The Proverbial Brick Road to Transhumanism
1. Senses:
The Kinok manifesto states that we as humans lack the ability to control ourselves. The “machine”, on the other hand, has abilities that surpass the limits of human perception and control. By accepting and studying the rhythm of the mechanical, we could potentially be stepping away from the theatrics, and into a world of truth and clarity. This of course sounds a bit pretentious (aside from the fact that this is a manifesto). However, since this is a product of human thought, there is still an essence of humanity in the way Kinoks are fascinated with their idea of machines. They believe that by adapting to the rhythm of the machines, our basic senses (especially vision and hearing) will go over the organic boundaries that set our species back from experiencing the true world to its fullest. Who are we to make sense of the visual cacophony of life with our tiny eyes? Who are we to decode the truth from the complex and noisy soundscape with our finite hearing range? With our limited movement and our limited perception, we wouldn’t be able to experience a documentary that covers all aspects of mundane life. There’s no need for a script, actors, costumes, or sets, for even in our daily life we have limited perception. Vertov, as a Kinok, shows this way of thinking clearly in his two films: Man With a Movie Camera and Enthusiasm. This essay will focus on the omniscience of the enhanced senses depicted in both of these films as two sub-headings: the Kino-Eye and the the Kino-Ear*.
*For clarity, this isn’t an official term that is coined by kinoks. I am referring to the enhanced ear as Kino-Ear to maintain a parallel between the two concepts.
1.1 The Kino-Eye:
Man With a Movie Camera starts by explicitly stating that this is an experimental, documentary-style film with no script or inter-titles. The reason why there is this notice is probably to make sure that the viewer is aware that this film is different from a narrative-based theatrical release. This choice of having no inter-titles also strengthens the idea of putting the emphasis on the sense of “seeing”, and shows how different and elevated the ability of the human eye is with the enhancement of a movie camera.
The idea is to use the camera to explore the world; however, by incorporating the actual human eye to the lens of the movie camera, Vertov shows that this is a combined effort of both the organic and the mechanical. The fast montage also drives home the point of how our own human eye alone “lacks the ability” to make complete sense of the visual chaos around us. Controlling the ability and range of movement means controlling our perception, and in that sense, a movie camera does in fact enhance our visual range. Human eye and the camera lens sync up especially in the scene with the blinds (see images below).
The shots we see are of people living their daily lives, not aware of the fact that they are being documented. The feeling of life caught unawares goes in tandem with the Kinok manifesto that shuns the fakeness of following scripts. There are no supernatural elements or people being out of character, and yet the viewer can still sense that what they are watching is not real life but a film. The scenes that are shown are organic in essence; however, they are not purely natural, as they form a collage of realities crafted with the help of the machine to reveal a deeper Truth. The end-product still conveys a message: films should show reality, not fantasy.
1.2 The Kino-Ear:
Enthusiasm starts with a repetitive two-note sequence that resembles a radio signal until the woman on the screen sits down and puts on her headphones (see image below).
She is the omniscient listener. As soon as the two-note sequence ends, a ticking that resembles a metronome starts. However, its rhythm is off and is not in complete sync with the orchestra that plays in the background. The ticking is only interrupted by the repetitive church bell that accompanies the footage of people praying and places dedicated for worship. The radio signal sequence comes back with the religious chanting this time. It emphasises the idea of communication and collective orthodox worship. The chanting and the signal stops when the omniscient listener moves her head and the camera focuses on her ear.
This also connects to the idea of movement and ability being enhanced with the help of a machine, because the omniscient listener was able to hear more sounds when she had her headphones (which represents the mechanical). The isolated announcement of the Symphony of Donbass, along with the wavelength of the radio, prompts the omniscient listener to put on her headphones once more. As the scene cuts to her, eyes closed and headphones on, we hear the church bells, the metronome, and the orchestra simultaneously. What's interesting is that when she opens her eyes, a visual montage begins at full-force, reminiscent of Man with a Movie Camera. It’s no longer just sound; the concept of the Kino-Eye merges with an enhanced sense of hearing to create an overall enhanced audiovisual perception. The visuals then start cutting back and forth between her eyes, fixed on a certain spot, and various people making the sign of the cross. The music and rhythm become increasingly cartoonish until we see the oscillation of the bell; then, the music abruptly stops, and we hear the bell and metronome once again.
2. Editing:
2.1 Visual Editing and Juxtaposition:
Invisible editing is out of the question when it comes to these two films. Vertov and Svilova explicitly show the process of making these films in Man With a Movie Camera. There is a scene dedicated solely to Svilova working with the celluloids.
There are also multiple shots throughout the entire film where we actually see the man with the movie camera himself, pointing his camera to multiple people and places.
This includes superimposed shots where the man with the movie camera puts his gigantic tripod on top of a city, or his teeny tiny tripod in a glass full of beer.
The size is not a constant, just as the location of surveillance varies. He is the omniscient viewer, equipped with a movie camera, which makes his eyes enhanced Kino-eyes compared to those of everyone else in the film. Thus, he has the range of movement and the ability of sight that no one else has. As regular viewers, seeing the highlighted 'behind-the-scenes' footage breaks the illusion for us. Our suspension of disbelief gets interrupted by this anti-illusionist approach, which surprisingly still retains elements of the cinema of attractions. The fast paced montage and the endless perspective shifts create an overwhelming visual spectacle no matter how mundane the objects and people in front of the camera are. The editing is chaotic and innovative for both Man With a Movie Camera and Enthusiasm. Similar techniques are used in both films as we witness a condensed version of Soviet daily life. Both films present socio-economic commentary and construct a new visual reality by parallel editing, transhumanist senses, canted angles, utilisation of geometry, and split screens.
The beginnings of both Man With a Movie Camera and Enthusiasm show the viewer that what they are about to experience is a film. In Man with a Movie Camera, cuts between close-ups of various objects—such as a lamp, a camera, and a corridor—highlight the cinema as a space where people watch films. We also see a montage of a man setting up the camera while the chairs open and close. The process of setting up and watching the film is juxtaposed through back-to-back cuts that depict the cinema as empty in one shot and filled with a crowd finding their seats in the next. The stillness of the instrument players, paired with the rhythmic cuts, establishes the pace and builds anticipation before the “film in a film” begins.
Enthusiasm achieves this anti-illusionist effect through cuts between the omniscient listener (see section 1.2) and the locals going about their day. We are made aware once again that this is a film when the scene cuts to the orchestra conductor preparing to start the symphony. This preparation sequence also creates anticipation, similar to the orchestra scenes in Man with a Movie Camera. The only difference is that in the latter, we also see the orchestra members, and that particular scene is more visually driven than in Enthusiasm. Following that sequence, Man with a Movie Camera presents a series of still shots featuring a window, someone sleeping, a lamp, and other ordinary, everyday visuals.
This moderately paced montage continues for a while, introducing other editing elements such as split screens and juxtapositions. We see various shots of people sleeping on the streets on top of benches, the floor, and a horse carriage. These images, shown after a scene of a woman sleeping comfortably in her bed, conveys a socio-economic class difference.
These shots are again juxtaposed with a shot of baby cribs lined up, showing babies sleeping indoors in relative comfort compared to the people sleeping on the streets, presented in a split screen.
In Enthusiasm, juxtaposition is used to emphasise the work of the proletariat. We see the workers train with the tools in one scene and the subsequent scene shows us what the actual conditions are when they are working in the mines.
The usage of canted dutch angles and right angles are also a juxtaposition in Enthusiasm that shows the difference of man and the machine. In certain parts of the film, the workers are depicted with a dutch angle followed by a machine that is depicted with a right angle.
Whereas in one particular scene, a worker is using a pulley (which I will classify as mechanical), and the weight he’s trying to move, resembling a log (which I will also classify as mechanical), is positioned at a canted angle, contrasting with the worker.
There seems to be a sort of balance between man and machine in both Enthusiasm and Man With a Movie Camera which brings me to the title of this essay where I refer to “transhumanism”. I believe that in both of these films, the machine is not as superior to man as the manifesto suggests. The real power and potential are unlocked when we combine both the organic and the mechanical. Thus, enhanced senses, which lead me to the concept of transhumanism. The comedic, anthropomorphic stop-motion of the camera in Man with a Movie Camera toward the end, where it appears to move on its own and take an encore bow in front of an audience, supports the idea of a possible combination of human and machine to achieve the Truth.
2.2 Sonic Editing and Juxtaposition:
Since Enthusiasm is a sound film, Vertov applies similar techniques to the editing of sound, playing with the synchronisation between audio and visual. Sometimes, abrupt cuts in both sound and visuals are intentionally desynchronised; the sound lags behind the visual, reminding viewers that they are watching an experimental film made by humans with the aid of machines. To illustrate these “similar techniques,” we can examine a sequence around the six-minute mark where a match cut aligns a church bell oscillating left and right with a woman making the sign of the cross while crouching and rising. The sound here is also fragmented; the church bell is accompanied by its distinct ringing (as mentioned in section 1.2), and as the cut shifts to the woman, the sound unexpectedly and abruptly switches to a choir. This jarring transition creates an emotional and sensory contrast that disrupts the viewer's immersion.
Similarly, during the scene where people are trying to take down the cross, there is percussion. And when visuals gradually get more chaotic, superimposed, and kaleidoscope-like, the sound of the metronome and the percussion from the orchestra / band mix together to reflect the chaos. This time, the sound mirrors the visual disarray, intensifying the sense of disorder and creating a multi-sensory depiction of the events (see images below).
3. Experimental Music:
It’s rather funny how the manifesto invites us to turn our back on music, and yet advises us to search for our own rhythm. Kinoks, in their own somewhat elitist and ironically bourgeois way, incorporated modern day sound design with experimental music scoring in Enthusiasm (Man With a Movie Camera was originally silent and accompanied by live music, so I do not include any music / sound analysis of The Alloy Orchestra in this essay). However, differently from the “romantic” and narrative-driven films of the time, Vertov’s use of audio is almost like another one of our Kino-senses. It’s not there for fluff, for the sound itself also exists as another layer of slow-paced sonic montage. Cuts in audio are deliberately evident and jarring as part of the experimental scoring. This approach can be deemed “noisy” by some, but it is also innovative considering the year of its release. The incorporation of machine sounds in the score generates a surprisingly musical industrial clutter. It reflects the conditions of the working class in the mines and the fields, and the “5 year plan” that is mentioned in the film. This also makes the sound an organic extension of the documentary-style pseudo-narrative film.
All these machinery sounds along with the music credited in the opening of Enthusiasm (see pictures above) are integrated onto the visuals in such a way that it is mostly always diegetic without perfect audiovisual alignment. The marching band has a synced visual of an actual marching band walking in multiple scenes. The band’s music can be heard without the matching visual as well, but it can be tied to the omniscient listener (the woman in section 1.2), and the orchestra conductor, which can still be categorised as diegetic to a degree.
This imperfect audiovisual collage reminds the viewer that two senses exist simultaneously, and both of them have their own role in conveying the message. Enthusiasm has a clear distinction between sections that depict religion, mine workers, and field workers. The experimental sounds used in the score change according to the corresponding section: the bells in the first section, the railroad and steam trumpets in the second section, and the wheels and human voice in the third section. They emphasise the atmosphere with their integration to the orchestra and the marching band. There are also abrupt silences that are sometimes followed by human narration, and sometimes purely just by itself, silence. The visual counterparts of these are the scenes where there’s nothing but a blank black screen accompanied by an actual human talking.
4. The Collective and Propaganda:
Whenever we hear a human voice, it almost always gives a collectivist message. Whether it be the workers talking about their goals (e.g. “I’m worker #x, I promise to overfulfill the Plan till the year’s end”) or them singing collectively. The message is similar whenever someone is addressing the public as well, both on and off the camera (see images below).
In Man with a Movie Camera, the propaganda aspect is less emphasised, as the film mostly contains social commentary on the living conditions across different socio-economic groups—contrasting the everyday lives of the well-off with those who lack secure shelters to sleep in. Whereas, in Enthusiasm, the propaganda is explicit; we can clearly see and hear speeches by workers and authorities urging collective efforts toward the First Five-Year Plan, encouraging people to work in coal mines and fields to achieve the Soviet economic goals. The visuals and the audio also reflect the era. The deliberate choices made by Vertov and Svilova again reflect enhanced senses in Enthusiasm—this time through both enhanced ear as well as enhanced vision.
