Jan 13 movie: Man With a Movie Camera. 1929 documentary of "an except from the diary of a cameraman" in the Soviet Union. With no plot, no narrative, no actors and no intertitles they somehow managed to make an incredibly compelling film. The film is unusual even for modern documentaries in that the camera is a near-constant presence. They actually had two cameras, one filming scenes of public life in Odessa and the second filming the first, so we get to see both the "man with the movie camera" and his footage. It's fascinating to see how the cameraman gets a particular shot -- perched on top of the door of a moving car, lying in a trench in the middle of a railroad track, behind the counter of a government license bureau, steering a motorcycle with one hand and turning the camera's crank with the other, etc.
There's also extensive use of special effects like split screens and superimposed images, which I imagine must have been pretty radical, especially in the Soviet Union (Robert Osborne said that the director wasn't popular with the soviet government). But the most interesting moment was seeing a woman at a rifle range, shooting a target that had a little swastika on its head! When she hit the target a sign popped open that said "Father of Fascism." We were surprised that Soviet/Nazi hostility was already so great in 1929.
Unfortunately the movie has a 1995 score by Alloy Orchestra rather than the breathtakingly beautiful score by Cinematic Orchestra. So we muted the TV and started the Cinematic Orchestra album at the same time as the movie. It seems like the CD more or less follows the movie but isn't a perfect match. Sometimes the music seems well suited to the visuals, other times it's woefully out of sync. I'm guessing that we're off by maybe a couple of minutes, though it's hard to tell. Still, I adore this album so I'm thrilled to see the images that inspired it.
I was concerned that I was too tired and would find Man With a Movie Camera too arty, but it isn't at all. It's brilliant. If you ever get the chance to see Cinematic Orchestra perform the score live to the movie, buy a ticket for me!
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