Dziga Vertov Quotes

Our eyes see very little and very badly – so people dreamed up the microscope to let them see invisible phenomena; they invented the telescope...now they have perfected the cinecamera to penetrate more deeply into the visible world, to explore and record visual phenomena so that what is happening now, which will have to be taken account of in the future, is not forgotten.

I'm an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it...I approach and pull away from objects. I creep under them. I move alongside a running horse's mouth...This is I, the machine, manoeuvering in the chaotic movements, recording one movement after another in the most complex combinations... Thus I explain in a new way the world unknown to you.

Everybody who cares for his art seeks the essence of his own technique.

We cannot improve the making of our eyes, but we can endlessly perfect the camera.

The film drama is the opium of the people…down with bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios…long live life as it is!

Kino-Eye uses every possible means in montage, comparing and linking all points of the universe in any temporal order, breaking, when necessary, all the laws and conventions of film construction.

I am the camera's eye. I am the machine that shows you the world as I alone see it. Starting from today I am forever free of human immobility. I am in perpetual movement. I approach and draw away from things-I crawl under them-I climb on them-I am on the head of a galloping horse.

It is far from simple to show the truth, yet the truth is simple.

I am an eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, I am showing you a world, the likes of which only I can see

Freed from the boundaries of time and space, I co-ordinate any and all points of the universe, wherever I want them to be. My way leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I explain in a new way the world unknown to you.