1. DOCUMENTARY AND AVANT-GARDE FILM
Chapter Four
DOCUMENTARY AND AVANT-GARDE FILM

2. DZIGA VERTOV (1896 1954) David A. Kaufman (Russian)
Kinoki team - Vertov's experimental film group
Elizaveta Svilova (editor), Dziga Vertov (director),
Mikhail Kaufman (cinematographer)

3. VERTOV'S THEORIES
Vertov saw cinema as a close relationship between the filming process and human thought.
Vertov saw human perception as having limitations compared to the more perfectible “machine eye” of motion picture camera.
Vertov’s aesthetic position demanded anti-narrative, anti- fictional forms.

4. MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA (1929)
1. Vertov's two credos
"life as it is "
—— to record life as it would be without
the camera present
"life caught unawares"
—— to record life when surprised, and
perhaps provoked, by the presence
of a camera.

5. 2. Technology as medium for the text
the unique qualities of cinema :
"a truly international absolute language “
rejecting elements taken from other arts: "a film without
a scenario" [script]; "without aid of theatre" [sets, actors];
"a film without intertitles" [written words]
 depicting the entire process of cinema from camera to
editing to projection in a theater, including audience reactions
structuring metaphor
exploiting almost every technique unique to cinema,
particularly editing (montage)
self-referentiality: the film records its own birth and constantly
foregrounds its filmic nature, including the artificiality of its
construction

7. European Modernist Avant-garde Film movement
the rise of poetic film experiments Cine-clubs
a wave of “city symphonies”
Joris Ivens ( )
Rain (1929 )

8. BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A GREAT CITY (WALTER RUTTMANN,1927)
the city symphony film genre
an avant-garde (experimental) film
a visual impression of the city's daily life
non-narrative style
a musical score for an orchestra to accompany
shots and scenes are cut together based on relationships
of image, motion, point of view, and thematic content

9. AN IMPRESSIONISTIC STYLE： RAIN (1929)
actual rain：a rain shower in Amsterdam
abstract rain: collection of rain showers
poetic rain：
— presenting patterns and details of a rain shower
— conveying a subjective feeling and impression of
what a rain shower is like

10. Paris Street; Rainy Day ﹝Gustave Caillebotte,1877﹞

11. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF POETIC MODE
subjective interpretations of its subject
sacrificing the conventions of continuity editing,
and representing reality through a series of fragments,
subjective impressions, incoherent acts,
and loose associations
selecting raw material and arranging them into particular associations and patterns that involve temporal rhythms and spatial juxtaposition
in favor of creating a particular mood or tone

12. Life in Transformation（1988）
Life Out of Balance
（ Godfrey Reggio ,1983）
Life in Transformation（1988）
Life as War （2002）

13. (2011)
(1992)
(Ron Fricke, 1985)