Composer · 1944

Michael Nyman

2: briefs
13:00: average
26 min: in total

On film.briefs2

Man with a Movie Camera

Dziga Vertov · 1929

Man with a Movie Camera (1929) is a Soviet silent documentary directed by Dziga Vertov, filmed by Mikhail Kaufman and edited by Vertov and Yelizaveta Svilova. Shot across Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa, it presents urban life through radical montage, self-reflexive technique and zero intertitles — aiming to forge a pure cinematic language. With over 1,775 shots in 68 minutes, it remains a foundational essay-film on perception, machinery and the modern city.

13:00

The Piano

Jane Campion · 1993

Jane Campion’s 1993 drama follows Ada McGrath, a mute Scottish woman who travels to colonial New Zealand for an arranged marriage, carrying only her daughter and a piano. When her instrument is abandoned on the beach, she negotiates its return with a neighbouring settler — a transaction that unravels into desire, betrayal, violence, and self-reclamation. Anchored by Holly Hunter’s physically exacting performance and Michael Nyman’s insistent score, the film renders interiority through gesture, sound, and resistance rather than speech.