Serious

The UK premiere of NYman with a Movie Camera, a feature film by Michael Nyman, screened with a live performance of his score by the Michael Nyman Band.
 
The film presents a shot-by-shot reconstruction of Dziga Vertov's  iconic film, Man with a Movie Camera, replacing the original sequences with footage from Michael Nyman's own film archives shot over the last two decades.
 
Deeply rooted in Vertov’s original ideas concerned with “the perception of truth" and with the documentation of “life caught unawares”, Nyman‘s film attempts to capture the essence of our contemporary times through the lens of his own camera, creating a multi-sensory experience of time as it occurs and of life as it happens. The footage is recorded by first hand observation and delivers an unscripted visual transcription of every-day life as recently documented by the composer in a collection of over 50 cinematographic works.
 
Both films share the same score, originally composed by Nyman in 2003 for Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera and available as BFI video.

The evening opens with critically acclaimed song cycle The Glare, which features the Band and soul singer David McAlmont. For this project, McAlmont has written new songs based on contemporary news stories over pre-existing Nyman compositions. McAlmont's subject matter explores pertinent subjects as varied as 21st century piracy, reality television and banking errors. The result is The Glare, a startling, beautiful and extraordinary record, nominated for this year’s Mercury Prize.

“David McAlmont is one of British pop's most precious hidden treasures. His voice is a sublime and miraculous thing, able to convey unimaginable reserves of vulnerability and inner strength in one wavering syllable. Michael Nyman is less in need of an introduction, being probably the country's most celebrated living composer. The idea of putting them together as a duo is almost too good to be true: it cannot, surely, live up to its potential. Except that it does. There will be those who find the whole enterprise dauntingly arty, but once heard, you'll want never want to live without it.” The Telegraph

Michael Nyman's film was screened at the Toronto Film Festival.

Read the review in Variety magazine:

Composer Michael Nyman's dynamic jump into filmmaking, "NYman With a Movie Camera," is as much a celebration of the world as its inspiration, Dziga Vertov's silent masterpiece, "Man With a Movie Camera," celebrates Soviet society. Having written a thrilling 2002 score accompanying screenings of Vertov's monumental film, as well as the British Film Institute's DVD release, Nyman exploits his considerable acquaintance with the work to create a similarly giddy montage with editor Max Pugh, this time shot on vid over the past two decades. Fests, specialty exhibs and classy vid play beckon.

Unlike Vertov's, Nyman's camera travels the globe, visiting more than a dozen countries (including considerable footage lensed in Iran and Mexico, the director's primary residence). However, like Vertov, a celebratory tone is created through montage (with visual tricks exactly duplicated) as well as by a sense that the viewer belongs to a family of humans. Paralleling Vertov's antic cameraman, Nyman observes a Mexican lenser operating a camera jib as a constant reference point and "character." Nyman's score, performed by his powerful band, alternates between andante and allegro, the latter exploding with his signature locomotive propulsion.

Camera (DV), Nyman; editor, Max Pugh; music, Nyman. Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Future Projections

By ROBERT KOEHLER