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Berlin, die Sinfonie der Großstadt, Walter Ruttmann (1927)

Started by Smeraldina Rima, October 06, 2021, 07:02:39 AM

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Berlin, die Sinfonie der Großstadt, Walter Ruttmann (1927)



This is a city symphony presenting a day in Berlin from day to night, using a lot of montage. It starts with a train heading into the city, then the quiet streets, then it builds from the busy work day to a shimmering night of entertainment work and leisure. Part of the appeal is that it shows buildings that were destroyed in the war. It's not a strict documentary and, not knowing much about it, it was hard to tell where lines had been blurred. The most expressive and dramatic part is one sequence showing a woman jumping from a bridge into a river which also appears (to her or only as a suggestive combination with earlier images) as a rollercoaster and a vortex.



























The vortex had been introduced earlier in a shop window:



The suicide scene follows this windy scene:









The hat blowing away in the wind reminded me of Hans Richter's surrealist short film from the same period, Vormittagsspuk / Ghosts Before Breakfast, in which hats are among the rebellious objects:



Montage is used to contrast poverty and wealth, prostitution and marriage, and to juxtapose matching human and animal behaviour:









Given the blurring of documentary, surreal humour and expressionist melodrama, I wasn't sure how stylised the boxing match was. Most of the non-character focussed scenes look realistic and candid, so I was surprised by how big the gestures were and how similar the spectacle looked to comical boxing in Charlie Chaplin. It made me wonder if that had been slightly less exaggerated than I thought - in the behaviour of the referee and cornermen and to some extent the big swinging punches. These stills might not convey this very well:









The boxing ring is paried with this dancing:



I liked this intimate view of the pub, and again was wondering whether these people were actors, or informed extras, and how naturally they were behaving:


sevendaughters

the plethora of city symphonies of the 1920s (Manhatta, Etude sur Paris, there's one about Sao Paolo, Moscow, you could argue Man With A Movie Camera is one) is really interesting. I wrote a bit in my thesis about the modern equivalent of laments for cities in documentaries of austerity and financial crash. don't have much to add than that really, didn't want to see a good post die.

Herbert Ashe

Quote from: Smeraldina Rima on October 06, 2021, 07:02:39 AMGiven the blurring of documentary, surreal humour and expressionist melodrama, I wasn't sure how stylised the boxing match was. Most of the non-character focussed scenes look realistic and candid, so I was surprised by how big the gestures were and how similar the spectacle looked to comical boxing in Charlie Chaplin. It made me wonder if that had been slightly less exaggerated than I thought - in the behaviour of the referee and cornermen and to some extent the big swinging punches.

This is an interesting point, I think, because most sports have evolved so drastically, through technique, training methodology, equipment, sports science etc, especially from the pre-TV era, so newsreel or film footage of sports often looks quite strange to my modern eyes, and even in fiction films (e.g. these german silents, I find it hard to evaluate the plausibility of the staged action.

(don't know anything about boxing to weigh in specifically on that)

I'm glad I'm not the only one confused by sporting movement and thanks a lot for linking to the football documentaries.

sevendaughters: Man With a Movie Camera is the only other one I've seen so far and that a long time ago. What might be the best austerity/financial crash documentaries to compare them with?

I've since this morning learned that the rollercoaster suicide scene is similar to the ending of Entr'acte, where a rollercoaster is turned upside down and the surrounding chase turns upside down as well. But there, instead of a suicide, it ends with a man coming out of a coffin that tumbled off the road after the hearse had come loose from a camel.




















sevendaughters

Quote from: Smeraldina Rima on October 06, 2021, 04:33:25 PM

sevendaughters: Man With a Movie Camera is the only other one I've seen so far and that a long time ago. What might be the best austerity/financial crash documentaries to compare them with?

in my work I used Detropia. it's not a proper city symphony in the 20s sense as it uses other styles, but is essentially 'poetic' and concerned with charting the urban space and its inhabitants as the city is in decline (shots of rural return, rubble, lots of ambient/denatured industrial soundtrack).



chveik

the last time i saw macao is a great recent city symphony type-film. there's just a little bit of narration