d helps define the difference between Eisenstein and Vertov:
The films I make are never "film eyes" but always "film fists." I never make films in which the camera is an "objective witness," to be watched by an impassive eye of glass. I prefer to hit people hard on the nose (Swallow 46-47).
This contrasts with Vertov's desire to use the camera as an objective witness to history, in essence elevating the documentary to the highest level through "news" films without any comment, either implied or stated, so that the camera would only record whatever it happened to see. Vertov's intention can be seen in his 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera, which is essentially a record of a day in the life of the city of Moscow. It is meant to do more than record events, for Vertov also wanted to demonstrate what he called the Kino-Eye, his new principle of cinematic realism. What this meant was that Vertov conceived of the camera as a disconnected eye that was free to record events from perspectives beyond what the human being could see. In truth, though, the film centers more
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