Turvey, Malcolm_Can the Camera See? Mimesis in "Man With a Movie Camera"

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Can the Camera See? Mimesis in "Man with a Movie Camera"Author(s): Malcolm TurveySource: October, Vol. 89 (Summer, 1999), pp. 25-50Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/779138 .

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Can the

Camera

See?

Mimesis

in

Man

with

a

Movie

Camera*

MALCOLM TURVEY

Machines have

less

problems

..

I

would

like

to be a

machine,

wouldn t

you

?

-Andy

Warhol

It

comes o this:

only of

a

living

human

being

and what resembles

behaves

like)

a

living

human

being

can

one

say:

it

has

sensations;

it

sees;

s

blind;

hears;

s

deaf;

is

conscious

or

unconscious.

-Ludwig Wittgenstein

There

is a

remarkable

sequence

somewhere near

the

end of

Man with

a

Movie

Cameran

which

the

movie

camera,

having

enjoyed

a

starring

role

throughout

the

film,

performs

an

encore.

Emerging

on

its

own onto

a

bare

stage,

the

camera

proceeds

to

walk

about on

its

tripod

like

a

human

being,

carefully

displaying

its

limbs

to the

appreciative

audience within

the

film

and

almost

bowing

to

the

audience

in

the

process.

The

audience

members

smile

with

delight

in

recognition

of

the

machine's

virtuosity,

and in

doing

so,

echo

the

smiles of

children

from

an

earlier

sequence

in

the film

who witnessed and similarly delighted in the perfor-

mance of

a

magician.

And

indeed,

if

we

had

to

choose a

human

being

whom

the

camera most

clearly

resembles at

this

moment,

it

would be

the

magician

from

the

earlier

sequence

because of

the

aura of

"magic"

that

surrounds

its

appearance

on

the

stage.

By

conferring

human

attributes on his

camera in

this

celebrated

sequence

of

his

1929

film,

Vertov

is

replicating

in his

film

practice

a

major

rhetorical

tendency

*

I

thank

Annette

Michelson,

Brian

Price,

the

members

of

Richard

Allen's

informal

dissertation

seminar

at

New

York

University,

and

the

members

of

the

University

Seminar on

Cinema

and

Interdisciplinary Interpretation at Columbia University for their invaluable comments and criticisms. I

thank

Maria

Gough

for

her

kindness in

giving

me

bibliographic

advice.

OCTOBER

9,

Summer

999,

pp.

25-50.

?

1999

Malcolm

Turvey.



OCTOBER

of his

film

theory.

This is his

tendency

to

ascribe to the camera

predicates-

primarily perceptual predicates-that

we

normally

reserve for

human

beings

and

other

living

creatures. As

Wittgenstein

reminds

us,

for us it is

living

human

beings

"and what resembles

(behaves like)

a

living

human

being"

who see and

hear,

who

are

hungry

and feel

pain.

But

in

his

film

theory,

Vertov

grants

the camera the

ability

to do at least one of these

things, namely,

the

ability

to see.Here is

a

typical example,

a kind of free indirect

speech

on behalf of

the camera:

"I

am

kino-eye,

I

am a

mechanical

eye.

I,

a

machine,

show

you

the

world as

only

I

can see

it."l

Vertov's

theoretical

writings

are full of similar

passages

in

which he

bestows

on the camera

the

power

of

sight

and the

capacity

to show and reveal

things

to the

film

spectator.

Reading

these

passages,

it is as if

Vertov's

camera

were somehow

alive,

as if it

were

an

agent

of some kind with

intentionality,

a will.

Why

does Vertov do this?

Why

does he

routinely

violate the

logical grammar

of

expressions

that are

normally

only predicable

of human

beings

and

living

creatures

by extending

them to the

film

camera,

a machine?

Why

does he confer human

attributes

upon

his camera

in

his

film

theory

and

practice?

1.

Dziga

Vertov,

"The Council of

Three,"

in

Kino-Eye:

The

Writings of Dziga

Vertov,

d. Annette

Michelson,

trans. Kevin O'Brien

(London:

Pluto

Press,

1984),

p.

17.

Dziga

Vertov.

Man with a Movie Camera. 1929.

The audience

or

whom he camera

performs

n

stage.

26



Can the Camera

See?

Mimesis in Man

with a Movie

Camera

I

We

might begin

to

answer

this

question

by briefly considering

whether

Vertov's

camera-eye

does

in

fact constitute a

violation of the

grammar

of

perceptual

expressions.

For we often

say

that machines

can do

things

that human

beings

do.

Like a

human

being,

we

say

that a machine

can heat

a

room,

wash

dishes,

and

cook food. We

sometimes

go

further and attribute mental

capacities

to

machines.

We

say,

for

example,

that

computers

can calculate

and make deductions.

Might

it

not be

acceptable,

therefore,

for Vertov to attribute

perceptual capacities

to

his

camera,

just

as

we attribute mental

capacities

to

computers?

This

is a

philosophical

or

logical

question,

not an

empirical

one,

about

the

grammar or rules of use of certain expressions, about when and how we use such

expressions correctly.

Philosophers

such

as

Charles

Taylor

have an

explanation

for

how

we

use action-terms in

relation to

machines:

[T]he

attribution of an

action-term to

such

[machines]

is

relative

to

our

interests and

projects.

A machine

phis

because

we have

manufac-

tured

it

to

phi,

or

we use it to

phi,

or we

are

interested

in it in

respect

of

the

phi-ing

it

gets

done.2

In

other

words,

we attribute

action-terms to

machines to

refer to

the

purposes

defined

by

us and

served

by

machines.

We

say

that a

computer

calculates because

its

parts

interact

causally

to

produce

something

that we call a

calculation,3

and we

say

that

a radiator

heats a room

because its

parts

interact

causally

to

accomplish

a

task

that

we call

heating

a

room. The

tasks that

machines

perform

are the

contin-

gent

product

of their

parts.

It is we

human

beings

who define

the

meaning

of

these

tasks with

action-terms

and

other

expressions.4

Does

Vertov

therefore

say

that a

camera

sees

because

this is

the task

that it

performs-its

purpose-as

defined

by

ourselves as

human

beings?

2.

Charles

Taylor, "Cognitive Psychology,"

in

Human

Agency

and

Language:PhilosophicalPapers 1,

(Cambridge:

Cambridge University

Press,

1985),

p.

193.

3.

Philosophers

warn,

however,

about

drawing

mistaken

conclusions from

this

use

of

cognitive

predicates

in

relation

to

computers,

such as

the

conclusion that

computers

are

really

capable

of

calcu-

lating.

Tasks such

as

calculation,

they

argue,

are

practices, ule-governed

activities,

and

the criteria for

saying

that

someone is

calculating

are the

person's

behavior while

calculating

and

the

person's

ability

to

explain

his

or

her

calculations. In

this

sense,

a

computer

does

not

calculate

anything,

because a

computer

does not follow

any

rules

at all. As

John

Hyman

puts

it,

"if

[like

a

machine]

I

am

causally

constrained from

breaking

a

rule

(or,

for that

matter,

from

obeying

it),

then I can

no

longer

obey

or

break

the rule

at

all:

the rule

can no

longer

apply

to

me"

(Hyman,

introduction

to

Investigating

Psychology,

d.

Hyman

[London:

Routledge,

1991],

p.

16).

4.

For

Taylor,

the

fact

that the

action-terms

we

attribute to

machines

are

relative to

the

interests

and

purposes

of

human

beings

constitutes the

fundamental

difference

between

human

beings

and

machines.

The tasks

that

machines

perform

have no

meaning

for

machines

themselves.

These

tasks are

merely

the

contingent

output

of their

causally

interacting parts,

and their

meaning

is defined

by

human

beings. By

contrast,

the

actions of

human

beings

do

have

meaning

for

them.

Human

beings

are

creatures

for whom

actions

have

meaning,

according

to

Taylor,

and this

makes them

"self-interpreters."

27



OCTOBER

It is true that the camera's

standard

purpose

is to

give

us

perceptual

access

to

something, whether real or fictional. Indeed, many film theorists and filmmakers

have exalted and

glorified

this

purpose,

arguing

that the camera

is,

to

borrow

Annette Michelson's felicitous

phrase,

a "tool of

enlightenment,"

much like

a

telescope

or

microscope.

However,

such a

purpose

does not

justify

Vertov

saying

that

the

camera

sees,

as

the

comparison

with

telescopes

and

microscopes

demon-

strates. For we do not

say

that a

microscope literally

sees,

or

that

a

telescope

looks,

any

more than

we

say

that these instruments observe. For the

purpose

of

these

instruments is

not

to

see.

Rather,

we

say

that we see

through

or see with

telescopes

and

microscopes.

They

enable

human

beings

to see better

by extending

our

per-

ceptual

and

cognitive

access

to the natural universe. These instruments do

not

themselves see and we did not design or build them to do so. Similarly,a camera

enables us to

see,

just

as a

Niagra

enables us to

hear,

by recording

something

for

us. But while the

purpose

of a

computer

is to

produce

calculations and that of

a

radiator to

produce

heat,

the camera is not

designed

to see or

produce sight,

but

rather to enable us to see

something

that it has recorded. This

is

because,

as

Wittgenstein

made

clear,

we use

perceptual predicates

such as

"seeing"

to

refer

to

the behavior f a

living

creature.

Seeing

and

hearing

are not tasks

that we

perform

like

cooking,

tasks that are

the outcome or

end

product

of

certain actions and

that can

be

duplicated by

a

machine.

Rather,

such

perceptual

predicates

refer to

specific patterns

of

behavior

in

certain

circumstances:

That a creature

can

perceive

is

established

by

observing

its

behavior,

its

discriminatory,

conative and

affective

responses

to

visibilia, audibilia,

etc.,

its

use of its

perceptual organs

in

discerning objects,

sounds,

smells or

warmth

in

its

environment. It is

not the

eye,

brain,

mind or

soul that

perceives,

but... the

living

creature;

and

we determine that

it

perceives

by observing

its behaviorn

appropriate

circumstances.5

It is for this

reason that

we do not

ascribe


to

parts

of the

body.

We do not

say

that

"My eyes

are

seeing

that

man,"

or

"My eyes

are

looking

through

this

book,"

except

metonymically

("Mine

eyes

have

seen the

glory

of

the

coming

of the

Lord ").

Rather,

we

say

that

"I

see

that

man,"

or,

"I

am

looking

through

the

book,"

because

seeing

is

something

that a whole

living

creature

does

as

manifested

in

its

behavior,

not

one of its

parts

such

as its

eyes.

It is for

the

same

reason

that we do

not

say

that a

camera

sees. We

say

that

we use a

camera to

see,

as

we use our

eyes

to

see,

because

seeing

is not

the

product

of a

mechanism,

whether

organic

or

mechanical.

Rather,

it

refers to

certain

patterns

of

behavior of a

creature.

Thus,

it

seems as

though

Vertov's

camera-eye

language

is

not

equivalent

to

the

5.

P.

M.

S.

Hacker,

Appearance

and

Reality:

A

Philosophical

nvestigation

nto

Perception

nd

Perceptual

Qualities (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987),

p.

19. See also Hacker, "Men, Minds, and Machines," in

Wittgenstein:

Meaning

and

Mind,

Volume3

of

an

Analytical

Commentary

n

the

Philosophical

nvestigations

(Oxford:

Basil

Blackwell, 1993).

28



Can the CameraSee?Mimesis n Man with a Movie Camera

29

ascription

of other

action-terms

to machines. For

although

the camera

certainly

serves a purpose-it enables us to see something by recording it-its purpose is

not to

see,

because we

use


to

refer to

patterns

of

behavior

of

a

living

creature rather than a task

or

purpose

that can be

duplicated

by

a

machine. For us to

say

that a

machine such

as

a camera can

see,

at the

very

least

it

would have to

behave

as if it

could see.

II

This

does

not

mean, however,

that Vertov's

camera-eye

language

violates

the

logical grammar

of

perceptual predicates.

For

one

possible

answer-perhaps

the

most obvious answer-to the question of why Vertov ascribes such predicates to

his

camera

in

his

theory

and

practice

is that

he does so

metaphorically,

nd

that

he

intends to

get

us,

his readers

and

viewers,

to

imaginatively

entertain

the idea that

the

camera can see

rather than to

believe that it

literally

can see. As

Stan

Brakhage,

another

progenitor

of

the

camera-eye

metaphor,

warns

in

his

Metaphors

on Vision

(as

if

suddenly

aware

that his own visual

metaphors

are

treading

a fine

line),

a

computer

is

"no

more God

nor even a

'thinking

machine' than the camera

eye

[is]

all-seeing

or

capable

of

creative

selectivity,

both

essentially

restricted

to

'yes-no,'

'stop-go,'

'on-off,'

and

instrumentally

dedicated to

communication of the

simplest

sort."6

It seems

obvious that

a camera is

merely

a

mechanical

recording

device and that Vertov's talk of a camera-eye must be metaphorical. One way,

perhaps,

of

understanding

such talk

is to

place

it

within the

family

of activities

that Walter

Benjamin,

among

others,

attributed

to the

"mimetic

faculty,"

the

human

"gift

of

seeing

resemblances."

Benjamin

suggested

that

a "mimetic

faculty"

was

responsible

for the

"magical

correspondences

and

analogies

familiar to

ancient

peoples"

and

that it

continues to

find "its

school" in

modernity

in

the

play

of

children.7

We do not

have to

go

as far

as

Benjamin

and

postulate

the

existence

of

a

mysterious

faculty

to

recognize

that children

often

imaginatively

attribute

human

capacities

and

characteristics to

nonhuman

objects,

especially

those

that

bear a

morphological

resemblance to

humans,

such as

dolls,

and

that

such

playful

mimetic games survive in various waysinto adulthood.

Vertov's

camera-eye

can

perhaps

be

understood

as

just

such

a

mimetic

game,

a

playful

visual

and

verbal

metaphor

based on

morphological

similarities

between

the

camera

and human

beings. Certainly,

Man

with a

Movie

Camera

repeatedly

and

deliberately

underscores such

morphological

similarities.

The

famous

shot

of

the

human

eye

superimposed

on the

camera

lens,

for

example,

is

designed

to

high-

light

the

morphological

similarities

between

the

two,

and

the

sequence

already

6.

Stan

Brakhage,

"Metaphors

on

Vision"

(excerpt),

in

The

Avant-Garde

ilm:

A

Reader

of

Theory

nd

Criticism, d. P.Adams

Sitney

(New York:

Anthology

Film Archives, 1987),

p.

127.

7.

Walter

Benjamin,

"On

the

Mimetic

Faculty,"

in

Reflections,

rans.

Edmund

Jephcott,

ed. Peter

Demetz

(New

York:

Schocken

Books,

1978),

pp.

333,

334.



OCTOBER

described in which

the

camera walks around

on the

stage playfully

exploits

the

similarities between the human form and the camera. Moreover, the audience in

this

sequence

is

shown

smiling

and

laughing

at the camera's movements.

It is

not

deceived

by

the "illusion"

that the camera

can move around

on its

own like

a

human

being.

The

audience members do

not take

it

literally.

Rather,

they

smile

and

laugh

as if

it were a

playful

joke,

an

amusing,

childish,

metaphorical

conceit,

which is

a

good

indication that

we-Vertov's

viewers and

readers-should

take

it

in

the same

way.

Also,

it is

easy

to locate

in

Vertov's

film

theory

a

plausible

rationale

for

such

a

visual and

verbal

metaphor:

The

mechanical

eye,

the

camera, rejecting

the

human

eye

as

crib

sheet,

gropes

its

way

through

the chaos

of visual

events,

letting

itself

be

drawn

or

repelled by

movement,

probing,

as it

goes,

the

path

of

its

own

movement.

It

experiments, distending

time,

dissecting

movement, or,

in

contrary

fashion,

absorbing

time within

itself,

swallowing

years,

thus

schematizing

processes

of

long

duration

inaccessible to

the

normal

eye.8

This

passage

is

typical

of

Vertov's film

theory

in

its

argument

that

the

camera is

much more

powerful

than the

human

eye

because

it can show and

reveal to

human

beings

what the

eye

cannot

see. For

Vertov,

there are two

reasons for

the

superior

power

of the camera: it is more mobile

than the human

eye,

and it

can

manipulate

time.

I

would

suggest

that

it

is

precisely

this reverence for

the

camera's

superiority-a

reverence

that

is

the sine

qua

non

of

Vertov's film

theory,

expressed

time and time

again-that

is the

most

obvious

motivation

for

the

camera-eye

metaphor.

For

by asking

us to

entertain the

idea that the

camera

can

see,

Vertov is

suggesting

that the

camera's

power

is so

great

that it is

as

if

the

camera were

itself

an

independent

agent

of

sight

like a human

being.

For

him,

the

camera is

so

far

superior

to the

human

eye

that it

is as

if

the

camera itself

possessed

visual

powers.

By

suggesting

that the

camera

can

see

like

a human

being,

Vertov

is

asking

us,

in

effect,

to

join

him in

his

feeling

of

awe and

reverence

at

the

power

of

the

camera

as

a new

technology,

and he is

trying

to

elicit in

us

a

sense of

almost

childlike

wonder and

delight

at the

magnitude

and

potential

of

this

power.

Furthermore,

if

Vertov's

camera-eye

is

a

mimetic

metaphor,

then it

is

in

venerable

company.

For

film

theory

in

general

has

been

a

mimetic

undertaking

in

which

human

attributes

and

capacities

are

metaphorically

extended to the

cinematic

apparatus

(or

some

aspect

of

it)

on

the

basis

of both

sensuous,

morphological

similarities

and

more

abstract,

nonsensuous

ones.

Consider

psychoanalytic

film

theory,

with

its

notion of

the

camera

as

"voyeuristic"

and

the shot

as

a

"gaze"

that

"fetishizes"

the

bodies of

women in

film

as

well

as the

"body"

of

the film

medium

8.

Vertov,

"The

Council of

Three,"

p.

19.

30



Can the

CameraSee?

Mimesis n Man with a

Movie

Camera

itself;

and

Pudovkin's

1926

monograph

Film

Technique

nd the

filmmaking

manuals

from Hollywood's classical period which advocate the use of the camera as an

ideal,

"invisible observer." And then there are

the

numerous

analogies

between

cinema and the human mind

that

have

dominated film

theory

since its

inception.

Eisenstein

produced

volumes of film

theory

(and

a

unique

filmic

style)

upon

the

basis

of the

analogy

between cinematic

montage

and dialectical

thinking.9

And,

more

recently,

Christian Metz founded

an entire tradition

of

psychoanalytic

film

theory

upon

the

analogy

between the filmic

image

and the

psychological

concept

of

the

Imaginary.10

Like

Vertov,

these and

many

other

film

theorists and

film

theoretical traditions

mimetically

ascribe human attributes and

capacities

to

the

camera

in

order to

conceptualize

its

power.

Vertov's

camera-eye language,

one

could therefore reasonably conclude, is an imaginative metaphor designed to

elicit in us

a sense of

childlike

wonder and awe

at

the

power

of

the

camera

through

the

suggestion

that it

can see. It is

based on

morphological

similarities

between

the

camera and the human

eye

and

body,

and it

is

just

one of a

number

of

examples

of

our

so-called mimetic

faculty's

fondness for

the

cinema.

This

interpretation

of the

camera-eye,

however,

leaves certain

problems

and

questions

unanswered.

To

start

with-as

is

obvious from

Vertov's

argument

that

the

camera

is

a

much more

powerful

instrument

of

sight

than the

human

eye-

Vertov's

ascription

of

human

predicates

to

the

camera

is

premised

more on

difference

and

alterity

than

resemblance.

However

important

morphological

similarities between human beings and the camera

might

be for Vertov,what is far

more

important

for

him-and

what

he

points

to

again

and

again

in

his film

theory-is

the

enormous

difference

between the

camera and

the

human

eye.

For

him,

an

immense

gulf

separates

the

two,

and

it

is

this

gulf

that is at

the

center of

his

film

theory

rather than

any

morphological

similarities:

The

kino-eye

lives

and

moves in

time

and

space;

it

gathers

and

records

impressions

in

a

manner

wholly

different from

that of the

human

eye.

The

position

of our

bodies while

observing

or our

perception

of

a

certain

number of

features of

a

visual

phenomenon

in

a

given

instant

are by no means obligatory limitations for the camera which, since it is

perfected,

perceives

more

and better.

1

9.

On mimesis in

Eisenstein,

see

Mikhail

Iampolski,

"The

Essential

Bone

Structure:

Mimesis in

Eisenstein,"

in

Eisenstein

Rediscovered,

d. Ian

Christie and

Richard

Taylor

(London:

Routledge,

1993).

10.

Recently,

philosophers

and film

theorists

informed

by

analytic

philosophy

have

argued

that film

theories

based

upon

the

analogy

between

cinema

and

consciousness

should be

rejected

(a)

because

they

mask

profound

dissimilarities;

(b)

because we

know

so

little

about

consciousness.

This

challenge

to

the

analogy

between

cinema

and

consciousness

that has

dominated film

theory

promises

to

fundamen-

tally

change

the

nature

of

film

theory.

However,

the

analogy

between

cinema

and

consciousness

has

been

replaced

in

the

work of

many

analytic

film

theorists

by

the

analogy

between

mind

and

computer

at

the

center

of

the

cognitive

revolution in

psychology

and

artificial

intelligence,

an

analogy

that,

for

many

philosophers,

is

utterly

nonsensical. See the

essays

collected

together

in

Investigating

Psychology,

ed.John Hyman.

11.

Vertov,

"The

Council of

Three,"

p.

15.

31



OCTOBER

The

human

eye, according

to

Vertov,

is

weak,

flawed,

and

primitive

in

con-

trast to the camera, and he constantly emphasizes its "imperfections" and

"shortsightedness"

in

comparison

to the infinite

perfectibility

of the

camera,

which

he

continually

celebrates

and

exalts.

"The

weakness of the human

eye

is

manifest,"

he declares.

"We

cannot

improve

the

making

of

our

eyes,

but

we

can

endlessly

perfect

the camera."12

Thus,

beneath

the

morphological parallels

that

Vertov draws in his

film

practice

between

camera and human

eye

lies a

fundamental

dissimilarity

between the

two that

takes center

stage

in his film

theory.

At

the

very

least,

therefore,

it seems

strange

that Vertov would

metaphorically

extend human

attributes

to

his

camera

because,

for

him,

the camera

and human

beings

are

fundamentally

dissimilar

despite

certain

morphological parallels;

the

camera

is

much more powerful than the human eye.

Even more

strange

is the fact that Vertov

would ask

us

to

imaginatively

entertain the idea that the camera can

see

in

the

first

place,

that he would

wish to

place

us in

the

"primitive" position

of a child

engaged

in

the

mimetic

game

of

imaginatively

extending

human

capacities

to nonhuman

objects.

For

is not

Vertov's

project

the

very

instantiation

of

the

Enlightenment

on film?

Does it not

aspire,

in

the words of

one of its most

astute and

subtle

commentators,

to

"render

insistently

concrete ...

that

philosophical

phantasm

of the reflexive

consciousness,

the

eye

seeing,

apprehending

itself

through

its

constitution of the

world's

visibility"?13

And is not

Man

with

a

Movie

Camera-the

very

film

in

which

an audi-

ence is shown smiling in delight at a camera

walking

around on a

stage,

much like

the children

who smile

at

the

tricks

of a

magician

in

an

earlier

sequence-the

same film in

which

Vertov

transforms his

camera "from a

Magician

into

an

Epistemologist,"

in

which

he invites

"the camera to

come of

age,"

to

grow

up,

to

leave childish tricks

and

games

behind,

through

the

incorporation

of

the

reversible

logical

operations

characteristic

of

adults

into his

assault

on

illusion?14

If

so,

why

would

Vertov also

be

asking

us

to

regress,

to

engage

in

the

childlike

game

of

extending

human

capacities

to the

very

"tool of

enlightenment"

itself,

the

film

camera,

as if it

were

an

enchanted,

magical

object?

For

let's be

absolutely

clear

about this.

By

claiming

that

the

camera

can itself

see,

even

if

only

metaphorically,

Vertov is not

only

asking

us to

momentarily

forget

that it is whole

living

creatures,

not

machines

or

causal

mechanisms,

that

see,

but

he

is

also

asking

us to

forget

that

the

camera,

like

any

technology,

is

invented and

used

by

human

beings

n

order

to

augment

human

powers.

It is

human

beings

who

use

cameras

in

order to

see

things

that

they

would

not be

able to see

otherwise. It

is

human

beings

who

"experiment"

with

the

camera,

who

move it

around

and take

advan-

tage

of

its

mobility,

who use it to

"distend" time

and

"dissect"

movement so

that

they

can

"perceive

more

and

better." It

is not

the

camera

that

does these

things.

12.

Ibid.,

pp.

14-16.

13. Annette Michelson, "From

Magician

to

Epistemologist:

Vertov's TheMan witha Movie

Camera,"

n

The

Essential

Cinema,

ed. P.

Adams

Sitney

(New

York:New

York

University

Press,

1975),

p.

98.

14.

Ibid.,

p.

111.

32



Can the Camera

See?Mimesis n

Man with

a

Movie Camera

As

Charles

Taylor

has

reminded

us,

no machine

or

technology

is

powerful

in

and of itself. Its power is defined relative to the purposes and interests of human

beings.

However,

Vertov

perpetually

celebrates and exalts the

camera's

power

of

sight

in

contrast

to the

primitive

visual

capacities

of human

beings,

as

if he

wants

us to lose

sight

of

the

fact that the camera

possesses

no

power independently

of

us.

Like

many

other

modems before and

since,

he seems so enthralled with the

transformative

impact

on human life of

the camera as a new

technology,

so

impressed

by

its

improvement

on what he

sees

as

the

primitive

visual

capacities

of

human

beings,

that he wants us

to

forget

that

it

is

of human

origin

and is embedded

in human

purposive

contexts

and institutions.

Ironically,

therefore,

Vertov's

ascription

of human


to the camera comes at the

expense

of

human

beings.

For

it

is

they

who are

forgotten by

his

camera-eye language

and its

celebration

of the camera's

visual

power.

Instead,

in

his-

rhetoric

the camera

becomes almost

superhuman,

a

magical

or divine

instrument

possessing

its

own

power

of

sight, separated by

a

great

gulf

from human

beings.

It is no

longer

a

tool

that

augments

human

powers

of

sight-a

much more

properly

Marxist

conception

of

technology,

one would have

thought.

And

indeed,

just

as,

for

Marx,

the

"social

character of men's labor" is displaced onto the commodity, thereby becoming

disguised

as a

magical

property

of

the

commodity

itself,

the

camera

in

Vertov's

theory

and

practice

is fetishized. It is an

object

for

reverence,

far more

powerful

33



OCTOBER

than we

are,

as

if

enchanted,

as

if

possessed

of

a

power

independent

of us. It is

as

though the camera were not our creation, our tool. Is it not strange that Vertov

would

do

this,

even if

only

metaphorically,

to

his

very

"tool of

enlightenment"?

Nor

is

it

by any

means clear that Vertov's

camera-eye

is

metaphorical.

For

although

Vertov's audience

in Man

with a Movie

Camera

may

laugh

at the

morpho-

logical

parallels

between human

being

and

camera-they

do not take

these

parallels

literally

but

rather

as a visual

joke,

a

game-Vertov's

readers

and

viewers

know

just

how

seriously

he

takes

the claim that

the camera

possesses

a

visual

power

that is

greater

than

the human

eye.

For

him,

this claim

is

no childish

game

orjoke.

Instead,

it is the

very

raison

d'tre

of

his

film

theory,

which

in

many

respects

constitutes one

long

paean

to

the camera's

power.

For it

is

this

power

that,

according

to Vertov,places the cinema at the very forefront of the "battle for the communist

decoding

of

the world"

and

the construction

of

a

socialist

society.

One

can

there-

fore

legitimately

wonder,

I

think,

whether Vertov

himself,

in

his reverence

and

awe

for

the

camera,

blurs the

metaphorical

boundaries of his

camera-eye

language

and loses

sight

of the

social,

human

character of

the

cinematic

apparatus.

Nor

is

he the

only

film

theorist to

do so.

The enthrallment

with the

power

of the camera

as a

machine

defines

film

theory

in

general

(as

the

enthrallment

with the

power

of

machines

defines

modernity).

And,

despite

Brakhage's warning

about not

taking

visual

metaphors literally,

film

theorists

such as

Jean

Epstein,

Bela

Balazs,

and

Brakhage

himself all

tend to

argue

that

the

camera

possesses

its own

visual

powers,

rather than that it augments human powers. They all tend to maintain, in other

words,

that

the

camera

tself

sees more

and better

han human

beings,

rather than that

the camera

enables

human

beings

o see

more and

better. Nor

has this

technological

enchantment,

this

tendency

to

attribute visual

powers

to

the film

camera

indepen-

dently

of human

beings,

been

exhausted

by

such

theorists. One

only

has

to think

of

psychoanalytic

film

theory

to

recognize

a

very

fine line

between

tenor and

vehi-

cle in

the

tradition

of

mimetic

film

theory.

For within

psychoanalytic

film

theory,

the

comparison

between

camera and

human

voyeur

or

fetishist

is

no

mere

metaphor.

For

psychoanalytic

film

theorists,

the

experience

of

cinema is

not

simply

like

the

experience

of

voyeurism,

in

the

way

that the visual

experience

of a

3-D movie is like the

experience

of three-dimensional

seeing

(both

similar and

different).

Rather,

the

camera is

voyeuristic.

The shot

is

a

gaze,

and it

does

fetishize.

And it

is

this

(many

would

say

reckless)

literalization of

a

metaphor-in

which

human

properties

and

powers

are

literally

attributed

to

a

mere

machine-

that

sanctions

the claim

by

many

psychoanalytic

film

theorists that

the

cinematic

apparatus

is

an

erotic

machine

with

power

over

its

spectators,

producing

causal

effects on

the

spectator

related

to

his

or her

sexual

identity.15

15.

Psychoanalytic

film

theorists seem

to

forget

that it is

human

beings

who

use the

camera

"perversely" or

"voyeuristically,"

who "fetishize" other human

beings

with

it,

who use it to enable

human

spectators

to

"gaze"

at

the human

body,

and

so on. It

is

not the

camera that

does

these

things.

The

dangers

and

implausibilities

of the

literalization of

such

metaphors

by

psychoanalytic

film

theorists

34



Can

the CameraSee?

Mimesis

n Man with

a

Movie

Camera

35

All

of

which is a

roundabout

way

of

saying

that

there

is more to Vertov's

camera-

eye metaphor than meets the eye. It is premised more on alterity than resemblance,

and there is

good

reason to

suspect

that

it is more than

just

a

metaphor.

But

most

important

of

all,

whether

metaphorical

or

not,

it

seems to

violate the

Enlightenment

trajectory

"from

Magician

to

Epistemologist"

of Vertov's

project

as

whole

by asking

us to

regress,

to

view the

camera as

something

that is

not

subject,

like a tool

or

instrument,

to the

control and

manipulation

of human

beings

but

that can see

on

its

own,

much

like a human

being,

yet

in

a

way

far

superior

to a

human

being.

Why

this

"surfacing

of

the

'primitive'

within

modernity,"

to

use Michael

Taussig's

words?16

Why

this

fetishism,

this

mimesis,

with

respect

to

the

very

"tool

of

enlight-

enment"

itself?

III

Benjamin

points

to an

answer to this

question

when he

suggests

that

the

mimetic

"gift

of

seeing

resemblances

is

nothing

other

than a

rudiment of

the

powerful

compulsion

in

former

times to

become

and

behave like

something

else."17

Viewed

with

this

in

mind,

Vertov's

camera-eye

can

be seen as an

expression

of

a belief

in

a

much

more

profound

resemblance

between

human

beings

and

the

camera

than mere

playful

morphological

similarities.

It can

be seen as

an

expression

of

a belief in

the

fundamental

metaphysical

identity

of

human

being

and

machine, and of a desire for the fulfillment of this identity through synthesis, for

the

one to

"become and

behave" like the

other,

a desire

that

is

motivated

by

the

utopian possibilities

of

such a

synthesis.

For

we

know,

of

course,

that

Vertov is

working

in a

society

that is

captivated

by

the

materialist

analogy

between

human

beings

and

machines

and,

more

generally,

the

authority

of the

natural

sciences.

In

the

middle

of

the

nineteenth

century,

conceptual

revolutions in

the

physical

sciences-in

particular

the

emergence

of

the law of the

conservation of

energy-

had

given

rise

to a

new

energeticist

conception

of

the

human

body

as

a

motor,

a

machine that

converts

energy

into

work.18

The

human

body

came to be

viewed as

identical to

machines

and

natural

forces in

the sense

that all were

now

considered

to be systems of production subject to the same

objective

and universal laws of

energy

conversion and

conservation

measurable

by

science.

This

productivist

ision

have

been

brilliantly

exposed

by

Noel

Carroll in

a

number

of works

over

a

number of

years.

See,

in

particular,

Mystifying

Movies:

Fads

and

Fallacies in

Contemporary

Film

Theory

(New

York:

Columbia

University

Press,

1988).

16.

Michael

Taussig,

Mimesis

and

Alterity:

A

Particular

History

of

the

Senses

(New

York:

Routledge,

1993),

p.

20.

17.

Benjamin,

"On the

Mimetic

Faculty,"

p.

333.

18.

See

Anson

Rabinbach,

The

Human

Motor:

Energy,Fatigue,

and

the

Originsof

Modernity

(Berkeleyand Los

Angeles:

University

of California

Press,

1990).

For an

excellent

overview

of

nineteenth-century

physics,

see

P.

M.

Harmon,

Energy,

Force,

and

Matter:

The

Conceptual

Developmentof

Nineteenth-Century

Physics

Cambridge:

Cambridge

University

Press,

1982).



OCTOBER

of

the

metaphysical identity

of

nature, machine,

and human

body

had

a

profound

impact on the organization of work and on the conception of society in general in

the latter half

of the nineteenth

century.

It

gave

rise

to the

attempt

by

F

W.

Taylor,

Frank

Gilbreth,

and

others

to

objectively

measure and

quantify

labor

power

in

the

development

of a science of

work,

the

goal

of which was to harmonize

workers

with machines and the industrial

workplace

to ensure the most efficient

deploy-

ment

of

energy

and the maximum

productivity possible.

And it resulted in a

view

of

society

at

large

as

a

productive

force

and a

faith

in

the

capacity

of science

to

"measure

social

energy

and

perhaps

even

conserve

it."19

This

productivist

vision

of

the

identity

of

human

being,

nature,

and

machine translated into

vastly

more

efficient

and

productive

working

practices

in the

drive

toward

industrial

modern-

ization. But, just as importantly, it offered the utopian possibility of the

elimination

of

social conflict

and other ills

through

increased

productivity,

technological progress,

and the scientific

control of

society. By

the

1920s

it had

become

the common

coin of

European

industrial

management

and of the

pro-

Taylorist

technocratic movements across

the

political landscape....

On

all

points

of

the

political spectrum "Taylorism

and

technocracy"

were

the

watchwords

of a

three-pronged

idealism: the elimination of

economic

and

social

crisis;

the

expansion

of

productivity through

science;

and

the reenchantment of technology. The vision of society in which social

conflict

was eliminated

in

favor of

technological

and scientific

imperatives

could

embrace

liberal, socialist,

authoritarian,

and

even

communist

and fascist

solutions.

Productivism,

in

short,

was

politically promiscuous.20

Promiscuous it was.

The

productivist

vision of

industrial

and social

modernity

found

very

fertile

ground among

Russian and

other East

European

revolutionaries

and industrial

reformers,

giving

rise after

the

October

Revolution-although

not

without

a

great

deal of

debate and

controversy-to

the

Soviet cult of

Ford and the

experimentation

with and

implementation

of

various

Taylorist

work

practices

(such

as

progressive piece

rates)

and other

forms of

scientific

management

in

the

effort to

industrialize

rapidly.21

And

the

utopian

dimension

of

productivist

tenets

appealed

strongly

to

Russian

and Marxist

visionaries,

especially

what Rabinbach in

the above

passage

refers to

as "the

reenchantment of

technology,"

the belief that

the

integration

of

human

beings

and

technology

in

the

name of the

expansion

of

production

would

bring

about the

perfection

and

ultimate

salvation of

humankind.

For

many

Marxist

visionaries,

human

salvation

meant most

importantly

the

19.

Rabinbach,

The

Human

Motor,

p.

69.

20.

Ibid.,

p.

272.

21. See Zenovia A. Sochor, "Soviet

Taylorism

Revisited,"

SovietStudies

33,

no. 2

(April

1981);

Mark R.

Beissinger,

Scientific

Management,

Socialist

Discipline,

and Soviet

Power

(Cambridge:

Harvard

University

Press,

1988).

36



Can the CameraSee?Mimesis n Man with

a

Movie Camera

liberation

of human

beings

from the burden of

socially necessary

labor,

which

was

seen by the mature Marx as a constraint on freedom. In the society of the future,

human

beings

would be free to choose their

labor and what

they

consumed on

the rational basis

of

need

alone,

according

to

the classic Marxist

formulation,

and

it

was

technological progress

and

the

expansion

of

production

that

would

allow

them to do so.

Perhaps

the most famous

example

of such a vision of

the future can

be

found in the

two science-fiction novels of Alexander

Bogdanov

about a

communist

society

on

Mars,

Red

Star

(1908)

and

Engineer

Menni

(1913).

Bogdanov,

a

leader of

the Bolshevik

Party

until his

break with Lenin in

1908,

theorist

of

Tectology,

economist,

and

philosopher,

created

in

his novels an

urbanized,

fully

automated

Martian society on the "red star" in which production and supply are precisely

calculated

and controlled

according

to need

by

advanced

protocomputers

and

data retrieval machines.

The citizens

of

this

society

know no social or

sexual

hierarchy,

instead

working

and

living

in

mutual

harmony

and

prolonging

their

lives

through

(among

other

means)

mutual blood

transfusions. Social conflict of

all

kinds-class,

ethnic,

gender-have

been

eliminated

by technology

and the

capacity

to

produce

on

the

rational basis of

need. Work has

become

pleasurable,

something

Martians

choose to do. Here

is

Bogdanov's

delightful

description

of

workers

at a Martian

factory,

seen

through

the

eyes

of

Leonid,

the

visitor from

Earth:

Hundreds of

workers

moved

confidently

among

the

machines,

their

footsteps

and voices

drowned

in

a

sea of

sound. There

was not a trace

of

tense

anxiety

on their

faces,

whose

only

expression

was one of

quiet

concentration.

They

seemed to be

inquisitive,

learned

observers who

had no real

part

in

all that

was

going

on

around them. It

was as

if

they

simply

found it

interesting

to

watch how the

enormous

chunks of

metal

glided

out

beneath the

transparent

dome on

moving

platforms

and fell

into

the

steely

embrace of

dark

monsters. ...

It seemed

altogether

natural that the

steel

monsters should

not harm the

small,

big-eyed

spectators strolling confidently among them.22

Bogdanov's

novels

were

popular

after the

Revolution and

were

reprinted

several

times.

They

also

provided

the

template

for

Soviet

science fiction in

the

1920s.

Yet,

as

Richard

Stites

among

others

has

argued,

the

enchantment with

technology among

the

Soviets

probably

found its

most

extreme

expression

in

the

so-called

"cult of

the machine" of

figures

such as

Platon

Kerzhentsev and Alexei

Gastev.23

n

their

thirst

for

social

and industrial

modernization,

Kerzhentsev

and

22.

Alexander

Bogdanov,

Red

Star:

The First

Bolshevik

Utopia,

ed. Loren

R.

Graham and

Richard

Stites, trans. Charles

Rougle

(Bloomington:

Indiana

University

Press,

1984),

pp.

64-65.

23.

See

Richard

Stites,

"Man

the

Machine,"

chap.

7 of

Revolutionary

Dreams:

Utopian

Vision

and

Experimental

ife

in

the

Russian Revolution

Oxford:

Oxford

University

Press,

1989).

37



OCTOBER

Gastev went much

further than

Bogdanov

in their view

of the role

that

technology

was to play in the society of the future by eagerly embracing and extending

Taylorism

and the

analogy

between human

being

and

machine. For

them,

technology might

not

only

emancipate

human

beings

from

socially necessary

labor;

it

could also

literally

transform them

into

"new

people,"

more

perfect

because

more

machine-like. While

working,

these

new

people

would be

able

to

coordinate

and control their

movements with the

precision

and

efficiency

of

a

machine,

ensuring

maximum

productivity

and

eliminating

wastage

of

time

and

energy.

And their

daily

lives would be

governed

by

self-discipline

and the

perpetual

quest

for the

most

expedient

and

efficient use of

their

time.

Gastev's

popular

poetry

from

the

1910s

is

particularly

well

known for

its

"machinism,"

for the

way

in which it envisages the future as a mechanical paradise in which human being

and

machine are

perfectly synthesized

in

their

grand

dominion

over

Nature;

in

which

human

beings

with

"nerves

of

steel"

and

"muscles

like iron

rails"

have

become

perfectly

harmonized

to the

movement

and

tempo

of

machines.

Nor

was

this

simply

a

marginal

poetic

vision.

Following

the

Revolution,

Gastev

went on to

found the

Central

Institute of

Labor

(1920)

which

received the

support

of Lenin

and

other

leaders

and was

given

the

duty

of

coordinating

Soviet

research on

labor

rationalization.24

The

institute

was

devoted to

the

scientific

study

of

work

and to

training

a cadre of

advanced

workers

how

to

perfectly

master

a

series of

core

movements and

actions

as

well as

more

complex

machinery

while

eliminating

superfluous expenditures of energy. Such workers would be

knowledgeable

about

advanced

technology

and

adept

at

thinking

and

moving

in

efficient,

disciplined,

and

precise

ways,

their

bodies

trained to

harmonize

perfectly

with

factory

machines.

Gastev

edited

several

major

industrial

journals,

held

various

govern-

ment

positions,

and

was one of

the

leading

Soviet

popularizers

of

Taylorism.

He

was an

acquaintance

of

Meyerhold,

certainly

an

influence

on

his

conception

of

"biomechanics,"

and

may

even have

suggested

the

name to

him.25

Undoubtedly,

Gastev's

vision

had

exploitative

and

dehumanizing

dimensions

and

ramifications.

He

argued,

for

example,

that

mechanization,

standardization,

and

the

division of

labor in

modern

industry

would

necessarily

eliminate

creativity

from work,

resulting

in a uniform, mechanized

proletariat

with a new

psychology.

These

features of

industrial

production,

he

wrote,

"will

impart

to

proletarian

psychology

a

striking

anonymity,

permitting

the

classification

of

an

individual

proletarian

unit as

A,

B, C,

or

325,

0'075,

0,

and so

on."26

Thus,

he

was a

contro-

versial

figure

in

the

1920s

and

was

heavily

criticized

by

those

such

as

Bogdanov

who

completely

rejected

Taylorism

as

exploitative,

as

simply

"a

way

of

extracting

24.

See

Kendall E.

Bailes,

"Alexei

Gastev and

the

Soviet

Controversy

over

Taylorism,

1918-24,"

Soviet

Studies

29,

no. 3

(uly

1977).

25. See Alma Law and Mel Gordon,

Meyerhold,

Eisenstein,

and Biomechanics:

Actor

Training

in

Revolutionary

Russia

(Jefferson,

N.C.:

McFarland

&

Company,

1996),

pp.

35-36, 39,

40-41.

26.

Quoted

in

Bailes,

"Alexei

Gastev and

the

Soviet

Controversy

over

Taylorism,"

p.

378.

38



Can the Camera

See?Mimesis

n

Man with a Movie Camera

39

the

last ounce

of

sweat from the

worker,"

to use Lenin's

words,

and those such

as

Kerzhentsev who argued that Taylorism, as a product of capitalism, should only be

critically

and

selectively

appropriated.

Yet,

as Stites is keen to

point

out,

while

Gastev's vision

easily disintegrated

into the

nightmare

of

brutal

exploitation

under

Stalin,

it was

nevertheless

motivated

by

the

genuine

and

pragmatic

desire to

liberate

the

Russian

population

from

abject

poverty,

primitive

and often

barbaric

social

conditions,

and

backward work

practices.

Furthermore,

it

was

sustained

by

a

legitimate

faith in

the

capacity

of

science

and

technology

to

help

deliver such

liberation.

Soviet

visionaries and

reformers

such

as

Gastev

wanted

"equality,

decent and

effective

work

habits,

and

community.

[Gastev]

believed that

a

machine

culture

would

democratize

and

modernize

the work

force and

lead

it

into the longed-for world of dignity and strength-for workers and for the nation

as a

whole."27

And

finally,

as with

Bogdanov,

Gastev's vision

was

deeply utopian.

In

his

ambition to

perfect

human

beings

and

society

through

technological

progress,

and in

the

salvation

that he

imagined

would

result

from

such a

transformation,

we

can

understand

Gastev to be

the

inheritor of

the

thousand-year-old

Western

ideology-newly grounded

in

the

broadly

productivist

tenets of the

late

nine-

teenth

century

and

inflected

by

Marxism-that

the

historian of

technology

David

Noble

has

recently

called "the

religion

of

technology." By

this,

Noble means

the

deeply

rooted

millenarian

belief-originating

in

the

early

Middle

Ages

and

still

very

evident

in

the

contemporary

euphoria

around the

Internet

and

genetics-

that technology is enchanted, that it will return humankind to "Adamic

perfection

...

Edenic

grace

and

restored dominion

over

nature,"

that it will

enable the

recovery

of

"mankind's

lost

God-likeness."28

According

to

Noble,

despite

the

secularization

of

society

since

the

Enlightenment

and

the

putative

conflict

between

science

and

religion

in

modernity,

"the

technological

enterprise

has been

and

remains

suffused

with

religious

belief."29

Certainly,

it

is

everywhere

evident

in

the

transcendent,

other-worldly

technological

utopias

of

Soviet

and

Marxist

visionaries

such

as

Bogdanov

and

Gastev.

For

Gastev,

human

salvation

and

access

to the

"realm of

freedom"

was to

be

achieved

through

the

fulfillment of

the

fundamental resem-

blance-sanctioned

by

productivism

and

materialism-between

human

being

and machine in the creation of Adamic "new

people," just

as Christian

salvation

consists of

the

mimetic

restoration of

humankind

to

its

original

God-likeness.

We

can

locate this

same

desire for

Adamic

perfection,

for

the

fulfillment of

the

metaphysical

identity

of

human

being

and

machine,

for

"the

one to

become

like the

other,"

in

Vertov's

theory

and

practice.

And

it

is this

desire,

I

suggest,

that

ultimately

motivates

Vertov's

camera-eye,

his

fetishization

and

enchantment of

the

camera

through

the

ascription

to it

of

human

predicates

and

powers.

For

the

27.

Stites,

Revolutionary

Dreams,

p.

155.

28. David F.

Noble,

The

Religionof

Technology:

he

Divinity of

Man and

the

Spiritof

Invention

(New

York:

Alfred A.

Knopf,

1998),

p.

57.

29.

Ibid.,

p.

5.



OCTOBER

camera-eye

is

just

one

example,

albeit the most

important,

of

a

larger

vision

of

the

synthesis of human beings and machines in general. This larger vision of new

Adamic

people

is

clearly

evident

in

the

following

passage

from

"We:

Variant of

a

Manifesto,"

an

early

attempt

at

formulating

a

program

for film

production:

In

revealing

the machine's

soul,

in

causing

the

worker

to

love

his

work-

bench,

the

peasant

his

tractor,

the

engineer

his

engine-we

introduce

creative

joy

into

all mechanical

labor,

we

bring

people

into

closer

kinship

with

machines,

we foster new

people.30

Here,

as

with

the

camera-eye,

Vertov

grants

machines

in

general

a

human

property,

namely,

a soul. And he does

so,

echoing

Gastev,

in

the name of

bringing

"people

into closer

kinship

with machines," of

creating

"new

people"

free of human

imper-

fection out of the

synthesis

of human

beings

and

machines.

In

Man

with

a

Movie

Camera,

we can

clearly

see Vertov

attempting

to

bring

about this

"kinship"

or

harmony

between human

beings

and

machines,

much

like

Gastev

in

his

Central Institute

of Labor.

Indeed,

Man

with a Movie

Camera an in

some

ways

be

viewed as

a mimetic school for

workers of

the new Soviet

state.

Most

obviously,

Vertov uses

strategies

of

visual

rhyming,

parallel

editing,

and

superim-

position

to

represent, literally

and

metaphorically,

a

physical

relation of

kinship

between human

beings

and

machines,

a

representation

that

is

aimed at

the

body

of

the

spectator-worker

watching

the film.

An

example

of

a

metaphorical

represen-

tation occurs

during

the

opening

sequence

of the

city

awakening

in the

morning.

The

camera

starts to

cut back from

various

early

morning

street

activities to a

young

woman

during

various

stages

of

sleeping,

washing,

dressing,

and

preparing

for

the

day

ahead. At

one

point,

the

camera returns

to a

close-up

of her

face as

she

towels it

dry.

As

her

eyes

emerge

from

behind the

towel to

stare

directly

into

the

camera,

we cut

to

what

is

presumably

a

point-of-view

shot of

the

blinds

in

her

room

which are

still

shut. As

the

flaps

of the

blinds

open

automatically,

we

cut

again

to an

extreme

close-up

of

a

camera

lens

adjusting

its

focus

and

moving

in

and

out of

the

body

of

the

camera.

This

is

followed

by

another

cut to

a

point-of-

view shot

from

the

camera's

position

of a

bank of

flowers

moving

in

and

out of

focus,

thus

rhyming

the

movement of

the

lens.

These

two shots

are

repeated,

and

then

we

cut back

to a

shot of

the

blinds in

the

young

woman's

room,

this

time

slowly

closing.

There

then

follows

several

rapid

cuts between

the

woman's

blinking

eyes,

and

the

flaps closing

and

opening,

cuts

which

produce

a

flicker

effect,

and

finally

the

sequence

ends on

another

close-up

of

the

camera

lens,

this

time

with

its

aperture

opening

and

closing.

This

sequence

effectively

uses

parallel

editing

and

a

series of

loose

rhymes

between

the

movements within

the

frame

to

produce

an

extended

analogy

between

camera

and

human

eye

via

the

blind.

This

analogy

is

predicated

upon

the

physical

similarity

of

eye

and

lens as

instruments that

focus

30.

Vertov,

"We:

Variant of

a

Manifesto,"

in

Kino-Eye,

p.

7-8

(my

emphasis).

40



Can the

CameraSee?Mimesis n

Man with a Movie Camera

and

admit

light,

and,

in its evocation

of the act of

flexing

and

exercising

in

the

early morning, it suggests a common physical activity shared by both human being

and

machine-namely,

preparing

for

a

purposeful,

active

day

ahead.31

An

example

of a more

literal

representation

of

physical

kinship

between

human

beings

and machines occurs

during

a

frenetic

sequence

later

in

the

film

that

interconnects shots of

various

types

of

labor.

Close-up

shots of

film

celluloid

being

spliced

and edited are

interspersed

with

close-up

shots of

typing,

writing,

sewing

machine,

and

newspaper conveyer

belt.

Typically, only

the

workers'

hands

are

present

in

these

shots,

moving

swiftly

and

with

precision,

with

occasional

cuts

to

their faces as

they

stare

intently

down at their

work. Within

this

fast-paced,

exuberant

sequence,

there

is a short

series of

shots of a

woman

folding

small

boxes-perhaps match boxes-on a wooden block. This series of shots begins with

a

close-up

of

a machine

sorting

and

processing

similar

boxes. We then

cut to a

close-up

of the

woman's

hands

rapidly folding

a box

on the

wooden

stand,

followed

by

a cut to

her face as

she stares

downward at her

work

and

throws

the

completed

box over

her shoulder

onto a

pile.

The

film

then cuts

back and

forth

between

identical

shots of

the woman's

hands

and face

about five or

six times.

We then

return to a

shot of the

box

sorting

machine,

followed

by

a final

shot of the

woman.

Here,

the

parallel

between

machine and

human

being

is

established

through

repetition

and the

rhythm

of

the

editing,

which

endows the

woman's work

with a

strict

mechanical beat.

The

woman's

movements

are

identical

in

each

shot,

much

like the repetitious movements of a machine. And the cuts between her hands

and

face

follow a

mechanical

3/4

tempo.

Each

shot

of her

hands

pauses

for

roughly

two

beats as she

folds the

box,

and

then the

shot of

her face as

she

discards

it

over her

shoulder lasts

a

single,

third

beat. This

pattern

is

repeated

five

or six

times

and its

pace

accelerated.

This

worker is

endowed

with

the

mechanical

beat

of

the

box

sorting

machine with

which she

works

by

the

regular,

mechanical

3/4

rhythm

of the

editing

and

by

cuts

back and

forth

between

the

woman

and the

machine.

Thus a

physical,

rhythmic

kinship

is

established

between the

two.

One

could

mention

a host

of

vastly

more

elaborate,

extended,

and

complex

examples

of

the

physical

harmony

between

human

beings

and

machines

repre-

sented through Vertov's

expert

use of

editing

and

rhyme.

Yet, Man with a Movie

Camera lso

contains

sequences

of

shots of

machines

that do

not

attempt

some

lit-

eral

or

figurative

representation

of

a

physical

kinship

between

worker

and

machine. A

typical

example

is the

multiple,

static

shots of

trams

taken

from

street

level

which

are

dotted

throughout

the film. In

these

shots

the

trams tend

to

slide

into

and

out of

the

frame

unexpectedly,

either

from

behind

the

camera

or

across

its

path.

These

highly geometric

shots,

which

frame

the

street

from its

center,

are

31.

As

Denise

McKenna

and

Richard

Allen have

pointed

out

to

me,

the

fact

that this

sequence

depicts a relation between a womanand a machine

may

be

very

important.

There

may

be a

gendered

dimension

to

Vertov's

vision of

a

synthesis

between

human

beings

and

machines,

one

that

I

do

not con-

sider in

this

paper.

41



OCTOBER

usually

divided in

half

by

a street

lamp

or

post

that runs

the

length

of

the

middle

of the frame

from

top

to

bottom.

Often,

as a

tram is

moving

out of

the

depth

of

the frame toward the camera, another will suddenly cross its path from left to

right,

momentarily obscuring

it.

Or,

as a

tram is

moving

from

right

to left

across

the

frame,

another tram

will

emerge

from

behind the

camera and

glide

toward

the

first without

slowing

or

stopping.

In

later shots of

the

trams,

Vertov

introduces

superimposition

and

multiplies

the

number of the

trams

in the

frame.

With this

technique,

the

trams

now seem to

glide

past

and

through

each

other

effortlessly,

as

if

they

have become

ethereal,

semi-transparent, weightless

objects,

as

if

they

have become independent of the laws of the physical world. The overwhelming

Manwith a MovieCamera.

42



Can

the Camera

See?Mimesis

n Man with a Movie Camera

43

effect that

is

produced

by

these

shots is one of

a

sense

of the

grace, precision,

and

economy of these machines, their ability to coordinate their speed and movement

to

ensure

that

they

do not have

to slow down or wait

for each

other.

How do

shots

such as

these,

in which human

beings

are

clearly

absent,

fit

with Vertov's

larger

goal

of

"bringing

people

into closer

kinship

with

machines"?

To

understand

how,

I

suggest,

we must

recognize

that

what this

type

of

shot

is

clearly

doing

is

aestheticizing

machines.

Through

frame

composition,

camera

placement,

and

superimposition,

these shots

are

designed

to

foreground

the

beauty

of the form

and motion of

the

trams,

and to invoke in the

spectator-

worker a

feeling

of

pleasure

and

delight. They

are

designed,

in

other

words,

to

highlight

the

beauty

of the

trams

independently

of

the

quotidian, practical

purposes that they serve for human beings, to present them to spectator-workers

as

not

just simply

useful machines but

as beautiful

objects

in

their

own

right.

Kant

referred

to

this

"disinterested"

way

of

perceiving objects

as an

ability

to

see them

as

"purposive

without

a

purpose,"

as

possessing

a

general,

indeterminate

design

or

form-a

purposiveness-independently

of

any

practical

interest in

them.

In

this

sequence,

the

trams are

elevated out of their

banal,

everyday,

practical

context

of

transporting

people-the purpose

for which

they

were

designed-and

the

preci-

sion and

grace

of

their

design,

form,

and

movement-their

purposiveness

or

"lawfulness"-is

emphasized

instead

through

the

aesthetic

strategies

already

enumerated.32

Why

would Vertov have believed that

by

aestheticizing

machines in this

way

he would

induce a

sense of

kinship

and

harmony

between

human

beings

and

machines?

In

order to

understand

why,

we

need

only

appeal

to

the tradition of

thought,

formalized

by

Kant's

aesthetics,

that sees

aesthetic

pleasure

as

an

expression

of

some

kind of

mental

harmony.

For

Kant,

the

feeling

of

pleasure

aroused

by

an

object

such

as

a

flower

in

an

aesthetic

judgment

is

a

feeling

of

pleasure

at the

basic

harmony

hat is

felt

between

the

subject's

mind

and the

form

of the

object.

This

feeling

of

harmony

is a

feeling

that

the

regularity

and

lawfulness

of the form

of

the

object-its

purposiveness-harmonizes

with

the

cognitive

powers

(the

imagi-

nation

and the

understanding)

of

the

human

mind.

By

harmonize,

Kant

meant

that the form of the aesthetic

object

lends itself to

being

judged by

the

mind's

cognitive

powers.

In

other

words,

the

object

is

felt

to

be

lawful

and

regular

in

its

formal

organization

and

therefore

within

the

mind's

cognitive

grasp,

instead

of

being

irregularly

and

randomly

organized

and

beyond

the

mind's reach.

Beauty

for

Kant is

nothing

more than

a

feeling

of

pleasure

at this

basic

harmony

between

object

and mind.33

32.

By

aestheticizing

the

trams,

by

attending

to

their

form

rather

than

their

function,

Vertov

is not

violating

the utilitarian

axiom of

Constructivism

and

Productivism. He is

aestheticizing

the

trams

with

a clear practical purpose in mind according to my argument in the following paragraphs.

33.

Immanuel

Kant,

Critique

of

Judgment,

rans.

Werner S.

Pluhar

(Indianapolis:

Hackett

Publishing



OCTOBER

Whether

or not

Kant's

theory

is

true,

it

nevertheless,

I

think,

helps

us

to

understand why Vertov would have thought that the tram shots and similar

sequences

might

work to create a

kinship

between human

beings

and machines

in

Man with a Movie Cameraeven

though

human

beings

are

entirely

absent

from

them. The aestheticization of the

trams

that occurs

in

these

shots,

I

suggest,

works

to

bring

about a mental

kinship

or

harmony

between

the

spectator-worker

and

the

trams,

as

opposed

to

a

physical

one. It

works to

give

rise to a

feeling

of

pleasure

at

the formal

purposiveness

of the

trams

in

the mind of the

spectator-worker,

a

feeling

that,

beyond any specific, practical

purpose

that

they

serve,

these

trams

are

designed

in

an indeterminate fashion to harmonize

with the worker's

mind,

to be

commensurate with

it,

to be lawful rather

than

randomly organized

and

indifferent

to the worker's mind. In Man with a MovieCamera,his aesthetic feeling of a mental

harmony

between human

beings

and machines

complements

the literal and

figu-

rative

representation

of a

physical harmony.

Together,

these two

types

of

harmony

work to

bring

the mind and

body

of the

spectator-worker

"into closer

kinship

with

machines."

It is

in

this

way,

I

suggest,

that the

film

attempts

to

get

people

to "love"

their

machines and to

instantiate Vertov's

utopian

vision of

"new

people"

set out

in

"We:Variant of a

Manifesto."

IV

The roots of Vertov's camera-eye therefore lie in what Benjamin called the

"powerful

compulsion"

to

"become and

behave like

something

else." This

mimetic

compulsion

is

thoroughly

modern

in

the

way

that

it

manifests itself in

Vertov's

work,

shaped

as it is

by

the scientific

worldview of the

early

twentieth

century

and

the new

Soviet

society.

But

it is

nevertheless

continuous

with a

thousand-year-old

Christian

millenarian

ideology

of

technological

progress

and mimetic

salvation.

It

gives

rise,

I

have

argued,

to

the

attempt

to

mimetically

train the

spectator-worker

of

the new

Soviet

society

in

achieving

"kinship"

with

machines,

an

attempt

that

results

in

two

types

of

human-machine

synthesis,

one

physical,

the

other

mental.

And it

motivates

Vertov's

mimetic

language

and

imagery,

his

ascription

of

human

powers and properties to machines in his film theory and practice.

I

would

argue

that

Vertov's

vision of

human-machine

synthesis

is

not

as

excessive or

obsessive as

Gastev's,

although

it

undoubtedly

owes a

lot to

him. It

lacks,

for

example,

the

exploitative

and

dehumanizing

dimensions of

Gastev's

almost total

endorsement of

Taylorism,

such as

his

belief in

the

advent of a

mecha-

nized

proletarian

psychology.

Vertov's

utopian

vision

of

human-machine

synthesis

Company,

1987),

pp.

29-30:

"the

pleasure

cannot

express

anything

other

than

the

object's

being

com-

mensurate with

the

[subject's]

cognitive

powers

that

are,

and

insofar

as

they

are,

brought

into

play

when we

judge

[aesthetically]

...

Now

if

in

this

comparison

a

given

presentation

unintentionally

brings the imagination (the

power

of a

priori

intuitions) into

harmony

with the

understanding

(the

power

of

concepts),

and

this

harmony

arouses

a

feeling

of

pleasure,

then

the

object

must

thereupon

be

regarded

as

purposive

for

the

reflective

power

ofjudgment."

44



Can the

CameraSee?Mimesis

n Man with

a

Movie

Camera

is

tempered by

a

deep respect

for

the

"organic"

rhythm

of

human

life,

a

respect

that manifests itself most clearly in the structure of Man with a MovieCamera,which

follows

the

human

cycle

of

sleep,

waking

up,

work,

and

then leisure

and

entertain-

ment.

However,

it would

take a much

more

thorough

and

systematic

analysis

of

his

theory

and

practice

than the one

offered here to

demonstrate this

convincingly.

But

even

from the

brief

analysis

I

have

undertaken it

is

clear,

I

think,

that

Vertov

does not

present

us

with

a

crude vision

of

mechanized,

automated

human

beings.

Vertov's

camera-eye

and all it

stands

for,

I

would

suggest,

is more

complex

than

this.

Although

the

materialist

analogy

between

human

being

and machine

lies

at

its

very

core-an

analogy

that

places

human

beings

firmly

and

squarely

within

Nature

and within

the

province

of

the

natural

sciences-Vertov's vision is

equally

suffused with a thoroughly humanistic conception of human freedom, of human

beings

as

autonomous

and free

from

Nature. This

becomes evident if

we turn

our

attention

to the

way

in

which

the

two

types

of

synthesis

that I

have outlined

seemingly

contradict

each other.

In

the

first

type,

physical synthesis,

human

beings

are

mechanized in

the

sense that

they

are

brought

into

harmony

with

the

tempo,

movement,

and

pro-

ductive

power

of

machines

either

figuratively

or

literally.

But in

the

second,

machines

are,

one

might say,

humanized.

It

is

machines

that are

brought

into har-

mony

with

human

beings,

and

more

precisely

with the

human

mind and

the

pleasure

it

derives

from

its

capacity

to

see

Nature

as

"purposive

without

a

pur-

pose," to use the Kantian jargon; its capacity to

appreciate

the

way

the form of

objects

harmonize

with its

cognitive

faculties.

Nor do we

need to

subscribe

to

the

Kantian

theory

in

order to be

able to

perceive

this

apparent

contradiction.

To

put

it

another

way,

in

the first

type

of

synthesis

human

beings

are

represented

accord-

ing

to

productivist,

materialist

tenets.

They

are

shown

engaged,

together

with

machines,

in

the

fundamental act

of

production,

the act

of

transforming

energy

into

work

through

mechanical

labor.

They

are

shown

fulfilling

the

productivist,

mechanistic

vision of

human

beings

as

productive

machines

that

are

part

of

Nature,

all

the

more

productive

because of

the

fulfillment

of

their

mimetic

resemblance to

machines.

They

are

instrumentalized

and

shown

as

a

means

to an

end,

namely,

production.

But in the second, machines are

deliberately

represented

outside of

any

productive

activity.

They

are

represented

independently

of

their

instrumental

value,

their

capacity

to

produce.

Through

aestheticization,

through

an

attention

to

their

form

and

motion,

they

are

shown

as

beautiful

objects

in

their

own

right

independently

of

the

quotidian,

practical

purposes

that

they

serve for

human

beings.

They

are

shown in

the

traditional

humanistic

sense

as

an

end

in

themselves,

rather

than a

means

to an

end.

Through

aestheticization,

Vertov

grants

them

a

humanistic

autonomy

from

production,

from

their

place

in

Nature

as

productive

machines.

Thus,

in

the

first

type

of

synthesis,

human

beings

are

part

of

Nature

in

the

mechanistic,

productivist

sense.

They

transform

energy

into

work

with all the

discipline, rhythm,

and

precision

of movement of

a

machine.

But

in

the

second

type,

machines

resemble

human

beings

in

the

humanistic

sense.

They

45



OCTOBER

are

depicted

as

autonomous

from

Nature,

as an end

in themselves. Vertov's

cam-

era-eye, I would therefore suggest, is a very complex figure, the product of a

mimetic

relation

between

human

being

and machine

in

which characteristics

of

each

are

displaced

onto

the

other.

It is a

mimetic

relation

that

runs

both

ways:

humans

resemble machines and machines

resemble

humans. And

it

balances

two

seemingly contradictory

conceptions

of

human

beings,

the

materialist

and

humanistic.

How are

we

to

understand

this

apparent

contradiction?

We

could,

perhaps,

go

as far

as

seeing

a

deep

ambivalence

in

Vertov's work

toward the

materialist

and

productivist

worldview

of

which

he is

a

part,

an

ambivalence

that

takes the form

of

the

emergence

in his

work of a

humanistic

conception

of

human

freedom

and

autonomy from Nature. We could try to argue that such a humanistic conception

betrays

a

partial

affinity

with the

humanist

response

to

materialism

since the

scientific

revolution

of

the

seventeenth

century,

a

response

that

insists to

varying

degrees

on the

autonomy

of

humanistic

understanding

from

the

natural sciences

and that

is most familiar

to us

today

in

the

hermeneutic tradition

of

thinkers such

as

Gadamer,

the

"critical

theory"

of

Adorno,

and the

deep hostility

toward

and

ignorance

of

the

sciences

in

the

humanities.34 We

could

further

argue

that

Vertov

is

forced to

disguise

his vision

of

human

freedom and

displace

it onto

machines

because it

violates the

fundamental

tenets

of

the

dominant

materialist and

anti-

humanist

worldview within

which

he is

operating.

But to

do so

would be to

ignore

the fact that the contradiction between Nature and Freedom is not

specific

to

Vertov.

It lies

at the

very

core of

the

materialist

worldview

and

emerges

everywhere

within

modernity.

Kant's

theory

of

aesthetic

judgment,

for

example,

is

only

one of

many

attempts

in the

history

of

humanistic

philosophy

to

bridge

the

"great gulf,"

as Kant

puts

it in the

introduction

to

the

third

critique,

between

the

"realm of

the

concept

of

nature" and

the

"concept

of

freedom";

and

the

battle

between Eastern

and

Western

Marxists,

between

materialist

and

humanist

Marxists,

is

only

one

of

the most

famous

symptoms

of

this

gulf.

It

is

not

surprising,

therefore,

that

it

emerges

in

Vertov.

More

importantly,

to

understand

Vertov's

work in

this

way

would

be

to

misunderstand

the

materialist

worldview

itself

and its

enormous

appeal

to moderns such as Vertov. For its

appeal

lies

precisely

in the

promise

of

human

freedom

that it

seems to

offer.

Charles

Taylor,

a

philosopher

within

the

hermeneutic

tradition

who

is

very

much

opposed

to

the

materialist

(what

he

calls

the

naturalist)

worldview,

is

always

very

careful

to

acknowledge

this

appeal:

Behind

and

supporting

the

impetus

to

naturalism ...

[and]

the

under-

standable

prestige

of the

natural

science

model,

stands

an

attachment

to a

certain

picture

of

the

[human]

agent.

This

picture

is

deeply

attrac-

34.

On

the

hostility

toward and

ignorance

of the

sciences in

the

humanities

today,

see

Paisley

Livingston,

Literary

Knowledge:

Humanistic

Inquiry

and the

Philosophy

f

Science

Ithaca:

Cornell

University

Press,

1988);

Alan

Sokal

and

Jean

Bricmont,

Fashionable

Nonsense:Postmodern

Philosophers'Abusef

Science

(New

York:

Picador,

1998).

46



Can

the CameraSee?Mimesis

n

Man

with a Movie Camera

tive

to

modems,

both

flattering

and

inspiring.

It

shows

us as

capable

of

achieving a kind of disengagement from our world by objectifying it....

In

a

sense,

the

great

shift

in

cosmology

which

occurred in the seven-

teenth

century,

from a

picture

of

the world-order

based on the

Ideas to

one

of

the universe as

mechanism,

was

the

founding objectification,

the

source and

inspiration

for

the

continuing

development

of

a

disengaged

consciousness.

The

ideal

of

disengagement

defines

a

certain-typically

modem-

notion of

freedom,

as the

ability

to act on

one's

own,

without outside

interference and

subordination to

outside

authority.

It defines

its own

particular

notion

of

human

dignity,

closely

connected

to freedom.

And

these in turn are linked to ideals of efficacy, power, unperturbability,

which for

all their links

with

earlier ideals

are

original

with

modem

culture.35

It

is

this

promise

of

human

freedom and

dignity

offered

by

the

materialist

and

productivist

worldview-the

paradoxical

"disengagement"

or

liberation

of

human

beings

from

Nature

through

the

objectification

of

human

beings

as

part

of

mechanistic

Nature-that

suffuses

Vertov's work.

His "new

people"

are not

crude

automata,

nor

could

they

be.

For

if

they

were,

he

would

not

be

able to

convince

his

spectator-workers

to

"love" their

machines and to

fulfill

their

mimetic

35.

Taylor,

Human

Agency

and

Language,

pp.

4-5. As David

Noble

has

argued,

this

position

of

a

free,

"disengaged

consciousness,"

achieved

by objectifying

Nature

and

uncovering

its

laws,

is

the

Edenic

position

of

Adam

prior

to

the

Fall within

millenarian

ideology.

Indeed,

for

a

long

time,

the

goal

of

regaining

this

position

through

scientific

and

technological

progress

was

explicitly

articulated

by

scientists

as Adamic in

aspiration,

for

example

by Boyle

and

Newton.

However, as

Noble

points

out, scientists

of

the seventeenth

century

already began

to set their

sights higher

than

Adamic

knowledge,

"seeking

not

merely

[like

Adam]

to know

creation

as

it was made

but

also to make

it

themselves,

actually

to

participate

in

creation and

hence

know it firsthand"

(The

Religion

of

Technology,

.

65).

Recovery

of Adam's

knowledge

of

the

design

of

Nature,

lost

during

the

Fall,

gradually

came to

be

equated

with

knowing

the

mind of

Nature's

creator,

thereby

increasingly

eroding

the

distinction

between

human

and

divine

knowledge.

Thus, as

Noble

puts

it,

"scientists

subtly

but

steadily began

to assume

the mantle

of

creator in

their

own minds, as

gods

themselves"

(p.

67).

In the twentieth

century,

avant-garde

artists

such

as

Vertov

also

assumed "the

mantle of

creator,"

abandoning

the role

of

naturalistic

imitators

of God's

world

and

conceiving

of

themselves-God-like-as

reconstructing

reality

from

degree

zero

according

to

aesthetic

principles.

Vertov's

attempt

to

create

"new men"

through

film

art,

which I

have

sketched in

this

essay,

is

an

example

of the

quintessentially

avant-garde

project

of

reconstructing

reality,

and it

is in

this

shared

aspiration

that

the

avant-garde's

identification

with

modem

science-so

deeply problematic as

it

is-

most

clearly

manifests

itself.

According

to Boris

Groys

in

his

fascinating

but

controversial

essay

"The

Birth

of

Socialist

Realism,"

by

the

time Vertov

is

making

Man

with a

Movie

Camera,

he

avant-garde

artist's

self-conception

as

God-like

creator

is

already

under

threat in

Soviet

society:

"The

avant-garde

had .

..

rejected [the

demand

to

'paint

life'],

since,

according

to the

formula 'God

is

dead,'

it no

longer

perceived

the

world

as

the

work

of

God's art.

The

avant-garde

artist

laid claim

to

the

vacant

place

of the

total

creator,

but

in

fact

this

place

had

been

filled

by political

authority.

Stalin

became

the

only

artist,

the

Malevich,

so

to

speak, of the Stalin period, liquidating the avant-garde as a competitor ..." (Groys, "The Birth of

Socialist

Realism,"

in

Laboratory

f

Dreams:

The

Russian

Avant-Garde

nd

Cultural

Experiment,

d.

John

E.

Bowlt

and

Olga

Matich

[Stanford:

Stanford

University

Press,

1996],

p.

209).

47



OCTOBER

resemblance to machines.

Rather,

his "new

people"

are machine-like but also

fully

human because free from Nature, and free because they are machine-like, because

they

have

recognized

and

fulfilled their fundamental mimetic resemblance to

mechanistic

Nature.

In

his

vision,

which

is

quintessentially

modern,

human

beings

accede to the "realm

of

freedom,"

the realm

of

autonomy

from

Nature,

through

the attainment

of

their

fundamental resemblance to machine-like Nature. Vertov's

camera-eye

and his

ascription

of

human

predicates

and

powers

to machines

in

general

is

not

simply

the

expression

of a crude desire to mechanize human

beings.

It

is

his means of

representing

and

envisaging

the

complex

and

paradoxical

synthesis

of Nature and

Freedom,

of

natural

mechanism and human

autonomy,

that will characterize the "new

people"

of the future. It is his means of

representing

The

magician

n

Manwith a Movie

Camera.

for

his

spectator-workers

the

promise

of ultimate human freedom

from

Nature

that

will

result,

according

to

him,

from the fulfillment

of

the mimetic resemblance

between

human

being

and

machine. It is

his

way

of

inducing

his

spectator-workers

into

recognizing

their

mimetic

resemblance to machines and

the

utopian

rewards

of

fulfilling

this resemblance.

If we

return

momentarily

to

the scene from

Man with a Movie

Camera

hat

we

began

with, the scene in which a camera behaves like a human

being

in front of

an

audience who

smile

and

laugh

at

it,

we can

clearly recognize

this

complex

48



Can

the

Camera

See?Mimesis

n

Man with a Movie

Camera

synthesis

of Nature

and Freedom

at work.

As in the

rest of the

film,

Vertov's

spectator-workers are here being asked to recognize their mimetic resemblance to

the camera

as

a

machine.

Vertov does

this

by

playing

on the

morphological

similar-

ities between

camera and human

being

and

by

literally

making

the

camera

walk

around

on

a

stage

like a human

being.

However,

unlike most of

the rest of the

film

in

which the camera is

at

work,

in this

scene

the

camera

is

at

play.

Throughout

Man

with a

Movie Camera he

camera is

depicted

for the

most

part

in

its

productive

capacity

for

work. We

are shown what it

is used for

as

an

instrument,

its

practical

purposes,

and

we

are

asked to

recognize

our

metaphysical

resemblance to it

in

its

identity

as a

productive

machine. But in

this

sequence,

the

camera

is

now

at

play,

engaged

in

the

non-productive

activity

of

amusing

and

entertaining

the

audience

within the film

just

as the

magician

in an earlier

sequence

amused and enter-

tained

an

audience of

children.

It

is,

in

other

words,

free

from

work,

free from

its

identity

as

a

productive

machine,

as a

part

of

Nature,

and

we are

being

asked to

recognize

its

resemblance to us in

its

humanistic

capacity

for

ludic freedom. As in

the

sequence

with the

trams,

Vertov here

endows the

camera

with

Freedom to

show his

spectator-workers

the

utopian

rewards

of mimesis.

And

it

works. For

does

not

the

amused

delight

that we

witness on

the

faces of

this

audience within

the

film

perfectly

manifest

"the

creative

joy"

of

which

Vertov

speaks

in

his

early

pronouncement

from "We:

Variant of a

Manifesto,"

indicating

that this

audience

"loves"

his

machine,

the

camera?

In

Man

with a

Movie

Camera,

Vertov

bequeathed

a

complex

and

enduring

legacy

to

the

international

avant-garde

and the

traditions

of film

theory

that

followed

him. His

conception

of

the

camera as a

mimetic,

fetishized,

enchanted

machine-a

machine

that is

both

human

and

mechanical,

a

machine

that

holds

out

the

promise

of

human

salvation and

Freedom-surfaces

continually.

And

his

mimetic

project

of

a

physical

and

mental

harmony

between

human

being

and

camera is

pursued

by

filmmakers and

theorists in

numerous

ways.

But

it

is

ultimately

taken to its

logical

extreme

by

Brakhage's

momentous

practice.

For it

is

Brakhage

who

finds the

creative

means to

stitch the

camera into

the

very

abric

of

his

own

mind and

body,

going

beyond

harmony

and

creating

a

seamless

unity

between the

camera,

his

imagination,

and

the

rhythm,

pulse,

and

movement of

his

body.

It is

only

in

the

period

of

advanced

capitalism-when

the

absolute

indifference

of

capital

to

human life

enters

advanced

art

with a

vengeance-that

Warhol will

step

forward

to

turn this

tradition

on

its

head.

For

Warhol's

practice

constitutes,

like

Brakhage's,

the

logical

culmination

of

Vertov's

mimetic

project

of

synthesizing

human

being

and

machine.

However,

it

represents

a

horrific,

dialectical

inversion

of this

project-a

perverse

mirror

image

of

Brakhage's

practice-in

which

the

careful

balance

between

mind,

body,

and

machine that

is

established

by

Vertov

49



OCTOBER

and

perfected

by Brakhage

is obliterated. While

Warhol's

project

is still

suffused

with a vision of Freedom-as Stephen Koch was one of the first to suggest36-his

camera

is

nevertheless defined

in

contradistinction to

Brakhage's

precisely

by

its

cold,

absolute

indifference

o

the mind

and

body

of the

spectator.

And it is

this

indifference-during

a

period

in

which artistic

practice

in

general

is

defined

by

an "aesthetic of

indifference"-that

results

in

a

film

practice

that

stretches-in

Empire,

Sleep,

The

Chelsea

Girls-the minds and bodies of

spectators

to the

very

limits

of endurance

and

beyond.

With

Warhol,

a

period

of machinic

narcissism s

inaugu-

rated

in film

practice,

a machinic narcissism

that

is

developed

within

the

movement

known as Structural

film

and reaches its

triumphant

climax in

Snow's

masterpiece

La

Rigion

Centrale

1969).

And it is no

accident that

it

is La

Rigion

Centrale-a film about visibility-that most seductively invites and violently frustrates

our mimetic

impulse

toward the

camera,

our

tendency

to talk about the

camera as

an

eye

that can

see.

36.

Stephen

Koch,

Stargazer,

evised

ed.

(NewYork:

Marion

Boyars

Publishers,

1985).

50

Documents

Turvey, Malcolm_Can the Camera See? Mimesis in "Man With a Movie Camera"