It is the sound of the 20th century learning to scream. And honestly? It’s still screaming. Have you seen Man with a Movie Camera or Enthusiasm ? Drop your thoughts in the comments—just please, keep the enthusiasm to a dull roar.
It took a telegram from a fan—the great filmmaker Charlie Chaplin—to save it. Chaplin called it "the greatest sound film ever made." enthusiasm movie
The result is a 67-minute fever dream of Socialist Realism on acid. Here is the irony that makes this film fascinating today: The Soviet authorities hated it. It is the sound of the 20th century learning to scream
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." Have you seen Man with a Movie Camera or Enthusiasm
We throw the word “enthusiasm” around a lot. It’s the pop of a dopamine hit, the clap of a studio audience, the caffeine jolt of a morning meeting. But what if Enthusiasm was a monster? What if it was a raw, grinding, sonic assault that got you fired up not by making you feel good, but by forcing you to hear the world differently?
But if you have ever found yourself staring at a construction site, hypnotized by the repetitive fall of a pile driver... if you have ever turned up the volume on a washing machine because the spin cycle had a good beat... if you suspect that true passion is often ugly and loud rather than pretty and quiet—then you owe it to yourself to watch Dziga Vertov’s Enthusiasm .
So he went to the Donbas coal and steel region. He didn't record orchestras. He recorded drills, hammers, locomotives, and the chaotic prayers of drunken priests. He then took those sounds—the screech of metal, the hiss of steam, the rumble of conveyor belts—and edited them like musical notes.