'MUSIC WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA' is part of a series/collection of projects under the umbrella term of 'punk/DIY' within the iRIS research centre at Leeds Trinity University. The productions are created by collaborative endeavour and are testing how far such a democratising process can be pushed/devloped. In these projects we are seeking to make connections, build communities and 'do it ourselves.’

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MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA (Vertov, USSR, 1929) was ranked eighth in the 2017 Sight & Sound poll of the world's best films (& by a very long way the highest ranked documentary). It announces itself as: ‘AN EXPERIMENT …In cinematic communication of real events … This experimental work aims at creating a truly international language of cinema based in its total separation from the language of theatre and literature

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It can be viewed as the visual culmination of Vertov’s 1922 manifesto: WE: VARIANT OF A MANIFESTO

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WE invite you:

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-to flee the sweet embraces of the romance, the poison of the psychological novel,

the clutches of the theatre of adultery; to turn your back on music,

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Yet, this film has drawn composers and performers to attempt many soundtracks (several recordings are available – at least 10 in the last decade alone). Our project has (so far) resulted in four (very different) completely improvised and collaborative soundtracks (resulting from different ‘performers’ in differ contexts /venues).

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Our aim is to build the archive and to invite you … to contribute your soundtracks leading to an international celebration of the film during 2019 to celebrate the 90th anniversary of this most challenging and rewarding of movies.

 

Graham Roberts; Tom Pollard; Sheldon Ridley; Ally Thornton (iRIS/TrinityVision)

2018