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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Propaganda > Socialism > Communist > Filmmaking > Comedy > Soviet > Russia > Music > Biography > Stage > Dziga Vertov: The Man With The Movie Camera and other newly-restored works (1924 - 1934/Flicker Alley Blu-ray)/Magician: The Astonishing Life & Work Of Orson Welles (2014/Cohen Media Blu-ray)/Smiling

Dziga Vertov: The Man With The Movie Camera and other newly-restored works (1924 - 1934/Flicker Alley Blu-ray)/Magician: The Astonishing Life & Work Of Orson Welles (2014/Cohen Media Blu-ray)/Smiling Through The Apocalypse: Esquire in The 60s (2014/First Run DVD)


Picture: B/B-/C+ Sound: B-/B-/C Extras: B/C/C+ Films: B+/B/B



Now for some must-see documentaries, including some classics whose qualifications as such us debatable...



Dziga Vertov: The Man With The Movie Camera and other newly-restored works (1924 - 1934) features five films by the highly successful Soviet Propagandist who happened to be a fine filmmaker along with Sergei Eisenstein in the early years of Soviet Cinema. The Man With The Movie Camera (1929) is the centerpiece here, an international hit that celebrates the possibilities and excitement of the film camera in self-reflective ways that are meant to play like a documentary (showing the 'social realities' of the world) but is obviously staged and has camera and editing tricks it revels in as much as it self-reflection. Some consider this the greatest documentary ever, but I'm not so sure despite how effective it is.


The cameraman (Vertov) is actually being followed by another cameraman, making him the subject to some as a way to further hype the world of cinema (then so new) and its possibilities. However, this is as much a Soviet propaganda work as anything from explicit celebrations of 'socialism' to montage editing that suggests people become one and one with new 'technology' (cameras and factory machines, which are also presented as equivalent in the film) to produce a strong bounty so the 'oppressed workers' will never go without again.


Known for promotion the kino-pravda or film truth, the film unfortunately was an influence on Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi Propaganda films (which expand on (and steal) some shots and scenes from this particular film) but also just a film with such energy that once it gets started, it never stops. You see women doing jobs you would not see them doing in other societies (especially the United States, which is the point, even if these women never had these jobs in the USSR) continuing the myth of progress, one that is more obviously a myth on the 25th anniversary of the collapse of the USSR.


Also included here are two more silent films, Kino-Eye (1924, 78 minutes) and Kino-Pravda (1925, 23 minutes) that are the precursors to Camera (68 minutes) and two sound films, Enthusiasm: Symphony Of The Donbass (1931, 66 minutes) in an early sound film featuring machine sounds, et al and Three Songs Of Lenin (1934, 59 minutes) which deals with the death of Lenin as a founder and the main figure of liberating the oppressed with some footage of him when he was alive (a few parts where we hear his voice) and in a way resurrects him as a way to say he is still alive because the oppressed are somehow no longer. The true intent is sadly revealed in the final shot when Stalin shows up smiling, about to begin his murderous reign of terror. You should see all five films.


A thick booklet of Flicker Alley's usual scholarly calibre is included, though we are counting the four additional films as extras since they cannot be part of the title of the release.



Chuck Workman's Magician: The Astonishing Life & Work Of Orson Welles (2014) runs 94 minutes, but does a fine job of covering the life and creative work of Welles, going beyond Citizen Kane, showing his great radio work, his early triumphs, his political work, how he continued as an artist and filmmaker, then also shows his problems, difficulties and conflicts in being ahead of his time and ticking off one too many people who wanted to get rid of him. The classic interviews are great, including with him, plus we get many new fine comments and other facts and rare footage throughout.


Workman is really good at this and he does not fail to show hi9m as a man ahead of his time and create a discourse that shows him as a master of all the arts and not just film or stage. Hard as it may to believe, Welles' legacy is not as solid and solidly known as it ought to be at this point, so this will turn out to be a much more important volume than those who know, know of and love Welles might expect. Another must0see release we highly recommend.


Extras include a nicely illustrated booklet on the film with a little text, while the Blu-ray adds an Original Theatrical Trailer and an on-camera interview with Workman by the underrated Annette Insdorf.



Last but not least is Tom Hayes' Smiling Through The Apocalypse: Esquire in The 60s (2014), a profile of the magazine, Americana, publishing and his groundbreaking publisher/writer father Harold T.P. Hayes, took the successful 1940s hit magazine and made it even more groundbreaking in the decades to come until he left decades later. Through vintage stills, some film clips, great interviews (one of which also appeared in a recent Muhammad Ali documentary), many magazine covers and new interviews, we see how bold, literate and incredible the once-oversized magazine was and why it has the legendary reputation it has.


Director Hayes also gives us much about his family and that includes more pictures and film clips, telling us about himself and the time in the process. This runs a long 97 minutes, but it is rich and worth your time. Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Benton, Candice Bergen, Hugh Hefner and many of the people who were there are also featured.


Extras include Extended Interview clips with Nora Ephron, Gore Vidal and Gay Talese.



The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image on all five films on Vertov have been as restored as possible, but Camera is by far the vest looking and it is amazing for its age, a 1929 film looking much fresher and newer, 86+ years (!!!) and counting. It can show its age at times, but not as much as the other films. The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Welles shows the age of the various materials used, some of which are rough, but this is well edited for the most part and looks good overall. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Esquire is the softest of the three due to format and has its own rough footage, but is also well assembled (note the stills) and is fine for the format.



The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mix on the three silent Vertov films are new orchestra recordings that sound fine, but did not work so well for me, while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 Mono lossless mixes on the sound films are aged, scratchy and a little brittle as is typical of Soviet films of the time, but I doubt they will ever sound better than they do here.


The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Welles is a mix of new audio, restored audio and some rough audio throughout, so some of this is barely stereo and more than a few clips are mono at best. Still, Workman has made them as audible as possible, but don't expect the multi-channel to be active much.


The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Esquire knows its limits and is just fine for the usually simple stereo and sometimes mono sound we get, but it can be soft and could have used some slight boosting at times. Wonder if this would sound better lossless?



- Nicholas Sheffo


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