simultaneously. We see him successfully divide a crowd moving in opposing directions, split an opera house in two, show tram cars gliding over one another, and Kaufman striding confidently along the roofs of tall buildings.
In a final resolution, an ultra-fast chain of repetitive images conveys the appearance of a frame of celluloid slowly transforming itself. The acceleration of human and mechanical motion reaches its apogee in a spinning human eye, turning this way and that. Quick flashes, composed from single shots edited together and shown at double speed simultaneously show Kaufman riding a motorcycle and the screen on which his image is being projected; we see the attentive public and the object of their attention — the screen showing the operator’s image and the eyes of the film’s editor. In this accelerated, nearly psychographic, finale, both as it appears on screen and in the filmed reality it captures, are reflected any number of events of the day just past.
For nearly forty years the film was largely forgotten due to the repressions suffered by Soviet filmmakers. Further marginalized as the single-most radical experiment of the major wave of Soviet avant-garde of the 1920s, Man With a Movie Camera became the most talked about work in the history of cinema. The film was initially panned for its ambiguity. Audiences misunderstood it; detractors accused the filmmaker of formalism. Sergei Eisenstein ridiculed some scenes, calling it pointless camera clownishness.
Although Mikhail Kaufman initially shared his brother’s ideas, their views quickly diverged, especially concerning the possibility of using cinematic material which lacked a clearly defined outline. Kaufman regarded Man With a Movie Camera as a failure, siding with disapproving critics of the film, in particular those of Osip Brik, whom Vertov felt had been especially unfair. Vertov accused his brother of betrayal and creative ineptitude.
In response, Mikhail Kaufman shot the film In Spring, using a few frames which he had shot earlier while working with his brother. Vertov accused Kaufman of plagiarism, though Kaufman considered these frames his own as the camera used to shoot them had belonged to him.
At its core, the argument between the brothers was of a professional nature. Kaufman was convinced that in the creation of the film the cinematographer was every bit as important as the director. Kaufman placed before himself a task to shoot a film without intertitles that could, nonetheless, be more readily understood by the general public.
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