Text & technology:
1. as subject (includes ideology & propaganda)
2. as medium (investigation & exploration of a new medium)
3. as structural pattern (including meta aspects, self-referentiality)

1. Technology as subject of MMC:
-- the title: the film depicts how cinematic technology is used and its potential both technically and ideologically
-- much emphasis on machines: "machines" is one category shown on the editing shelves
-- machines are filmed as aesthetic objects as well as means of production
-- machines & workers relate to ideology of the 5-year plan

ideology & propaganda (the ideological context of MMC is early Soviet communism and Marxist theory)
-- happy workers
-- industry as defining the identity, power, & potential of the USSR
-- positive picture of USSR economy
-- direct & implied attack on NEP [New Economic Policy, 1921-], with its limited acceptance of free enterprise
-- support for First Five-Year Plan (announced 1928), with emphasis on rapid industrialization and reversal of NEP
-- use of film to instruct the working class (against drinking and the vanity of beauty parlors, etc.; in favor of wholesome recreation and leisure time devoted to education).
-- diagesis: MMC can be seen as a utopian work, present a virtual ideal city of communism

Marxist idea of base-superstructure
-- the "base" of a society is economic ("means of production" and who controls it); everything else (education, law, media, etc.) is "superstructure"
-- MMC shows this by showing industry as well as its sources (smokestacks, mines, dams)
-- the film applies this idea to cinema: it depicts the process of film-making, and the mechanics of how a camera works (though it doesn't examine the infrastructure of the Soviet film industry)
-- MMC places little or no emphasis on formal schooling, the legal system, finance, or other aspects of the superstructure.

Vertov's ideology for cinema
-- documentary is superior to fictional film
-- mise en scene: film should depict "life as it is"
-- problem: the presence of the camera changes reality being filmed. (People react to the camera)
-- Vertov's means of dealing with this awareness of camera: instead of "life as it is," present "life caught unawares":
Camera Eye group developed techniques for dealing with the presence of the camera:
1. telephoto lens
2. conceal camera or disguise the cameraman
3. use dummy camera to distract people from actual camera
4. wait until people get used to having movie cameras in their environment; meanwhile, concentrate on machines
5. teach subjects to ignore the camera
6. if we can't catch life as it is, catch "life unawares": let people react to the camera; even provoke reactions

2. Technology as medium for the text:
-- MMC appears early in history of cinema and reflects the excitement of exploring a new medium
-- Vertov's manifesto at the beginning of the film asserts the unique qualities of cinema: "a truly international absolute language"
-- The manifesto rejects elements taken from other arts: "a film without a scenario" [script]; "without aid of theatre" [sets, actors]; "a film without intertitles" [written words]
-- MMC depicts the entire process of cinema from camera to editing to projection in a theater, including audience reactions
-- Official acceptance in the early USSR that a new medium was appropriate for revolutionary society and could be used to further political goals. Experimentation was encouraged.
-- By the time MMC appeared, official policy toward Soviet film criticized experimentation in favor of simplicity and transparency.

3. Technology as structuring metaphor/device for the text:
-- MMC exploits almost every technique unique to cinema, particularly editing (montage)
-- montage theory: influence of Eisenstein, the "tertium quid"
-- effect of Vertov's background in newsreel editing: necessity of editing at each stage of production, using available footage and making it coherent through editing
-- the "meta-film":
-- re-use of old material in new contexts (an anticipation of post-modernism)
-- self-referentiality: the film records its own birth and constantly foregrounds its filmic nature, including the artificiality of its construction

Contradictions?
-- Is there a contradiction between Vertov's cinematic technique and his ideology?

-- Can this be "life as it is", or even "life caught unawares"? (For example:, the city Vertov depicts is a virtual city composed of shots from at least three different USSR cities.)

-- Vertov was criticized in the USSR for emphasizing the filmic over the real, for "technological fetishism," and for creating a work that was inaccessible to the average viewer.

-- MMC is valued today almost entirely for its technique, not its subject matter.

-- To what extent should the film's commitment to a discredited (or worse) ideology affect our evaluation of it?


Significance, influence & reputation (from Graham Roberts)
-- "productionist" approach to art
-- approach to documentary: "life caught unawares"; making the filmmaker part of the world being investigated.
-- political approach to filmmaking: "semantics of socialist construction" (Annette Mitchelson)
-- film editing as a way of reconciling the mechanistic and the human (Seth Feldman)
-- "prototype of the net surfer": building a system by which millions of people assemble fragments and construct reality from them.
-- artifact of a lost time of political and technological optimism. "the belief that all things were possible in economic and social transformation."