Kino-Eye The Writings of Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov was one of the greatest innovators of Soviet cinema. The radical complexity of his work―in both sound and silent forms―has given it a central place within contemporary theoretical inquiry. Vertov’s writings, collected here, range from calculated manifestos setting forth his heroic vision of film’s potential to dark ruminations on the inactivity forced upon him by the bureaucratization of the Soviet state.
published by University of California Press
________________
Kino-Eye (Anglophonic: Cine-Eye) is a film technique developed in Soviet Russia by Dziga Vertov. It was also the name of the movement and group that was defined by this technique. Kino-Eye was Vertov’s means of capturing what he believed to be “inaccessible to the human eye”;that is, Kino-Eye films would not attempt to imitate how the human eye saw things. Rather, by assembling film fragments and editing them together in a form of montage, Kino-Eye hoped to activate a new type of perception by creating “a new filmic, i.e., media shaped, reality and a message or an illusion of a message – a semantic field.” Distinct from narrative entertainment cinema forms or otherwise “acted” films, Kino-Eye sought to capture “life unawares” and edit it together in such a way that it would form a new, previously unseen truth.
