idiot with an FPP

December 30, 2010 7:42 AM

Ebert reviews Jamie Stewart's "Man in Blizzard," shot during the recent snows in NYC Scroll down to view Vertov's "Man with a Camera" (version with some nice added music here), which inspired the short. Vertov has inspired many before.
posted by cubby (15 comments total)

Amazing. Thanks for this!
posted by idest at 8:07 AM on December 30, 2010

Nicely done. I love "Man with a Movie Camera", saw it with The Alloy Orchestra playing in front of it earlier in the year. It's so slick and technically adept that it's hard to remember while you're watching it that it's 80 years old.
posted by octothorpe at 8:09 AM on December 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

That is a great video. Thanks for posting this. Jaimie has a great photographic eye, got some beautiful shots and did a great job editing. (These are the kind of posts that make mefi great.)
posted by caddis at 8:27 AM on December 30, 2010

I aspire to stuff like this.
posted by SPUTNIK at 8:29 AM on December 30, 2010

It's very well put together. According to his estimates, he spent ~2.5 hrs taking footage and ~4 hrs editing. That's pretty impressive.

From Ebert's review, I had assumed "Man With a Movie Camera" was also a short. Maybe tonight I'll get a chance to watch it.
posted by KGMoney at 8:30 AM on December 30, 2010

Buster Keaton: "The Cameraman," 1928. Directly inspired and featuring an hilarious antimodernist satire of Vertov, here.

Of course the film itself is stunningly hilarious without taking pokes at Vertov, mind.
posted by mwhybark at 8:53 AM on December 30, 2010

Shoot, I can't find the audition-footage sequence. it's in the first act of the film. Keaton doesn't know how to huse his new camera and shoots a random mishmash of urban scenes, using double exposures and other montage techniques - including an upside down battleship sailing toward the viewer - which are a direct satire of "Man with a Camera."
posted by mwhybark at 9:01 AM on December 30, 2010

What a neat little flick. All the textures and visual geometries of NYC in the snow. So many memorable moments like filming through the dingy, transparent curtain slats, then the drama of the barely visible window light. At 1:48 onwards he got the extraordinary intensity of the storm.

I love the drama at 2:08 with the person pushing the car and then the hilarious dog in a coat pissing in the snow! Ha! Up to his fuzzy balls, an arthritic looking pee, which ends up being the climax of the film as he finally finishes and breaks through the snow drift

Brilliant! Bravo Jamie Stuart!

And I enjoyed the classic Man with a Movie Camera too.
posted by nickyskye at 11:24 AM on December 30, 2010

Tangentially related, Here's the trailer to a fake video game(?), shot in the snowstorm last week. I don't know what is going on here, except it features an electronic Bowser head and sixty seconds of awesome.
posted by norm at 1:59 PM on December 30, 2010

Love it.
posted by imjustsaying at 3:31 PM on December 30, 2010

I can't read Ebert. Because his sentences. Are too. Short.
posted by gjc at 3:36 PM on December 30, 2010

Watched this earlier (didn't read the Ebert review though) and beyond the great shots there's also this subtle narrative of triumph. You see people huddle and stuck in the snow, struggling to get out, and one poor dog trying to go about his business. Then more people come together to push the cars and they're free! And the dog finishes and gets to move on! And the motorcyclist gets over his rough spot and drives away smiling!

Reminds us that it's only snow and that if we help each other out we can overcome it.
posted by sbutler at 4:00 PM on December 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

Needs more dog butt.
posted by hexatron at 4:55 PM on December 30, 2010

I love the Internet.
posted by TheShadowKnows at 7:23 PM on December 30, 2010

This would have been perfect had a midget wearing a little red riding hood outfit turned around and stabbed him at the end.
posted by Senator at 7:27 PM on December 30, 2010