Film Studies Daily Log

Thursday, October 28

Students received a two-sided handout on Dziga Vertov.

Students took notes (both of what they understood to be important points and of what they didn't understand) while we rewatched the first few minutes of The Man with a Movie Camera, this time with a commentary by film scholar and critic Yuri Tsivian.  Afterwards we discussed the points Tsivian was making about the ordering of shots in the first reel to depict the city waking up and how this motif was connected with the film's project of waking people up to "things as they are," a central goal of the Kinoks collective.  We also noted Tsivian's analysis of the film as a manifesto of the Kinok's group and an attack on mainstream fiction film, both Hollywood film and film as created by other Russians, Eisenstein included. 

HW due Friday:
Read the handout on Vertov and come to class prepared to answer questions about it.