Entuziazm (Simfoniya Donbassa) (1930)

Director: Dziga Vertov

Dziga Vertov's Entuziazm is considered a masterpiece of early sound film and of Soviet avant-garde cinema. Dealing with the Five Year Plan of the late 1920s, it was praised by artists like Charlie Chaplin, was subsequently forgotten, and rediscovered by the avant-garde movement of the 1960s.

This edition presents the film, for the first time on DVD, in two versions: the print preserved in the former Soviet Union's Gosfilmofond as well as Peter Kubelka's fascinating restoration which - by re-syncing the image and sound - allows the viewer to experience what Vertov considered the new language of sound cinema. In Restoring Entuziazm, Peter Kubelka - filmmaker and co-founder of the Austrian Film Museum - demonstrates the principles of his restoration work und discusses Vertov's concepts of cinema. The Extras section presents two more rare documents from the Austrian Film Museum's Vertov collection.

Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbas, Vertov's paean to the Soviet first Five-Year Plan for economic development (1928-32), clearly has a "three-movement" form. Beginning with an overture on the elimination of all the old detritus impeding full socialist construction (particularly religion and alcoholism), the film moves into a middle section that passes through many of the stages of heavy industrial production to culminate in a final movement, where the products of industrialization flow back to the USSR (most notably to the countryside) and are celebrated.

The film is classicly Vertovian in its reflection upon its own constructed nature. Like Man with a Movie Camera, Enthusiasm seems to begin twice: the music we hear (and watch) being heard in the film's first shot is later repeated, with the woman auditor replaced by a male conductor in a radio studio. The production, transmission, organization and audition of sound enter our own conscious reception of the film. Thus Enthisiasm is a three-levelled film, with the audience's auditory experience, the film as a sound-image construct, and the documentary character of the film's basic materials all co-present and woven together as part of a reflexive texture remarkable at this early date in the history of sound film, and inspirational for many later experimenters, including Peter Kubelka and Richard Serra.

John McKay, 2005

Entuziazm (Simfonija Donbassa), made in 1930, finds the famed Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov toying with sound. He’d done so in the past having prepared “musical” notes for earlier features (the Alloy Orchestra’s recent score for Man With a Movie Camera, for example, was made in accordance to such wishes) as well as toiling away on “sound montages” which pre-figured John Cage. Yet in this case we’re dealing with a fully synchronous recording and its presence affects the director in some interesting ways.

The two key parts of his cinematic make-up had always been documentary and the avant-garde, yet the addition of a soundtrack disrupts the balance somewhat. Intriguingly, Entuziazm’s accompaniment enhances not the realist qualities, as we’d perhaps expect through naturalistic sounds and live recording, but rather manipulates such forms into a less distinctive, more analogous construct. It’s as though all of the cinematic methods Vertov had previously used visually have bled into the aural side of things. Indeed, you could argue that as a result Entuziazm stands out as his most defiant expression of the avant-garde.

Yet at the same time we’re also dealing with a piece of unashamed propaganda. Vertov documents the effect of Lenin’s “Five Year Plan” by focussing on the Donbass region, home to the Soviet Union’s largest coalfield. He does so in a highly structured manner, loosely slipping from one act to the next as he builds to a celebratory finale. The first act focuses on the detrimental effects of alcoholism and the church, culminating in their destruction (“The struggle against religion is the struggle for new life”). The second documents the region’s industrial force, settling in the workplaces as production targets are over-fulfilled and everyone exerts themselves to the utmost. And we conclude by heading into Russia as the people of Donbass spread the word whilst others celebrate; the fruits of their labour being enjoyed by all.

Within such propagandist realms, however, we do find Vertov operating on familiar territory. As the subtitle suggests – literally Symphony of Donbass - we’re also dealing with one of the director’s “city symphonies”, albeit in slightly altered form. As such the technical dazzle which punctuated Man With a Movie Camera is very much in play, Entuziazm offering a remarkable combination of mobile camerawork, canny juxtapositions, multiple exposures, quaint special effects (the reversed footage looks as though it’s come straight out of a Cocteau) and plain, honest reportage.

Moreover, this final aspect also retains Vertov’s eye for an image, one that’s just as important as the film’s overall construction. Indeed, his ability to capture landscapes and faces (both of which are equally fascinating in this case) remains as astonishing as ever; the “men at work” section from Man With a Movie Camera was arguably it’s most powerful in visual terms, and here we find it occupying the bulk of the picture. In this respect we can also treat Entuziazm as a fine historical record in spite of its experimental impulses.

It’s the soundtrack which is the key however, and Vertov makes sure that we never forget it. The film almost judders into life, breaking through from images of a young woman listening to headphones. In other words he’s keen for us to remain objective and notice his efforts, though in retrospect such a device doesn’t seem wholly necessary. Firstly the sound design is so unique, even to this day, that we can never simply ignore it. It doesn’t have the crudity which, generally speaking, early talkies suffer from simply because it refuses to operate along naturalistic lines. (Indeed, Entuziazm could almost be said to be teaching us how to watch a Vertov film: previous efforts, Man With a Movie Camera in particular, come with so many different soundtracks, each offering a different experience, yet in this case we’re guided solely by the filmmaker and as such can more fully discern his rhythms and editing patterns). The second reason for not failing to take Entuziazm objectively comes down to its roots as propaganda. The message is so proudly proclaimed, and so overwhelmingly, that only those with an accommodating ideology would be able to fully immerse themselves with the events onscreen. The rest of us are forced to permanently keep a step or two back, yet as such we’re never allowed to view Entuziazm as the complete experience it could have become. Unlike Man With a Movie Camera it’s a film to greatly admire as opposed to truly love.

The Digital Fix

Special Features:
Disc One (in Russian with optional English and German subs):
- Entuziazm (restored version) 1930 (1972), 65'
- Entuziazm (unrestored) 1930, 65'

Disc Two (in English with optional German subs:
- Peter Kubelka: Restoring Entuziazm 2005, 65'
- Vertov filmed in person 1920-30, 1'
- Vertov Exhibition Vienna 1974, 12'