Vertov & the Cinema-Eye

Reading: Dziga Vertov, “Film Directors: A Revolution”

“Freed from the obligation of 16-17 frames a second, freed from the limits of time and space, I can contrast any points in the universe, wherever I might fix them.

My way leads to the creation of a fresh perception of the world. And this is how I can decipher anew a world unknown to you.” (Vertov, 260)

“… I can contrast any points in the universe….”

Vertov’s writings are instantly rapturous, intoxicated by the power of the moving image to create. His verse is manic, poetic, almost as though he were an addict raving in the throws of his captivity.

For Vertov, I am left with two impressions.

First, a god complex is revealed, making rash claims that through this tool, as beautiful as it is, he can outdo all the other beauties in the created world by combining them, contrasting them. He believes that by choosing separate parts of the best, he can “create a new, perfect man in montage” (Vertov 260), a man “more perfect than Adam was created” (Vertov 260). He believes that cinema is power to combine the best, claiming this as though the universe were suddenly his, as though nothing is incapable of being captured and made submissive in cinema.

Second, I see a truth of cinema: the allure of the illusion, the rendering of fictive worlds, holds powers. Since the time of his writing, how much of that power has been explored and how much is uncharted?

Vertov’s writings bring forward several questions for me:

1. Though he suggests that we must bring the camera out of its state of being “wretchedly enslaved” (258) to the human eye, how exactly can we overcome our own capability to see? Can we even perceive liberation from our sight if our sight is the only doorway to perceive it?

2. Vertov believes that the cinema eye is “more perfect that the human eye for fathoming the chaos of those visual phenomena” (259), but what is he not mentioning that the cinema eye lacks?

3. He says, “I am the cinema-eye. I am a constructor” (260). He rants about his own abandoned restraint. In what practical way can each spectator be given their own ability to construct? Simply through what the director presents in montage? Or is it something more he demands?

Truly, Vertov strikes me as intoxicated by the potential of cinema and as a man who looks for the liberation and potential of what he sees as a highly powerful art.