The Cinematic Orchestra

The Cinematic Orchestra received standing ovations and more requests from festivals to perform their score to Dziga Vertov's classic silent film and there was a good reason for the demand. Man with a Movie Camera is a gorgeous motion picture that was filmed in the Ukraine in 1929, which even without music is a sight to behold. Vertov's desire to shoot from unusual angles and experiment with advanced editing techniques and trick photography made this a silent classic ahead of its time. What makes his footage so compelling is the fact that he chose to document the everyday life of strangers, including coal miners, factory workers, athletes and bathing beauties, and then tie all the scenes together quickly to create vignettes. So how do you make a great thing better? Just ask J. Swinscoe and his Cinematic Orchestra to create musical perfection to accompany Vertov's stunning camera work. Composing the perfect music to set the tone and add massive amounts of life to the soundless feature, the Cinematic Orchestra layers an absolutely gorgeous array of strings, horns and slick drum kit work that seems as if they were meant to be the score all along. The DVD comes with a somewhat disappointing documentary, in the sense that it deals with the Cinematic Orchestra as a band and their live show rather than giving more insight to the approach, practicing and recording of the film score. Other features include 30 minutes worth of live performances, as well as a grainy Super 8 version of their "All That You Give" video with Fontella Bass, but nothing compares to the audio/visual masterpiece of Man with a Movie Camera. Extras: documentary; live performances; photo gallery and biographies. (Ninja Tune/Outside)