Welcome to Dziga Vertov’s 1931 masterpiece (and headache), Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbas .
You would think a film celebrating the Five-Year Plan, industrialization, and the defeat of religion (there’s a stunning sequence where the sounds of church bells are literally replaced by factory whistles) would be a propaganda hero. But Stalin’s cultural gatekeepers called it "noise" and "formalism." They wanted heroic portraits. Vertov gave them the grinding, chaotic, sweaty truth of labor. enthusiasm movie
If you search for “enthusiasm movie” today, you might expect a forgotten 80s comedy or a feel-good indie. Instead, you find one of the most radical, abrasive, and brilliant films ever made. This is not a movie about enthusiasm. It is a movie that is enthusiasm—the violent, industrial, revolutionary kind. By 1931, Vertov was already famous for Man with a Movie Camera (1929), a silent film so energetic it seemed to vibrate off the screen. But Enthusiasm was his first talkie. And he hated how other talkies worked. Welcome to Dziga Vertov’s 1931 masterpiece (and headache),
Early sound films were static. People stood next to potted plants and spoke. Vertov saw sound not as a tool for dialogue, but as a raw material. He believed the microphone could capture the "unheard music of the factory." Vertov gave them the grinding, chaotic, sweaty truth
It took a telegram from a fan—the great filmmaker Charlie Chaplin—to save it. Chaplin called it "the greatest sound film ever made."
