I found Vertov's piece particularly interesting. He speaks of how the camera and the human eye tell the same story completely differently. I have often in projects or even in just taking some pictures found it annoying when I cannot get it to look like what I'm seeing with my own eyes. Vertov makes me think about that more. It does not always have o be a hindrance. The fact that we can "endlessly perfect the camera" is an asset, and it can also open our mind to approaching a subject in a new perspective that cannot be captured by live viewing with our own eyes. This ability makes creative filmmakers and photographers "builders," not just recorders or imitators. As with most of these creative quasi-manifestos, I found Vertov arrogant. His claim to "create a man more perfect than Adam" and overall pride in being kino-eye is offputting to me, and like most of these manifestos, it makes me discount it somewhat. But unlike most, I think he has some real substance.
And on the other end of the "BS Spectrum" for me is Stan Brakhage's writing. Filled with convoluted and yet somehow still vague prose, I find it hard to take his idea seriously. I frankly found it needlessly complicated and hard to follow. It reminded me of the video we watched after discussing the futurist manifesto. It was about 10 minutes long and featured the human filled with electronics and the computerized voice. It rejects massive figure and projects some sort of new world society with little more reasoning than someone thinking they know better without any attempt at proof. I find these pieces are overly convoluted and full of jargon just to make them sound smarter than the reader. All it does for me is make me think they don't have an argument whatsoever.
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