Dziga Vertov was one of the greatest innovators of Soviet cinema. The radical complexity of his work--in both sound and silent forms--has given it a central place within contemporary theoretical inquiry. Vertov's writings, collected here, range from calculated manifestos setting forth his heroic vision of film's potential to dark ruminations on the inactivity forced upon him by the bureaucratization of the Soviet state.

Essays on Cinema by Roland Barthes, Dziga Vertov, Jean-Louis Baudry, Maya Deren, Gregory Woods, Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub, Thierry Kuntzel, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Marc Vernet, Christian Metz and Bertrand Augst.

This book is conceived as a collection of Autonomous Works on the apparatus of cinema. The intention is to identify the individual components and complete film apparatus, the interdependent operations comprising the "film, the author of the film, the spectator."

The selection of works was made to approach the subject from theoretical directions synchronously with work of filmmakers who address and incorporate the apparatus—the function of film, the film's author, the effects produced on the viewer while viewing film—as an integral part of their work, and to turn backwards and call upon the machinery that creates the impression of reality whose function, inherent in its very medium, is to conceal from its spectator the relationship of the viewer/subject to the work being viewed.