David Abelevich Kaufman (Russian: Дави́д А́белевич Ка́уфман) (2 January 1896 – 12 February 1954) — also known as Denis Kaufman or his pseudonym Dziga Vertov or Vertof (Ukrainian: Дзи́га Ве́ртов, "spinning top") — was a Soviet pioneer documentary film and newsreel director, as well as a cinema theorist. His filming practices and theories influenced the cinéma vérité style of documentary movie-making and the Dziga Vertov Group, a radical film-making cooperative which was active in the 1960s.
In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, critics voted Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929) the 8th best film ever made.
Vertov's brothers Boris Kaufman and Mikhail Kaufman were also noted filmmakers, as was his wife, Elizaveta Svilova.
Vertov was born David Abelevich Kaufman (Russian: Дави́д А́белевич Ка́уфман) into a family of Jewish lineage in Białystok, Poland, then a part of the Russian Empire. His father was a librarian. He Russified his Jewish name David and patronymic Abelevich to Denis Arkadievich at some point after 1918. Vertov studied music at Białystok Conservatory until his family fled from the invading German Army to Moscow in 1915. The Kaufmans soon settled in Petrograd, where Vertov began writing poetry, science fiction and satire. In 1916-1917 Vertov was studying medicine at the Psychoneurological Institute in Saint Petersburg and experimenting with "sound collages" in his free time. He eventually adopted the name "Dziga Vertov", which translates loosely from Ukrainian as 'spinning top'.
the smell of piss and shame
gives new life to this lifeless place
but there's something about the stench and these walls
my head cocks back and my cells respond
and though recoiled, I may be
this place always relived in memory
could you ever conceive this by looking at me
you stupid bitches couldn't see through these clothes
Think of me...
An Element...
Of design...
but still your tone is sharp
and your words can cut like a knife
so here I am, please cut me down again
I am the one who will get up once more
fortified by what you want from me
tingled deep through finger tips
your touch reminds me of this place
but there's something about your aura and your skin
your head cocks back and your nose turns up at me
and so I try to break away
from this hell that you call life
you could never conceive these things by looking at me
you stupid bitches couldn't see through this skin
I'll change never change my mind
of who I am inside
fall away from
and taste what I am