Master Rank #402

Man with a Movie Camera

1929

GCML Total8.6240% Greatness · 40% Engagement · 20% Ease

Directed by Dziga Vertov

CastMikhail Kaufman

USSRRussianDocumentary / Experimental68 minNot Rated
Sight & SoundExperimental DocumentaryDeliberate pace
Original poster artwork · Great Cinema Master List

Spoiler-free premise

A man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.

Read expanded premiseLonger, still spoiler-free

A cameraman records a Soviet city from morning to night: workers, traffic, recreation, machinery, and crowds in motion. The camera operator, editor, theater audience, and filmmaking apparatus all enter the images, turning urban observation into a demonstration of cinema making itself.

Why it belongs

Man with a Movie Camera makes the city and the act of filming equally alive through superimposition, split screens, variable speed, and dazzling rhythmic montage.

Read expanded why it belongsThe fuller editorial case

Cameras, tripods, trams, factories, marriages, births, crowds, editing tables, freeze-frames, and stop motion reveal cinema as labor and play; the film continually shows how observation becomes constructed movement without losing documentary excitement.

Major award wins

No verified wins in this six-institution crosswalk.

Awards are reference metadata only · zero points in 40/40/20

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