Which one do you like more? Man with movie camera is my favourite, but both films are great, and here are some moments, wich I wish were in Man with movie camera, like mor focus on the city and less focus to the film-making. But the editing in MWMC is just unbeatable.
A v purpurovej žiare brieždenia zhárajú vtáci. Vtáci - najkrídlatejší z tvorov.
I agree. The Man with the Movie Camera is better in terms of style (editing being the most obvious). On the other hand, Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt seems to have a better narrative (I'm not sure if that's the right expression in this case) structure.
Im Kino gewesen. Geweint. ---Franz Kafka
You are right, the German movie has a better narrative structure.
I think however the movie of Vertov is one of the top-ten of all times, while this one should be probably in the next ten.
It is true that the movie of Ruttmann has a great narrative structure, and anyhow is more fucused on the city - only Vertov tried another thing - he tried to give us a movie containing in the same time the naarative and the making of the narrative. His Man witha Camera is not so much about Moscow (or Odessa), as it is about the relationship between the movie creator and its creation, about two universes - that univers that is shot and the universe within the eye of the cameraan.
I don't know other movie like Vertov's.
Good analysis. Vertov was probably influenced by Ruttman's film, but his film is not a simple description of a city: Vertov shows at the same time filmmaker's work and portrait of city. Both films are magnificent poems about modern life (Cf. Charles Baudelaire).
I hope to see other films in this style!
I watched Vertov's film for the first time 3 months ago and Ruttmann's film only yesterday; I'm copying shamelessly what I just wrote about this interesting experience for my movie forum :) ... :
This film seems to have been a success when it came out, and is said to be the film that gave Dziga Vertov the idea to his acclaimed "The Man with the Movie Camera" which was released two years later.
The similarity is indeed amazing, there's more of it than I had expected. Many shots appear in both films, like trains, rails, a wedding, people eating, newpaper printing machines, trams, horses, closeups on a typewriter, shop layouts, sport events, people working, people celebrating ... and there's (almost) the same fast editing plus the overall scheme is the same: watching a city and its people from early day break to late in the night.
But despite all the visual similarities, what intrigued me most were the differences which lie not so much in shooting and editing, but in the overall atmosphere of the two films. Ruttmann's film is a bit slower, less daring, less driven by a motivation outside the film, I mean: it's an interesting portrait of Berlin and its inhabitants and conditions of life, but Vertov's film portrayed not only places and people, but it's also a (embellished?) self portrait of life under communism, which may be responsible for his film being more witty, more inspired, somehow more purposeful because he seems (to me) to be more determined to emphasize the bright sight of life, and he does it brilliantly, so his result is overall more entertaining to watch and more artistically perfect than Ruttmann's.
For lack of material to base a comparison on I have no idea how innovative Ruttmann's film was as I'm not familiar with films of that era. It was a fascinating experience to watch both these films (and I'll certainly watch them again for closer analysis of their intrinsic relation), but despite Ruttmann's film appears to me as a very good and solid and sincere accomplishment, I wouldn't hesitate to call Vertov's the better of the two - even considering the possibility that the Russian film might not even exist without the German predecessor.
Btw, while I watched Vertov's film, "Koyaanisqatsi" soon came to my mind inevitably (and I suddenly discovered that, in contrast to Vertov's film, "Koyaanisqatsi" hasn't aged well) but not so while watching Ruttmann's film; the mental distance is greater.
Regards, Rosabel
Thank goodness there's some sense on this board. I was worried people were hung up on the similarites of the films to not notice the differences, but I need not have been worried.
They both attempt to accomplish utterly different things with film, and it'd be a shame if people simply held them next to each other. They're profoundly opposed, even, and comparing them does neither justice.
I proclaim ignorance in everything I say.
vertov's film is a copy, a sham. and all of the movie 'special' effects were quite irritating to me. rutmann's film is beautiful, graceful. there'd be no mwamc had rutmann's film never been made. i just think vertov is picked out because it sounds smarter to pick the russian's work over those crazy germans. and while i do have a bit of respect for mwamc, 'Berlin: Symphony of a Big (Great) City' is the original. would vertov's movie be as good without rutmann? i say 'no.'
sharePackyman - knowing what you are talking about helps a lot when making critical judgments about the originality of vertov. try looking at vertov's earlier works (from before berlin), and read some of the historical and critical analysis of ruttman, and you'll realize that berlin was influenced by vertov's early works. if vertov copied berlin, then he was just copying a copy of his own work...
shareMan With a Movie Camera is better in every way. I actually did not think Berlin was that interesting.
- This comment is most likely authentic and fairly close to what I intended to say -
"Berlin" was great--I haven't seen the other yet (Man with a Camera). But it is silly to deride a later movie for making use of an earlier one....isn't moviemaking supposed to be a process of building on the genius of the predecessor? (Not that it always woreks out that way!)
"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird
I do not understand why people are saying Vertov built of Ruttman. The Man with a Movie is a build up of Vertov's ideas and perhaps its purest expression. He had been experimenting with this style of filmaking since the early twenties and if you go back and watch his earlier films and read up on what he was trying to achieve you may not be so quick to point to Berlin as his influence. He probably didn't even see the thing.
Similarities people are noticing seem to me superficial at best. "Looks, shots of trains. I've seen that somewhere before." Both films are non-narrative and are filming everyday life--naturally there will be some similarities in what is seen. But the content of the image is less important than the form of the image, and this is the major difference between the two films.
I will stop typing now and hope that somebody can give a convincing response that the two are in any way related beyond the fact that they film real life in real cities.
I proclaim ignorance.