One of the unfortunate side effects of the Digital Revolution has been a tendency to ignore or reject all culture created during the Analog Age. However, fewer people reading hardcopy books does not mean that one should ignore thousands of years spent in development of the literary craft; in cinematic terms, the dramatic tradition created by the ancient Greeks like Sophocles and Aristophanes is still highly relevant to anyone trying to tell a story, and the same is true in digital documentary. As a result, it is important to review the cinematic tradition on a regular basis, and evaluate what ideas and techniques are relevant and worth keeping.
In the field of documentary, this should be a relatively simple task, since the field of historically important documentarians is very limited compared to fiction film. However, the very political nature of documentary has led to historical revisionism on a grand scale; only now, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, have we been permitted access to all the work and writings of the Soviet documentary director Dziga Vertov, and we can now fully appreciate his importance and relevance to digital documentary today.
If you have not seen any of Dziga Vertov's work, I would strongly recommend starting with his legendary THE MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA. Produced in 1929, just before the advent of sound films, this documentary shows a day in the life of the city of Moscow, and is a visual tour de force with the most sophisticated camera and editing tricks imaginable. Indeed, some Vertov fans see this film as a manual for documentary technique in disguise; it is impossible to know Vertov's intentions for sure, but this interpretation is entirely plausible.
When the film was shown in Germany and France, it made big waves. Famous German film critic Siegfried Kracauer praised it as proof that Soviet cinema was still capable of innovation after the early works of Eisenstein and Pudovkin in the beginning of the 1920's, and Charlie Chaplin was wildly enthusiastic. When the film was shown in New York in 1930, Jay Leyda, the great historian of Russian cinema, wrote," It was such a dazzling experience that it took three or four Soviet films with normal " stories" to convince me that all Soviet films were not composed of such intricate camera pyrotechnics."
Even today, THE MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA is invariably included in lists of the 10 best films of all time - and is the only documentary ever included on these lists. It can be seen in its entirety of 100+ minutes on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er2thJbAbwQ
When you see it, you may be shocked to discover how little in it is overtly political. After all, this film was produced after Stalin had been in power for 5 years; however, Stalin's consolidation of power was slow and steady, rather than spectacular. Soon Vertov was denounced by party hacks for what they called his " bourgeois formalism",an epithet which was the cultural kiss of death, since it implied that the artist was more devoted to developing the art form rather than conveying the party line. In Vertov's case, there can be little doubt today that the charge was true, which is why Vertov remains still relevant today. The very production of this film was a courageous act, since Vertov must have known what was to come.
His next major production seen in the West was his ode to Lenin on the 10th anniversary of the Bolshevik leader's death titled THREE SONGS OF LENIN. This film was a sound film, consisting of three folksongs written to honor Lenin. Since Lenin was worshipped in the USSR as the unchallenged ideological father of the revolution. Vertov doubtless thought he was on pretty safe ground. Who could criticize a salute to Lenin?
The answer, of course, was Stalin, who made it clear that he did not like the film at all. citing some ideological errors. No one argued on Vertov's behalf, so we will never know the real reason for Stalin's dislike of the film. There are several theories, but I like the simple one; there was way too much Lenin in the film, and nowhere near enough Stalin. Vertov had tried to include some shots of Stalin, but they revealed his pockmarks and other cosmetic deficiencies, which doubtless did not help. However, it is worth judging for yourself, since this film was way ahead of its time in many respects, including the use of sound. For me, the second song on the emancipation of Muslim women from the veil in the Soviet Asian states, was totally unexpected, and is a masterful attack on the subjugation of women in traditional Moslem societies. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeWK5iRp0BE
Indeed, shortly after seeing this film, Stalin put an end to all production of documentaries, preferring Hollywood style dramatic productions to put accross the ideological message. While there was a reasonable economic argument for this choice due to the shortage of film stock in the USSR, and the high shooting ratio required by documentaries as opposed to dramatic productions, it seems probable that Stalin just preferred the total control of the product only possible to dramatic productions.
Vertov and his colleagues were denounced with a new epithet - " documentalist" - and the greatest documentarian of all time was demoted to a job editing pedestrian newsreels. In spite of countless proposals, Vertov was never to make another film again. He died in 1954, survived by his wife Elizaveta, who had been his collaborator and editor for more than thirty years.
I mention here Vertov's two most famous works; others can also be seen on YouTube. However, for me his writings and vision for what he called his Kino Eye are equally important, since they are a harbinger of the Digital Revolution. As an artist, Vertov was influenced by the famous Soviet poet and Constructivist leader Majakovsky, and one of the major characteristics of the Constructivists was a belief in the need for constant change, and a faith in the benefits of technological development. In this sense, the Constructivists were ancestors of Steve Jobs and his colleagues in Silicon Valley, as well as the Cypher Punks and the various groups of Internet believers.
Vertov attempted to apply the Constructivist theory to cinema, and attacked all dramatic production as inherently bourgeois; instead, he advocated promoting documentary production by the masses. and set about creating training programs for his Kinoks, thereby democratizing the medium by de-centralizing production and giving a voice to people on the ground. He wrote extensively on documentary techniques for camera, sound and editing, and much of what he wrote remains valid today.
Furthermore, he proposed the creation of cinema data banks and archives for this material, so everyone would have access and see what their comrades were doing in different parts of the country, and even the world. Such visions were truly radical for the 1920's, and are prescient of the internet we have today. Vertov had both the gift, and the curse , of being a man far ahead of his time.
He deserves to be recognized as the father of contemporary documentary, since both his practice and this theory remain highly relevant today. Anyone designing a program for the employment of multimedia technology in development strategies should study Dziga Vertov, and benefit from
his extraordinary efforts and ideas.
W
