After watching Un Chien Andalou, I must say my reaction was surprise. The short film was fast paced, completely strange, and disorienting. After watching it another time, I came to the same conclusion: that this producer obviously was not planning to put any reason or moral within these clips. Or if he attempted to, I certainly did not see it. However, the plot of the film in general was rather interesting. Though the viewer may be disgusted and shocked, they certainly would not be able to stop watching due to morbid curiosity as to how this would end. Overall, the visual qualities of the film are actually pretty good. There is a point in the beginning where the woman catches the man outside her doorstep: The man is seen standing in the room, staring at this hand. There are a bunch of ants swarming out of his hand, and after a close up, it dissolves into a woman’s hairy armpit, and then some sort of a sea urchin, and many other images. The technique Bunuel uses to enhance these effects is interesting, though again they are completely off topic (if there is a topic) and seem to just be a bunch of dissolving transitions. Emotionally, it seems as though these clips emit some sexual tension, with complete lack of reason. There also seems to be quite a great amount of violence: every scene seems to be almost aggressive. The very beginning of the film has a man cutting open a woman’s eye forcibly with a blade. There is a scene with a man falling off his bike, a violent clip where a man shoots another man multiple times, and even a section where a man chases a woman in the room and attempts to molest her.
Compared to Man with a Movie Camera, there are many differences and similarities that I was able to successfully spot. In terms of editing, there are various effects. Both Vertov and Bunuel seem to be attempting to portray this message to the crowd that they are not the typical film makers. Vertov proves this by being in the film himself, showing his video camera in scenes, showing his editing skills within the movie itself and so forth. Bunuel goes about juxtaposing a series of horrendous images and clips together which emit violence and tension. Both films seem to catch the viewer off guard. The pace of Un Chien Andalou is a lot faster than Man with a Movie Camera and they both are set in the mid 1900’s. While Vertov shows the typical workday of the proletariat, Bunuel goes beyond the depth of the proletariat and shows strange and drastic clips of aggression. Both seem to sexualize woman, though again Un Chien Andalou does it a lot more drastically (the man groping the woman’s breasts as compared to the scene of the woman sleeping in bed in Man with a Movie Camera). Both films incorporate Bruce Block’s techniques of framing respectively. In Un Chien Andalou, there are various flat space shots (the woman getting groped, the man with ants all over his hand) and deep space shots (the man riding the bicycle and the woman watching him from her window above).
Overall, both films seem to communicate emotional messages to the audience. Un Chien Andaloureflects on the hardships and angers that men seem to face (guns, women) while just disorienting the audience with its complete lack of reason. The author’s main purpose seems to be just shocking people, or catching them off guard. Vertov seems to actually communicate a more concrete message, incorporating the typical difficulties of the proletariat and the issues the Russians face in the workday. The way he portrays it however seems rather united, as though these workers are meant to be there and it is their destiny to work day and night. Both Russian film artists introduce a whole new range of visual and emotional qualities within their films.
Digital Media Evolution 