Man With a Movie Camera was released in 1929, after four years of filming, editing, and imagining. This film takes you beyond watching a film. You become the cinematic experience. You view everything from start to finish. You see the initial filming, you see the editing of said film, you see the crowd shuffle in to view the film, you view the film, and then you are left to think about the film, and let it sink in. This documentary, was a documentary of not only the Soviet Union at a tough time, but also, a documentary of documentaries themselves. These images, as stated at the beginning of the film, are not there as a narrative or tell a story. They are simply there to be thought of, considered almost, instead of understood. This film comments on the fact that cinema is not simply a viewing of a film, but it is so much more. It is the creation of something new, and the entire experience associated with that creation.
A viral video that I distinctly remember being exposed to was Charlie Bit Me. My sister and her friend showed me this YouTube video, and within days, I can remember hearing about it all over school. It was hilarious, people could not get over it. It was quoted continuously in classes, it was posted all over MySpace, and the public could not get enough of this video. There were adaptations made using autotune, and recreations by 30 year old men. This video, which started as someone's simply home movie of their children, was now an international sensation. I am not sure that I would categorize this as film however. Yes it was filmed, and it is a captured on video. However, film to me is something that was intended. A documentary, even, has an initial purpose. They choose what to tape with the intent of showing it and creating a certain thought, or eliciting a certain reaction, even if that is not what ends up happening. This video was filmed by a parent who did not have the intent of capturing anything other than her children. I cannot discount it, because it is clearly influential, and some could argue against me saying that the intent was to show people her children, and like any documentary you cannot change or help how people react, or how the subjects act like any other documentary. However, I feel that if it is categorized as film, it definitely does not deserve to placed in the same standing as films like Man With a Movie Camera, and the like.
