Sight & Sound Top 10 - Man With A Movie Camera

Number 9 in The Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2022.

"I am the camera eye, I am the mechanical eye. I am the machine which shows you the world as only I can see it" – Dziga Vertov

MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA met with bewilderment on its release but is now recognised as one of the most radical films of Soviet cinema, and a major influence on Godard, Marker and others.

It’s a great city-symphony: the ‘Kino-Eye’ turns the camera into the protagonist, providing an impressionistic, lyrical portrait of a day in the life of Moscow’s masses at work and at play. But Vertov also investigates film itself, wittily transforming the world caught by his lens with a dazzling array of experimental camera and editing techniques. The constant invention remains astonishing to this day.

The version chosen for DCP restoration is the 2015 Lobster restoration of MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA with score performed by the Alloy Orchestra.