Component 2 section C - Silent Cinema

Component 2 section C - Silent Cinema

Study will include Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov 1929)

A Propos de Nice (Vigo, 1930)

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

• Early days of Silent Cinema and its distinctiveness 
• Modernism in the context of filmmaking
• Soviet Montage filmmaking and Constructivism

Starting Points

• By the mid-1920s Silent cinema was mature, established and creative as a visual medium
• It was never entirely silent - although there is no recorded sound, most films were accompanied by soundtracks which matches the visuals and enabled spectator interaction
• Some filmmakers even feared that the coming of sound would drag the narrative-driven features of cinema down
• The lack of recorded dialogue can e seen as a strength, not a weakness
• The argument is that the lack of recorded dialogue draws the spectator into a much more active engagement with the film
• Even when we have inter-titles, these rarely do more than provide a summary indication of what is being spoken between characters
• Locations - Moscow, Kyiv, Khavkiv, Odessa
• An experimentation - no ‘actors’, or scenario or created sets/settings
• ‘omniscience’ - the objective eye of the camera person

‘Key elements’

• Men setting up a theatre - what is this a reference too?
• Poverty - men living rough on the streets - exterior shots
• Babies
• Maxim Gorky
• Music score - ‘the symphony’ - bringing harmony or continuity as the sequence of shots is speeding, seemingly random and unconnected
• Poster of a couple
• Intermittent cuts to man with the camera - drawing attention, self-referential - Hes reminding the audience of the process behind what they're watching
• Cut
• Machinists in factory
• Cross-section of people in different occupations

Wider Contexts

Social and cultural

The first 20 years of the history of filmmaking, from 1895, can be characterised as a period of constant experimentation - modernism and the Avant Garde

Production context

From around 1915 the institutional mode began to establish itself in Hollywood through the refinement of continuity editing, and the successful adaptation from popular theatre of the three-act melodrama narrative model

Historical and political

In parts of Europe these experiments into the nature and possibilities of film continued through the 1920s, an artistic restlessness that can partly be explained as a coming to terms with the 1914-18 World War and its political and social aftermath

Sergei Einstein Soviet Montage Filmmaking

Einstein’s ambition was that film would be a visual canvas on to which the spectator could project their own imagined detail, in other words become co-storytellers

Challenges for the contemporary spectator

• Silent film can appear as a form of ‘slow; cinema where  simple story is expanded or dragged out
• Silent film depends on what might be called visual amplification: gestures and details are used to make a narrative point, and then the point is reinforced and possibly reinforced again. The shot is often held for longer
• This sector is given room. This is not ‘primitive’ as a form of filmmaking but it is different
• This is a different kind of cinema with different techniques that offer a different, even challenging experience for the spectator

Film - 18:32 pause-music ceased

Street sounds

Freighter - moving from Odessa to Yalta

Movement and stillness - drawing attention to technology

23:00 freeze frame

CU old woman and then a child

Soviet Montage - political context Russian Revolution 1917-1923

Modernism

• What united artistic and cultural movements of the 1920s is Modernism. There is a strong commitment the the machine, including the machinery of cinema, as a progressive force, promising to create a bold new future
• Across the arts, there is a sense and anticipation of a new world under construction and this is experiences not only materially but also physically
• In cinema, experimentation sits alongside Modernism in an attempt to see hat the medium can achieve

Soviet Montage/Constructivism

Sergei Einstein, the greatest filmmaker-theorist of all, uses his first feature, Strike as a laboratory experiment in the power of montage.

However, we should be careful never to limit soviet montage to editing - and that’s why it is better to call this movement Constructivism which links developments in cinema to wider artistic innovations of the time.

Constructivism celebrates the machine, including the human machine - with new theories of acting and physical movement based on exploring the mechanics of the human body and human communication

Celebration of diversity of life

• 27:00 - couple in a registry office - wedding
• Funeral precession - outside
• Patient in bed
• Babies being delivered
• Movement - transport - trams
• Rhythm of life - accented through percussion

31:00 - Cut - eye/Camera

• Beating drum - police
• The everyday even the less ‘political’: hair salons and barbers, shoe shine stalls
• 38:00 - a more frenetic pace of life - mirrored in editing/cuts

Man with a Movie Camera

• Working classes hard labour, continuous relentless - mirrored in the ice of the editing and bolstered by the sound
• Through these moments where we move from documentary to experimental film form
• Abandons the reasons - surrealism - Avant garde and modernism
• Overseeing eye - religious connotations? Human beings God
• Omniscience/Point of vantage - objective ‘truth’ not individual truth
• FORM - REFERS TO THE CINEMATIC EQUIPMENT - DRAWS ATTENTION TO HOW THE FILM IS MADE
• CONTENT - (WHICH IS SACRIFICED) is about what we see - ideas and themes

Challenged for the spectator when viewing man with a movie camera

• It dense produce narrative continuity
• Contemporary spectators can’t engage without dialogue - Hard to engage with what is on screen
• Dialogue creates movement within frame/shots
• Political purpose of the film extending back about 100 years
• If you don’t engage with it as propaganda too are not fully taking part in it
• Distance of the historical context
• Montage with no specific narrative
• Montage editing as a stylistic choice creates the illusion of narrative continuity - whereas in actual fact narrative continuity is absent and this makes the film very hard to view

Kino-Eye - Its philosophy giving emphasis to the objectivity of the machine over the subjectivity of the individual human eye

43:00 - ‘Defend the security of the Soviet State’

57:00 ‘Lenin club Yalta. First five year plan’

The distinctive ways in which the film belongs to silent cinema

The film uses purely visuals in order to convey a message across, and tell a story. It doesn’t even use inter titles.

The ways in which an understanding of modernism, the Avant Garde and Constructivism support our understanding of the film

The film reflects the mechanical advances of the soviet union, and presents it as the modern world as they push boundaries.

What is meant by the notion of ‘form’ over ‘content’

Is Man With a Movie camera Realist or Expressionist?

Vertov and his contemporaries working in the mature phase of Silent Cinema regarded its purpose to be:

• An attempt to represent the real world
• To reveal the ‘truth’
• To be as ‘united’ as possible
• The film aesthetic is to be as simple as possible

Expressionism 

• A visual canvas - Highly constructed representations
• Exaggeration: performance/acting; the set design
• Representation: highly mediated 
• To agitate the spectator

Realism of Soviet Cinema + Modernism and Constructivism 

Art to directly reflect modern industrial world

Using the machinery of modern society to reflect a brave new world

The machinery of cinema is a reflection of this innovation

The idea is to draw attention to the mechanics of the process of filmmaking - 11:43 changes the lens

In Soviet Cinema it comes with a political agenda

How far does your film reflect the aesthetic qualities associated with a particular film movement?

Title sequence sets out cinematic intentions:

No scenario

No inter titles

An international language of cinema

Cinema is distinct from theatre and literature - has its own language

An ‘experiment’ in cinema

3:00 First moment - setting up the camera - seeing the camera man

3:48 getting film reels ready

Begins with spectators arriving in the cinema and ends with a focus on spectators viewing the screen

Overview of themes

• 5:36-13:00 - Waking/Morning/Washing
• 14:00 transport: Beginning with planes (19:00) no music - (sound of trams, the city, noise, voices the man with the camera marching through the city holding the camera) 23: tracking people in a horse and cart
• 26:55 Cycle of life, Marriage, Birth, Divorce
• 33:00 leisure and work - intersecting
• 45:00 culture and sport

Non-diegetic music?

Moment/Sequence	Realist cinema	Modernism	Expressionism	Key Elements
Leisure and Work	Aims to reflect the lives of regular people - however due to communism doesn’t fully show ‘normal’ life Swimming sequence - seems to be conducted - not natural	Beginning of the film - Lots of shots of factory workers and machinery - Constructivism?	- Exaggeration of happiness and leisure - Soviet union had economic crisis and famine, so most likely, people were not as happy as they were shown to be - Propaganda	Uses sound to fabricate life - Symbols during the sports to make it seem joyous and upbeat - almost communicated ideas and emotion through the music instead of dialogue During the ‘work’ sequences - music replicated sounds of machinery - clanky and metallic
Transport	Vehicles show realistic representation of society Planes, Trams, Boats, Ships with cargo, Trains Unscripted reflects realism	- Movement reflects transactions: physical development of people; celebration of construction of machinery; the machinery of man and cinema	Exaggerated  Multiple shots and angles to symbolise intensity - drawing our attention  Slo - mos and fast pace Makes it interesting Abstract interpretation	Birds eye shots - buses leaving Odessa station We are voyeurs  Fast paced percussion - matching visuals
Culture and sport	Synchronised sort, even in competitive sport - weird feeling to see the synchronised actions to reflect work in the Soviet Union Sense of the human machine - in tandem with the cinematic machine Shows off cameras eye - reflecting human innovation	Propaganda - smiling during sport Divide between those viewing sport and those who take part	In real life - actions not sped up but the pace of the editing is exaggerated to shape the spectators view of actions/events Exaggerated movements of the human body	Speeding up and slowing down the editing  Movement from people not camera The camera moves around the spot like a spectator taking it all in KEY ELEMENTS CONTRIBUTE TO HOW WE SEE MORE THAN WHAT WE SEE

How far does your film reflect the aesthetic qualities associated with a particular film movement?

Film Movements: Realist vs Expressionist

• The realist and the expressive (studies in relation to film movements: Silent cinema, component 2, Section C)
• In the 1940s, the French film critic Andre Bazin set in motion a major debate when he argued that both German Expressionist and Soviet Montage filmmaking went against what he saw as the ‘realist’ calling of cinema. This opposition between the racist and the expressive has informed thinking about film from the beginnings of cinema when the documentary realism

Critical Debate

Realist Cinema	Expressionist Cinema
Not ‘scripted’ - recording every day life	Life most likely wasn’t like that in the soviet union - Exaggerated happiness for propaganda
People not performing for a camera	Soviet montage overall
Sense of the camera as an objective observer	Angles - intensity in real goes unnoticed
Focuses on machinery	Exaggerated scenes
Real people - not actors with scripts	Symbolism - circle of life
	Incorporating both constructivism and modernism/avant garde
Captures every day things Street magic for children Captures what people do: Exercise Gym Beach - Getting ready to have fun at the beach Mise-en-scene - everyday life and activities Observing people - Beer hall Not actors - Real people form all walks of life	Editing is expressionist; walking camera - our attention as spectators is drawn to the equipment of filmmaking We see the man with a movie camera: In the beer glass On top of the buildings/city At the edge of the water Kino Eye - Camera Ear and the music - cinema used to show that you would look at any aspect and get the same response In the soviet union - Technology advanced the human body parts; fun; uniformity and happiness mixed in with human endeavour; using real things and enhancing it Propaganda
	Ideas expressed through sound/music Magician - Nice music - Children smiling adds to the aesthetic of comfort  In context - Propaganda - ‘Children are safe’ Smiling Intense sound; fast pace; speed of editing - with the sound

A Propos de Nice (1930)

- Great Depression
- Social discontent
- Rise of Marxism/Socialism
- Beginning of European Fascism
- Art Deco
- Cinema as ‘art’ or cinema as a social force

- Modernism and constructivism
- City symphony
- Banality of life
- Jump cuts, juxtaposition and montage editing
- Handheld and hidden camera, social realism

Review

• Juxtaposition between rich visiting and the poor city - Film features: Filming and editing; movement from rich to poor and back; Critical of rich
• Reflects wider aspects of society: Reflection of wealth and prosperity - Linear - Holiday makers - The beach
• Expressionist form - Analysis of bodies - Abstractness (shifts in cinema)
• Forward thinking - Progressive 1920 ‘flappers’ woman
• Rich are unaware of the hardships endured by the poorer population

Between 9:00 - 14:00 minutes

Key Elements of film form	Meaning
Earlier parts - Women/Fade in and out, wearing different clothes - eventually topless	Humans are the same under the clothing - clothing ad different women - layers out of out circumstances
Clothing used to suggest class in relation to french	History - Commentary of
Music and visuals - The carnival (masks, free, whole community) Revolutionary - movement in terms of camera - performance	Carnival - Social unrest rumblings - Vigo on the side of the poor
Ballroom - Closed, the same conformity, social norms and etiquette - price - Rigidity	We go from partying/dancing to the poor boy on the streets - Music stops and series sound starts - Alerts us - Long take

Write 2-3 sentences focusing on specific key elements and analysing how they create meaning 

• Modernism
• Art Deci
• Realism vs Expressionism 
• Constructivism

Vigo uses the idea of expressionism in order to truly reflect how all humans are the same anatomically whilst not in the class system. He seems to focus a lot on peoples bodies and their anatomy in an abstract way in order to convey the message that people are the same whether they’re rich or not.

“In this film, by showing certain basics aspects of a city, a way of life is put on trial, the last gasps of a society so lost in its escapism that it sickens you and makes you sympathetic to a revolutionary solution” - Vigo

With reference to Vigo’s statement, evaluate the effectiveness of him short film, A Propos de Nice as a social commentary of the times. Make detailed references to support your response

Possible Structure

• Introduction - unravel you understanding of the statement: Vigo as a revolutionary; his approach to cinema
• Paragraph/Section 1 - wider, social and political contexts 
• Paragraph/Section 2 - detailed references: themes and key elements
• Paragraph/section 3 - detailed references: themes and key elements
• Conclusion

Analysis of 9-14 minutes

Key elements of film form

• Earlier parts - Rich women/Fade in and out, wearing different clothes
• Clothing used to suggest class in relation to french 
• Superficial elements

Meaning - Social Critique 

• Humans are the same under the clothing - clothing and different women - Layers out of our circumstances
• History - Commentary of

With reference to Vigo’s statement, evaluate the effectiveness of him short film, A Propos de Nice as a social commentary of the times. Make detailed references to support your response

Introduction:  ‘The last gasps of a society so lost in its escapism that it sickens you’ Links to the rich people so lost in the entertainment around them they don’t notice the poor people - Reference to the sequence where we see the rich people dancing in a ballroom then immediately cuts to a poor boy and the music stops. The short film as a whole hints towards how disgusted Virgo is with how the rich don’t pay notice nor care about those below them and how he thinks that everyone is human, therefore the same - Links to sequence where the woman is sitting and it fades in and out with her in different outfits then eventually naked In this statement, Vigo’s passionate intentions reveal both his political convictions and cinematic approach. He makes a compelling point that reveal his disgust of the upper classes. He argues that they need to be scrutinised - to be ‘put on trial’. This powerful language also argues that the only ‘solution’ to the problem of social inequality, is a ‘revolution’. I understand this reference to revolution to refer to radical social change. Vigo believes that cinema can play a part in transforming how we see social inequalities. A Propos de Nice.

Paragraph 1:

Explore how your film option might be considered as either a realist or an expressionist kind of cinema. Mike reference to a particular sequence in your answer [20]

Items for completing the questions

Expressionist Cinema - Linked to film option

Realist cinema - Explore, in our film option

Select sequences to be used/or ‘moments’

Key elements of film form within selected sequences - evaluate them - in turn, with reference to expressionist and then realist cinema

Wider contexts for the film (plus aspects of propaganda)

Examples of Realism in Man with a Movie Camera

• The sports section - Represents people having fun, participating in sports - Showing off the new soviet union
• Everyday people - Real not actors
• This film comics a day/Typical cycle in the day - Evert day experiences: Work, culture and sport

Moment/ sequence	Realist cinema	Modernism	Expressionism	Key elements
leisure and work	Aims to reflect the life of the real people/ real life  In reality not really as happy as shown	Shots of factory workers and machinery; to show case that they are on board with inventions of the future	Exaggeration of happiness  And of life- as life not as free and thriving as shown	Music used to communicate ideas and emotions not dialogue; e.g sounds replicates sounds of machinery; use of symbols
Transport	Vehicles show realistic representation of society;   Trams, planes, boats, ships with cargo, trains  Unscripted- reflects reaslism	Movement reflects transactions: physical development of people; celebration of construction of machinery; the machinery of man and cinema	Exaggerated  Multiple shots and angles to symbolise intensity- drawing our attention  Slo mos and fast pace  Makes it interesting  Abstract interpretation of what we see	Bird’s eye shots- buses leaving Odessa station    We are voyeurs  Fast paced percussion- matching visuals
Culture and sport	*Synchronised sport, even in competitive sport- weird feeling to see the synchronised actions to reflect work in the Soviet Union  Sense of the human machine- in tandem with the cinematic machine  Shows off- camera’s eye- reflecting human innovation	*Propaganda- smiling during sport  Divide between those viewing sport and those who take part	In real life – actions not speed up but the pace of the editing is exaggerated to shape the spectators view of actions/ events  Exaggerated movements of the human body	Speeding up and slowing down the editing  Movement from people not camera  The camera moves around the sport like a spectator taking it all in  KEY ELEMENTS CONTRIBUTE TO HOW WE SEE MORE THAN WHAT WE SEE

 

ESSAY PLAN - Explore how your film option may be considered as either a realist or an expressionist kind of cinema. Make reference to a particular sequence in your answer [20]

Intro: Man with a Movie camera Expressionist approach to realist cinema (as well as a Propos de Nice) Realism in the fact that he simply observed the every day life of real people A Propos de Nice Uses expressionism to put across messages of realism - Sunbathing scene Woman sunbathes and becomes an exaggerated darker colour - she has the time to sunbathe - she is the leisure class

Expressionist for Man with a Movie camera Were constantly reminded of the equipment of filmmaking and who’s filming. Expressionism is used when we see the man with a movie camera in the beer glass and when he seems to be enlarged on top of the city. This consistently draws our attention as spectators to the machinery used to create the film which enhances the themes around machinery and constructivism.

Realist for Man with a Movie camera Simply observing every day peoples lives - Them going off to work (doesn’t stray away from also showing people sleeping rough) - The scenes in which he shows people going to work, he features clips of people sleeping on benches tries to show people how great the soviet union is through work, leisure and sport (yet still shows people homeless and living in poverty)

Expressionist for A Propos de Nice Woman sitting in seat changing clothes then eventually naked - signifies that wealthy or not, everyone is still the same (shoes his disgust with the upper class) Sun bathing person tans on an exaggerated level - represents him as part of the leisure class, he has time to sit out and sunbathe whilst others living in poverty do not

Realism for A Propos de Nice Whilst he shows the reality for people of the higher class, he also simultaneously shows the life of those in the working/lower classes Doesn’t shy away from displaying his disgust for those of the higher class - he strategically places upper class every day life next to lower class everyday life in order to get the message across - Shows upper class dancing without a care in the world, then harshly cuts to the poor conditions and poverty of those living below them

Conclusion: Having explored these films, that in their own way they represent typical features of realism as evidence, but equally veer of in the direction of expressionism as well so it would be too simple to class the films as either one or the other

Essay - Final

In both films, Man with a Movie Camera, and A Propos de Nice, both realist and expressionist views and techniques are presented to the spectator, however they are used in different ways in each film. Vertov, with Man with a Movie Camera has an expressionist approach to realist cinema as he uses camera tricks and speed effects to distort the look of the film to the spectators. He films real people doing everyday things, yet contributes to expressionist cinema with his stylistic choices. However whilst Virgo also has an expressionist approach to realism, Vigo uses this expressionism to express his disgust with the realistic ways of the upper class without being very straight forward about it.

Realism is a very prominent theme within Man with a Movie camera. All throughout the film, Vertov seems to almost document everyday peoples lives. From waking up, going to work, and even leisure activities. Whilst the point of this film is to show how great the soviet union is, Vertov doesn’t stray away from showing people sleeping rough on benches before getting up for work. Slowly but surely, links between humans and machines start being built through actions such as working and also through leisure. Vertov switches the subject of the camera from human to machines as he’s showing the working process of people, by doing this, he’s subtly linking humans to machines in their way of life. Even in sports, whilst recording a sporting event, Vertov uses mechanic sounds in the background which further implies a heavy link to machinery. By comparing humans to machines, Vertov implies how the people of the soviet union are almost flawless, as machines tend to do jobs quickly and perfectly as they never really make mistakes.

However, this link to machinery could also imply that Man with a Movie camera can be perceived in a more expressionist view during certain scenes of the film such as those where Vertov makes a point to show himself with the camera. During some of these scenes, vertov distorts himself with perspective tricks in order to either enlarge him over the city, or make himself small such as in the scene where he seems to be int he beer glass. By constantly drawing attention to himself with the camera with these editing tricks, it constantly reminds the spectators of the process going on behind the camera. Furthermore, by continuously re-establishing the machine which is the camera, themes around constructivism are consistently being built.

Themes around realism in A Propos de Nice are built in a different way to those in Man with a Movie camera. Whilst Vigo presents everyday life of the upper class whilst on holiday, he simultaneously shows the rough living conditions and life of those in the lower/working classes in the country that the upperclass has gone to visit for holiday. Vigo is very straight forward in showing his disgust for those in the higher class. He strategically places clips of the upper class enjoying their leisure time such as dancing, then very abruptly cuts to the harsh conditions of the lower class in order to really get his message of how he feels about the upper class across. As Vigo cuts from the joyous dancing, the music cuts, and sounds that are harsh on the ear are played instead to really emphasis the uncomfortable and horrible conditions of those in lower classes.

Vigo also uses expressionist techniques in order to present his disgust of the upperclass to the spectators. During an early scene of the film, Vigo shows a young man on holiday, sun bathing in the sun. After a few moments the man gets an exaggerated dark skin tone. This exaggerated skin tone could propose the idea that the man had excessive amounts of time to sit in the sun and tan, he had so much time for leisure as he’s not a part of the lower class who has to constantly be working. However whilst also expressing his abhorrence to the upper class, he also expresses how, despite peoples wealth, we are all solely humans underneath. This idea is put forward by a scene in which there is a woman sitting on a chair, and the scene transitions through many different clothes until the woman is eventually naked. This idea of the naked woman expresses how Vigo felt that underneath everything, everyone is still a human being at the end of the day. 

Having explored these films, it is evident that in their own way, they represent typical features of realism, but equally veer of in the direction of expressionism as well so it would be too simple to class the films as either one or the other.