A Silent Movie in the East Village
Close your eyes and picture this (figuratively, of course): you’re in a tiny cinema, shoulder to shoulder with film freaks…that rare breed with academic physiques who don’t bat an eye at a Soviet flick on a Friday night. There are no concession stands…no tubs of popcorn or eight-dollar Cokes. In fact, you can’t bring food or drink inside. And right before the film starts, the lights go out - it’s pitch black. So black, you can’t see your hand six inches from your face. In lieu of sight, your other senses kick in, namely audio; someone’s guts are gurgling two rows back, thick raindrops pelt the pavement on 2nd Avenue, and the saliva in your neighbor’s throat is swirling around like bathwater in a drain.
We’ve come to see Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera – a 1929 Soviet silent film that is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time. Sight & Sound ranked it ninth in its 2022 poll (done once every ten years) and first for documentaries.
In typical New York fashion, we weren’t in a multiplex but a century-old courthouse/prison that was bought in 1979 and transformed into what it is today. Though small in stature, it has an authoritative presence, and inside is a treasure trove of independent, experimental, and avant-garde films, the likes of which exist nowhere else.
I’m no film critic. A pimple-faced intern at Roger Ebert and Co. has more talent in a single strand of hair than I could ever hope to have, so let’s leave that to the professionals. But to quickly explain why this film is so important, I’ll quote Wikipedia and then we’ll get on with it:
“Man with a Movie Camera is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invented, employed or developed, such as multiple exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, match cuts, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, reverse footage, stop motion animations and self-reflexive visuals.”
So…the film starts. Light enters the darkness as black and white Russian letters illuminate a square screen, but it’s still dead silent. You realize you’re about to sit through a ninety-minute film in a room full of strangers in deafening and potentially awkward silence. It took all of thirty seconds to realize there was no accompanying soundtrack, not even an old-timey piano. It was odd, for sure. Everyone felt it at first.
Remember the gurgling gut behind me? And the saliva next to me? The three of us inadvertently entered into a tricky social contract - one of mutual silence. On some self-absorbed level, it felt personal when one of them breached it, but really, everyone in the theater was in on it - no one was immune to the nauseating symphony of intestinal eruptions. If that wasn’t enough, an NYU student battled a tickle in her throat while the asshole in a Mets cap couldn’t figure out how to silence his phone. For a silent movie, there was a lot of sound.
You have to remember that we were there voluntarily. No one forced us to sit through a film of this nature. I wasn’t taken at gun point by Gene Siskel.
“Oh, you think you’re a film buff, huh? We’ll see about that. Now buy your ticket and take your medicine!”
“I don’t know Gene. A black and white Soviet film is a bit much. I’m in the mood for something lighter. Is Ferris Bueller playing anywhere?”
“And you call yourself a cinephile.”
Sure, most of us didn’t know it would be that quiet, but by that point we were in it together. And truth be told, when someone tried to cover a sneeze or silence a yawn, it was, well ... sort of welcomed. Ninety minutes of silence is a long time.
This film is unequivocally brilliant. It’s been on my “to-do” list for a few years and there couldn’t possibly have been a better way to experience it. When it was over the audience applauded – which I love.
I recently saw Sophia Loren in Too Bad She’s Bad at the Lincoln Center in the Upper West Side, Panic in Needle Park at the Paris Theater in Midtown, and this masterpiece at Anthology in the East Village - and all three ended with a round of applause. Only in New York. I love this town.
In case you were wondering what the top ten movies are of all time:
1. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
2. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
3. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
4. Tokyo Story (Ozu Yasujiro, 1953)
5. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2001)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
7. Beau travail (Claire Denis, 1998)
8. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)
9. Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
10. Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1951)
I’ve seen all ten and I can assure you that number one is TOTAL BULLSHIT. It’s too bad when cowards won’t stand up to agenda driven lunatics - especially in the arts. I’ll say it again - Jeanne Dielman does not belong in the top 50.
