Enthusiasm (1931) by Dziga Vertov
Thursday, September 16, 1982, 8:00 pm
Films by Dziga Vertov and Peter Kubelka
Films: Kino Pravda (excerpt)(1922) and Enthusiasm (1931) by Dziga Vertov: Mosaik Im Vertrauen (1954-5) by Kubelka.
Vertov was probably the first great documentary film visionary, whose understanding of the formal properties of the medium was decades ahead of his time. In his earlier films (Man With A Movie Camera, etc). Vertov employed an intricate form of visual editing to capture the revolutionary fervor of the young Soviet industrial society. Enthusiasm was one of the first Soviet sound films at the time and Vertov characteristically pushed sound-image relationships to their limit in ways which have rarely been equaled since. Made to celebrate the completion of the first Five-Year Plan, Enthusiasm was mutilated soon after its release and restored only after filmmaker Peter Kubelka undertook the major task of locating lost footage in Soviet archives. Kubelka’s first film Mosaik Im Vertrauen is a collage film utilizing found footage, actors, and many forms of complex sound/image relationships.