Dziga Vertov's Work as Evaluated by Kazimir Malevich: Dynamic Abstraction in the Film “Man with a Camera”

The article analyzes the aesthetic motives of Dziga Vertov’s film «Man with a Movie Camera» (1929) in the context of Kazimir Malevich’s speculations on cinema and cinematic idiom. In the 1920s, the artist wrote several papers stating the formal decline of contemporary films. He projected hope that dismissing genre and plot clichés such as “inevitable” «kisses» and «happy ends», directors would focus their efforts on the abstract content of the film. Through the use of archival documents the author shows that while mapping out the concept of « Man with a Movie Camera» Vertov was on the same page with Malevich, placing particular emphasis on the «kiss» as a generic symbol of feature films. The documentary maker moves from a «kissless» film, as Malevich puts it, towards developing the dynamic content of the film. Passing from the concrete to the abstract and to futuristic images Vertov fills up the composition of «Man with a Movie Camera» with an elaborate content based on a number of associations and editing rhymes. Tellingly Malevich calls Vertov virtually the only filmmaker in the world set to portray the true reality. And he calls «Man with a Movie Camera» the key work on the way to creating Suprematist cinema. The author of this paper proves that Dziga Vertov was under the great artistic influence of Malevich and contemplated his works in line with non-objective art.