This film is one of the most unusual films that I have ever seen. I was continually waiting for something to catch my eye, or something to start to make sense, but that time never came around.
Since I didn't come up with anything that was too significant, I will just talk about some of the things that I noticed during the film. There were several times when they would just show the making of a movie, cutting and editing the film and putting it all together. One of the things that I thought might have been going on the the film, is kind of how the camera seems to bring things to life in the morning. As the camera man films people sleeping, they start to wake up and get the day going. The train scenes are also interesting. The way that he captured the train was different than any of the other trains scenes that we have seen. I also think that the movie shows how camera men see so much, good and bad, life and death, birth, and really anything that happens, the film can capture.
One thing that I especially found entertaining about the film is that it showed people playing musical instruments. This is so strange because they still did not yet have sound for their films. I don't really see how watching someone play an instrument could be entertaining without the sound, you would have to use your imagination. Either this, or he made the film expecting to have an orchestra always at the showing to provide the music. There was a lot of the physical day to day labor filmed. There was a lot of camera movement, special effects, and illusions of time and reality. I like the scenes where they would set up inanimate objects to appear like they were moving by themselves. It is something simple to do, by shooting shots, then cutting, moving the object, shooting, and cutting over and over to portray them as moving by themselves. However, at that time, this would have blown my mind. There also seemed to be a lot of things about Lenin in the film, but I couldn't tell what he was really getting at with all of it.
All in all, this film was very interesting but I didn't really have a clue as to what was going on.
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We'll talk tomorrow about the significance of movement in the film.
ReplyDeleteAlso try to think of this: what does a train track look a bit like when a camera lens moves speedily along it?
As for instruments--yes, there is no doubt Vertov knew that his films would generally be presented with accompanying music. And the score we listened to was prepared in accordance with notes he left behind on how it should be done.
I too did not have a clue to what was going on. I agree with you on the musical part of the movie as it was quite good to listen to! I also liked the old school track shots with those guys high "stepping" the bar!
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