Dziga Vertov's influence on this film is far greater than the cinematic experience he created in 1929. It goes much further as he, with this film, invented techniques that are still used to this day. Such as double exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, split screen, jumps cuts, tracking shots, footage played backwards, stop motion animations. His exploration of what the camera could do opened the world up to the wonders of making films.
Vertov shows one of his intents--to reveal how the camera works to the audience--by showing the camera and then relating it to something from the everyday world that people understand in order to explain it to them. For instance, when the camera's aperture is opening and closing he shows us shutters on a window being opened and closed in order to allow us to understand the apertures function in controlling how much light comes into the camera.
Moreover, Vertov reveals how art watches life with the posters and drawings in the beginning of the film peering over at people as they sleep. The thematic here allows us to understand that this is what he is attempting to accomplish with this film, to use an artistic tool in order to peer into life, which then becomes art itself.
