While America had Criterion, in Europe we got a counterpart in UK distributor Eureka, when they decided to launch their own museum-style imprint, calling it the Masters of Cinema series. Movie buffs do well to keep their eyes on the line-ups of both.
Case in point: Eureka MoC's new release of Man with a Movie Camera, the 1929 documentary feature by Dziga Vertov, which is still considered to be one of the highlights of cinema history and one of the best films ever made. A full review of the film will arrive on this page a bit later, but for now we have a gallery of pictures, showing how great this release is.
Eureka has pulled out the stops with regards to sound and vision, but they have also provided a wealth of extras, most notably an extra two discs of short films by Vertov, and a great 100-page booklet with essays on the man and his works.
While the on-disc features probably win it from the off-disc features, the release as a whole is still a very attractive-looking package. Therefore, here is a gallery of shots. Click on the edge of the pictures to scroll through them, or at the center of each to see a bigger version.
And here it is: a box of thin cardboard, with a great cover-art design which is used consistently throughout the release.
In the box: two Amarays with a total of four discs, and a thick booklet.
All contents taken out of the box.
All contents opened.
The booklet is a veritable treasure-trove of information, on Soviet-age cinema, on Dziga Vertov, on the worldwide reactions to his revolutionary approaches to cinematography (continued next picture).
In it, you find essays, interviews, manifests written by the man himself, examples of his views. It is a magnificent addition to this set, and it indeed makes this release a mini-museum about Vertov.