Man with a Movie Camera (1929) as a diary film

Abstract

Even though Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov (1896-1954) didn’t produce diary films in a strict sense, this paper investigates how part of his oeuvre from the 1920s can be seen as permeated by a notion, albeit a diffuse one, of diary. This would be expressed both by means of direct references to diaries in his films and writings and by a continuous intent — at times accomplished, at others only planned — of self-representation by the kinoks in the works produced by the group, a practice that suggests us the possibility of seeing, throughout films, sketches and unrealized projects, the construction of a fragmentary “collective professional diary”. In this sense, Man with a Movie Camera (1929) is here analyzed through the prism of its subtitle “An excerpt from a cameraman’s diary”, a formula whose importance has been historically downplayed in Vertovian studies.

Keywords
Dziga Vertov; film diary; documentary cinem