Man With a Movie Camera Literary Elements

Dziga Vertov

The film has no actors since the only people shown through this documentary are normal citizens who remain anonymous.

Since there are no leading actress and actors, there are no supporting characters either.

Documentary film

This movie is a silent one and there are no intertitles, or written commentaries.

The film was given no awards since at the time it came out it was seen as not something worth analyzing.

The film was released in January 8 1929 in the Soviet Union.

Dziga Vertov

The action takes place in the year 1928, when the documentary was filmed and the action takes place is various cities all across the Soviet union such as Kiev, Kharkov, Moscow and Odessa.

The film gives the impression that the actions are shown from the perspective of a first person subjective narrator.

The mode transmits restlessness and anxiety and this is done through the rapid way in which the narrator films his subjects.

The protagonists are the normal men and women filmed going through the motions of everyday life. Because of the nature of the documentary, there are no antagonists.

While the film has no major plot and as such no defined conflict, we can claim the major conflict is between the rich and the poor since the documentary shows the lives of the two social classes.

The film reaches its climax at the end of the day when the people filmed go to bed.

Among the first shots shown in the film is a homeless man waking up. This scene is used to foreshadow the later more tragic scenes showed in the film such as the instance in which a woman gives birth.

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The documentary is regarded nowadays as being one of the most innovative films in history. It is seen as being the first time when techniques such as superimposing, freeze frames, multiple exposure and Dutch angles were used. It is now considered as being the eight greatest film ever made and this is in part because of the innovation in camera techniques used throughout the film.

One of the main allusions in the film is the idea that social inequality is something that can’t be fixed and that it is better if a person just learns how to ignore those things which may make them uncomfortable.

A paradoxical idea is the way in which the documentary jumps from one tragic event to a happy or even mundane even, transmitting the idea that everything is normal and without showing any type of sympathy for those who were suffering.

A parallel is drawn between the rich and the poor, the purpose being showing to the viewer just how different the two classes were living.