Although Vertov presents various prevalent themes in his movie, "Man With the Movie Camera", I found myself constantly circulating around two recurring motifs:
1. Movement, the inability to ever be completely still, and incessant restlessness seen through the certain motifs.
2. The idea of blindness; the time spent with eyes closed (blinking or sleeping); the slots in between a film reel. Ultimately, the contemplation of what goes on in those fleeting moments of darkness.
After contemplating how these two things worked with and against one and other, I formed the hypothesis that, because everything in life (down the smallest particles of an atom) is constantly in motion, the only hope for stillness is in what we do not witness, or the moments we spend blinking.
After the opening theatre scene at the beginning of the film, the viewer is provided with images of people sleeping; women, bums, homeless children, and is then followed by images of manikins and machines. There is obviously a stark juxtaposition between organic beings and inanimate objects that distinguishes the differences and similarities between man and machine. In these beginning scenes all objects are at rest, or turned off. The streets are not busy, and there is an eerie sense of peace or stillness.
At a certain point, Vertov focuses in on a woman sleeping. Images flash between her resting body and a man laying his head down on the tracks of a train that is approaching. How Vertov cuts the images implies that the woman is dreaming of this man, who is obviously putting himself into a dangerous situation. The train, which is arguably one of the most repetitive images seen throughout the film, eventually comes to symbolize the incessant movement from one place to the next. (We see trams/trolley’s cutting across city streets between hundreds of people. We see Vertov edit these images so that the trolleys end up running into one and other infinitely. Almost every time there is a shot of a busy street, a trolley is seen cutting through, transporting individuals from one place to the next.) Therefore, the dream that the woman is having of a man who lays his head down to the impending death of an approaching train can be psychoanalytically interpreted. If the train represents movement and the inability to stop moving, it may be the woman’s subconscious belief that this movement, or drive forward, is going to be her ultimate demise. Yet, she still wakes up in the morning, brushes her hair, gets dressed and ready to go out to progress and move forward.
As the film elapses, images of people working, relaxing, playing sports, ect., are provided for brief moments. He gets the point across that there is movement in leisure. These images are presented with images of wheels turning, Merry-Go-Rounds, and essentially anything that can go in never ending circles. Vertov's representation of life's constant movement ultimately leaves the viewer feeling exhausted and tormented with the idea that a single thing can never be still; things may just go round and round for no reason. The idea of restlessness seeps out through the images. This is most prevalent in the moments where he films photographs or certain stills. These moments emphasize the fact that the camera itself is recording, the machine is moving, in order to film still images. So, although we are looking at a still image, it is, in fact, not still.
Yet, he also places a heavy emphasis on the time spent in darkness, creating a sense of wonderment and providing a glimpse into the stillness of a void. In the moments where he films photographs, the viewer can visibly see the blank spaces in between the reel’s stills.
With that recognition, it is difficult to imagine what we are missing in those moments of blackness. We also see those images juxtaposed with the blinking of the filmmakers eye behind the lens.
This brings me back to the initial few scenes, which show people sleeping. They look peaceful and, obviously, at rest. This implies that the only time the movement of the world stops is when our eyes are closed, which, considering how many times we blink a day, is quite often. According to Vertov, the world is always moving and always stopped.
