A SIXTH PART OF THE WORLD

Although it occupies a less prominent place in film history than Man with a Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov’s A SIXTH PART OF THE WORLD is an equally masterful showcase of his montage practice. Its political element is perhaps even more conspicuous, as Vertov uses editing to represent the rival economic systems of the capitalist and socialist worlds. A commission by the Soviet trading agency Gostorg, the film is structured as a Whitmanesque poem, rhythmically intoning the diversity of the Soviet populace, before culminating with a peroration on the imperative to increase industrial productivity.