer, who controls the cameras at a distance.
The result of this sort of combined action of the liberated and perfected camera, and
of the strategic brain of man directing, observing and taking stock of things, is a notice-
ably fresher, and therefore interesting, presentation of even the most ordinary things...
. . . How many people are there thirsting for spectacular shows that wear out
their trousers in the theatres?
They flee from the daily round, they flee from the prose of life. And yet the theatre
is almost always just a wretched counterfeit of that very same life plus a stupid con-
glomeration of the affectations of ballet, musical squeaks, lighting effects, decora-
tions (from the daubing-type to the constructive-type) and sometimes the excellent
work of a literary master, perverted by all the rubbish. Certain masters of the theatres
are destroying the theatres from the inside, breaking the old forms and declaring
new slogans for work in the theatre; brought in to help this are bio-mechanics (a good
exercise in itself), the cinema (glory andhonour to it), writers (not bad in themselves),
constructions (there are good ones), motor-cars (how can one not respect a motor-
car?), and gun-fire (a dangerous and impressive trick in the front rows), but in general
not a single feature stands out in it.
Theatre, and nothing more.
Not only not a synthesis, but not even a regular miscellany.
' And it cannot be otherwise.
262 i PART 3 MODERNISM AND REALISM: DEBATES IN CLASSICAL FILM THEORY
We, the film-makers, are determined opponents of premature synthesis ("to'
synthesis as the zenith of achievement!"), and realise it is pointless to mix up frag-
ments of achievement: the poor infants immediately perish through overcrowding
and disorder. And in generalthe arena is small.
Please let's get into life.
This is where we workwe, the masters of visionorganisers of visible life, armed
with the ever-present cinema-eye.
This is where the masters of words and sounds work, the most skillful montage-
makers of audible life. And I venture to slip in with them the ubiquitous mechanical ear
and mouth-piecethe radio-telephone.
What does this amount to?
It means the newsreel film and the radio newsreel. I intend to stage a parade of
film-makers in Red Square on the occasion of the Futurists' issuing of the first edi-
tion of the montaged radio-newsreel.
Not the "Pathe" newsreel-films nor Gaumont (a newspaper-type "newsreel")
and not even Kino-Pravda (a political "newsreel"), but a genuine cinema newsreel
a swift review of VISUAL events deciphered by the film-camera, pieces of REAL energy
(I distinguish this from theatrical energy), brought together at intervals to form an
accumulatory whole by means of highly skilled montage.
This structure for the cinema allows any theme to be developed, whether comic,
tragic, contrived or anything else.
The whole trick lies in this or the juxtapositioning of visual features, the whole
trick lies in the intervals.
The unusual flexibility of the montage-construction permits any political, eco-
nomic, or other motifs be brought into the cinema-study. And that is why
FROM TODAY neither psychological nor detective dramas are needed in the cinema
FROM TODAY theatrical productions taken onto film are not needed
FROM TODAY neither Dostoevsky nor Nat Pinkerton need be scripted
Everything can be included in the new concept of the newsreel film.
These two things now make a decisive entry into the muddle of life:
1. the cinema-eye, which disputes the visual presentation of the world by human eye,
and presents its "I see!"
2. the cineaste-montageur, who organises moments of life-construct now seen in
cinema-eye fashion for the first time.
[TRANSLATED BY RICHARD SHERWOOD]
S E R G E I E I S E N S T E I N
T h e D r a m a t u r g y o f F i l m F o r m
( T h e D i a l e c t i c a l A p p r o a c h t o F i l m F o r m )
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898-1948) is one of the most significant figures in film
theory and in Soviet cinema of the 1920s. He is often seen as the foremost among the
rare group of theorists-practitioners in cinema best known for formulating the theory and
practice of dialectical montagean editing style that highlights the collision or conflict