Dziga Vertov

Born	January 2, 1896(1896-01-02) Białystok, Russian Empire (now Poland)
Died	February 12, 1954(1954-02-12) (aged 58) Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia)

David Abelevich Kaufman (Дави́д А́белевич Ка́уфман; Denis Kaufman; pseudonym Dziga Vertov; Дзи́га Ве́ртов) was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist. His filming practices and theories influenced the cinéma vérité style of documentary moviemaking and the Dziga Vertov Group, a radical filmmaking cooperative which was active in the 1960s.

Vertov's brothers Boris Kaufman and Mikhail Kaufman were also noted filmmakers, as was his wife, Elizaveta Svilova.

Filmography

• Процесс Миронова, 1919.
• Кинонеделя [Kino Nedelya; Cinema Week], 43 newsreels (1-29), 1919. [1]
• Годовщина революции [Godovshchina revolyutsii; The Anniversary of the Revolution], 1919. [2]
• Битва в Царицыне [Battle of Tsaritsyn], 1920.
• Агитпоезд ВТсИК [Agitpóezd VTsIK], short, 1921.
• Процесс эсеров, 1922.
• История гражданской войны [Istoriya grazhdanskoy voyny; History of the Civil War], 1922.
• Киноправда [Kino-Pravda], 23 numbers (30-37, 40, 43), 1922-25. [3]
• Советские игрушки [Sovietskie igrushki; Soviet Toys], 1924.
• Кино-глаз: Жизнь врасплох [Kinoglaz: zhizn vrasploj; Kino-Eye], 1924. [4]
• Шагай, Совет! [Shagái, Soviet!; Stride, Soviet!], 1926.
• Шестая часть мира [A Sixth of the World], 1926. [5]
• Одиннадцатый [The Eleventh], 1928.
• Человек с киноаппаратом [Man with a Movie Camera], 1929. [6]
• Энтузиазм: Симфония Донбаса [Entuziazm: Simfoniya Donbassa], 1930. [7] [8]
• Три песни о Ленине [Three Songs About Lenin], 1934. [9]
• Памяти Серго Орджоникидзе [Pamyati Sergo Ordzhonikidze; In Memory of Sergo Ordzhonikidze], 1937. совм. с Я. Блиохом.
• Колыбельная [Lullaby], 1937.
• Три героини [Three Heroines], 1938.
• Кровь за кровь, смерть за смерть, 1941.
• На линии огня - операторы кинохроники, 1941.
• Казахстан — фронту! [Kazakhstan for the Front!], 1942.
• В горах Ала-Тау [In the Mountains of Ala-Tau], 1944.
• Клятва молодых, 1944.
• Новости дня [News of the Day], 1944-54.

DVDs

• Dziga Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera DVD, audio commentary track by Yuri Tsivian.
• Entuziazm (Simfonija Donbassa) DVD, restored version and unrestored version plus documentary on Peter Kubelka's restoration.
• Dziga Vertov - Šestaja čast mira und Odinnadcatyi, Edition Filmmuseum, 2 DVD; with music by Michael Nyman, 2010.

Literature

Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov, 1984. Download.

By Vertov

• "We: A Version of a Manifesto" (1922), in Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov, ed. Annette Michelson, trans. Kevin O’Brien, University of California Press, 1984, pp 5-9.
  • "NoS: Variante de manifesto". (in Portuguese)
  • "Wir. Variante eines Manifestes", in Texte zur Theorie des Films, ed. Franz-Josef Albersmeier, Reclam, 1998, pp 31-35. (in German)
• "Kinoks: A Revolution (From an Appeal at the Beginning of 1922)" (1923), in Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov, ed. Annette Michelson, trans. Kevin O’Brien, University of California Press, 1984, pp 11-21.
  • "Kinoki – Umsturz", in Texte zur Theorie des Films, ed. Franz-Josef Albersmeier, Reclam, 1998, pp 36-50. (in German)
• "On the Significance of Nonacted Cinema" (1923), in Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov, ed. Annette Michelson, trans. Kevin O'Brien, University of California Press, University of California Press, 1984, pp 35-38.
  • "La importancia del cine no actuado". (in Spanish)
• "The Birth of Kino-Eye" (1924), in Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov, ed. Annette Michelson, trans. Kevin O’Brien, University of California Press, 1984, pp 40-42.
• "On Kinopravda" (1924), in Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov, ed. Annette Michelson, trans. Kevin O'Brien, University of California Press, 1984, pp 42-47.
• "Kino-Eye" (1926), in Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov, ed. Annette Michelson, trans. Kevin O’Brien, University of California Press, 1984, pp 60-79.
  • "Kinoglaz", in Texte zur Theorie des Films, ed. Franz-Josef Albersmeier, Reclam, 1998, pp 51-53. (in German)
• "The Man with the Movie Camera" (1928), in Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov, ed. Annette Michelson, trans. Kevin O'Brien, University of California Press, 1984, pp 82-85.

Collected writings

• статьи, дневники, замыслы [Stat’i, dnevniki, zamysly], ed. Sergei Drobashenko (Сергей Дробашенко), Moscow: Izd. Iskusstva, 1966, 319 pp. (in Russian)
  • Articles, journaux, projets, trans. Sylviane Mossé and Andrée Robel, Paris: Union générale d'éditions, 1972, 442 pp. (in French)
  • Aufsätze, Tagebücher, Skizzen, Institut für Filmwissenschaft an der Deutschen Hochschule für Filmkunst, 1967, 375 pp. (in German)
• El cine-ojo, trans. Francisco Llinas, Madrid: Editorial Fundamentos, 1973, 215 pp. (in Spanish)
• Schriften zum Film, Hanser, 1976, 170 pp. (in German)
• Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov, ed. Annette Michelson, trans. Kevin O’Brien, University of California Press, 1984, 408 pp.
• Tagebücher, Arbeitshefte, eds. Thomas Tode and Alexandra Gramatke, UVK: Konstanz, 2000, 276 pp. (in German) Foreword, [10]
• Memorias de un cineasta bolchevique, trans. Joaquín Jordà‎, Madrid: Capitán Swing Libros, 2009. (in Spanish)
• L'occhio della rivoluzione. Scritti dal 1922 al 1942, ed. P. Montani, Mimesis, 2011, 276 pp. (in Italian)

On Vertov

Books

• Nikolai Abramov (Николай Абрамов), Джига Вертов [Dziga Vertov], Moscow: Izd. Akademii Nauk, 1962, 165 pp. (in Russian)
  • Dziga Vertov, trans. Barthelemy Amengual, Lyon: Serdoc, 1965. (in French)
• Georges Sadoul, Dziga Vertov, Paris: Champ libre, 1971, 171 pp. Preface by Jean Rouch. (in French)
  • El cine de Dziga Vertov, Era, 1973, 223 pp. (in Spanish)
• Antonín Navrátil, Dziga Vertov. Revolucionář dokumentárního filmu, Prague: Čs. filmový ústav, 1974. (in Czech)
• Elizabeth Ignatyevna Vertov-Svilova (Елизавета Игнатьевна Вертова-Свилова), Anna L. Vinogradova (Анна Львовна Виноградова), Дзига Вертов в воспоминанииах современников, Iskusstvo, 1976, 277 pp. (in Russian)
• Seth Feldman, Evolution of Style in the Early Work of Dziga Vertov, New York: Arno Press, 1977.
• Seth Feldman, Dziga Vertov, A Guide to References and Resources, Boston: G.K.Hall, 1979, 232 pp.
• Vasco Granja, Dziga Vertov, Livros Horizonte, 1981, 96 pp. (in Portuguese) Part.
• Lev Roshal (Лев Моисеевич Рошаль), Дзига Вертов [Dziga Vertov], Moscow, 1982, 263 pp. (in Russian)
• Frédérique Devaux, L'Homme à la caméra de Dziga Vertov, Brussels: Yellow Now, 1990, 126 pp. (in French)
• Vlada Petric, Constructivism in Film: The Man with the Movie Camera: a Cinematic Analysis, CUP Archive, 1993, 325 pp. [11]
• Natascha Drubek-Meyer, Jurij Murasov (eds.), Apparatur und Rhapsodie: zu den Filmen des Dziga Vertov, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2000, 283 pp. (in German) [12]
• Graham Roberts, The Man with the Movie Camera, I. B. Tauris, 2001.
• Yuri Tsivian (ed.), Lines of Resistance: Dziga Vertov and the Twenties, trans. Julian Graffy, Gemona: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, 2004, 422 pp. [13]
  • Excerpt: "Celluloid Manifesto: Reading images and emblems in Dziga Vertov's films", 12 April 2011.
• Austrian Film Museum, Thomas Tode, Barbara Wurm (eds.), Dziga Vertov. The Vertov Collection at the Austrian Film Museum, Vienna: Austrian Film Museum, 2006, 288 pp. (in German/English). Contents, [14], Online version.
• Klemens Gruber (ed.), Verschiedenes über denselben: Dziga Vertov 1896-1954, Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau, 2006, 125 pp. (in German). Contents
• Jeremy Hicks, Dziga Vertov: Defining Documentary Film, London & New York: I. B. Tauris, 2007.
• Peggy Ahwesh, Keith Sanborn (eds.), Vertov from Z to A, trans. Keith Sanborn, New York: Ediciones la Calavera, 2008, 169 pp.
• David Tomas, Vertov, Snow, Farocki: Machine Vision and the Posthuman, Bloomsbury Academic, 2013, 304 pp.

Journal issues

• Annette Michelson, Malcolm Turvey (eds.), October 121, Special Issue: New Vertov Studies (Summer 2007). Contents.
  • Simon Cook, "Our Eyes, Spinning Like Propellers: Wheel of Life, Curve of Velocities, and Dziga Vertov's Theory of the Interval", pp 79–91.

Book chapters, Papers, Articles

• Erik Barnouw, Documentary: a History of the Non-fiction Film, Oxford University Press, 1974.
• Malcolm Le Grice, Abstract Film and Beyond, MIT Press, 1977.
• Vlada Petric, "Dziga Vertov as Theorist", Cinema Journal 18:1 (Autumn 1978), pp 29-44.
• Anna Lawton, "Rhythmic Montage in the Films of Dziga Vertov: A Poetic Use of the Language of Cinema", Pacific Coast Philology, Vol. 13 (October 1978), pp 44-50.
• Peter Weibel, "Eisenstein, Vertov and the Formal Film", trans. Phillip Drummond, in Film as Film: Formal Experiment in Film, 1910-1975, London: The Arts Council of Great Britain, 1979, pp 46-51.
• Gilles Deleuze, "Towards a gaseous perception", in Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam, University of Minnesota Press, 1986, pp 80-86, n229-230.
• Ben Singer. "Connoisseurs of Chaos: Whitman, Vertov and the 'Poetic Survey'", Literature/Film Quarterly 15:4 (Fall 1987), pp 247-258.
• Vlada Petric, "The Vertov Dilemma: Film-Eye vs Film-Truth", Spectator 12:1 (Fall 1991), pp 6-17. [15]
• Patricia R. Zimmermann, "Reconstructing Vertov: Soviet Film Theory and American Radical Documentary", Journal of Film and Video 44:1-2 (Spring-Summer 1992).
• William C. Wees, "The Camera-Eye: Dialectics of a Metaphor", in Light Moving in Time: Studies in the Visual Aesthetics of Avant-Garde Film, University of California Press, 1992, pp 11-30. [16]
• Philip Vilas Bohlman, Music, Modernity, and the Foreign in the New Germany, 1994, pp 121-152.
• Vlada Petric, "Vertov's Cinematic Transposition of Reality", in Beyond Document: Essays on Nonfiction Film, ed. Charles Warren, Wesleyan University Press, 1996, pp 271-294.
• Seth Feldman. "'Peace between Man and Machine': Dziga Vertov's The Man with a Movie Camera.", in Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, eds. Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski, Wayne State University Press, 1998, pp 40-53.
• Jonathan L. Beller, "Dziga Vertov and the Film of Money", Boundary 2 26:3 (1999), pp 151-199
• Douglas Kahn, "Russian Revolutionary Film", in Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts, MIT Press, 1999, pp 139-156.
• Mariano Prunes, "Dziga Vertov's Three Songs about Lenin (1934): A Visual Tour through the History of the Soviet Avant-Garde in the Interwar Years", Criticism 45:2 (Spring 2003)
• Jane de Almeida (ed.), Grupo Dziga Vertov, Sao Paulo: Witz, 2005. (in Portuguese)
• John MacKay, "Disorganized Noise: Enthusiasm and the Ear of the Collective", KinoKultura 7 (January 2005).
• John MacKay, "The 'Spinning Top' Takes Another Turn: Vertov Today", KinoKultura 8 (April 2005).
• John MacKay, "Allegory and Accommodation: Vertov's «Three Songs of Lenin» (1934) as a Stalinist Film", Film History: An International Journal 18:4 (2006), pp 376-391.
• Malcolm Turvey, "The Revelationist Tradition: Exegesis: II", in Doubting Vision Film and the Revelationist Tradition, Oxford University Press, 2008, pp 31-37.
• Irina Sandomirskaia, "One Sixth of the World: Avant-garde Film, the Revolution of Vision, and the Colonization of the USSR Periphery during the 1920s (Towards a Postcolonial Deconstruction of the Soviet Hegemony)", in From Orientalism to Postcoloniality, ed. Kerstin Olofsson, Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2008, pp 8-31.
• Jean-Luc Godard y el Grupo Dziga Vertov, 1968-1974, Barcelona: Prodimag, 2008, 61 pp. Booklet for videodiscs set. (in Spanish) [17]
• Yates McKee, "Post-Communist Notes on Some Vertov Stills", in Communities of Sense: Rethinking Aesthetics and Politics, eds. Beth Hinderliter, et al., Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2009, pp 267-293.
• Sergio Delgado, "Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera and the Phenomenology of Perception"], Film Criticism 34:1 (2009), pp 1-16.
• Christian Quendle, "Rethinking the camera eye: dispositif and subjectivity", New Review of Film and Television Studies 9:4 (December 2011), pp 395-414.
• Joshua Malitsky, "The Dialectics of Thought and Vision in the Films of Dziga Vertov, 1922-1927", in Post-Revolution Nonfiction Film: Building the Soviet and Cuban Nations, Indiana University Press, 2013. [18]
• Lev Manovich, "Visualizing Vertov", 2013, 38 pp.
• Articles on Vertov at Seance.ru. (in Russian)

Documentary films

• Мир без игры, dir. Sergei Drobashenko, 54 min, 1966. [19]
• Дзига и его братья, dir. Evgeny Tsymbal, 2002.
• Все Вертовы, dir. Vladimir Nepevny, 2002.

External links

• Dziga Vertov in UbuWeb Sound: Enthusiasm! (1930), Laboratory Of Hearing (1916), Radio-Ear / Radio-Pravda (1916).
• Vertov at Sense of Cinema
• Dziga Vertov Collection at the Austrian Film Museum
• Vertov.ru
• Vertov at IMDB
• A short biography of Vertov by John MacKay
• Dziga Vertov and Early Animation: Sarah Lewis Interviews Professor John MacKay, 2010.
• Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake