About

Screens with All the World's Memories 1957.

Pioneering Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov (David Abelevich Kaufman's pseudonym meaning 'spinning top') is credited as producing the first major city symphony – a film that celebrates the visual language of the modern cityscape with a radical innovation reflecting this technological development. Man With a Movie Camera, billed in the opening credits as an 'experiment in cinematic communication of visible events', observes daily life in Moscow, Odessa and Kiev. Vertov shoots scenes from his hip and employs a vast number of special effects and transitions to create as distinct and bewildering image of modern life. Dismissed at the time of its release and even labelled by director Sergei Eisenstein as "cine-hooliganism", the film is now regarded as one of the greatest documentaries of all time.