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Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
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| Product Description: | | | | | At once an invaluable photographic record of life in Weimar Berlin and a timeless demostration of the cinema's ability to enthrall on a purely visceral level, "Berlin, Symphony of a Great City" (1927, 62 min.) offers a kaleidoscopic view of a single day in the life of the bustling metropolis. Also included on this DVD is "Opus 1" (1922, 10 min.), a rare example of the German avant-garde cinema. Director Walther Ruttmann's hand-colored film is an exploration of the geometry of movement. | | | | The title says it all: this is a visual symphony in five movements celebrating the Berlin of 1927: the people, the place, the everyday details of life on the streets. Director Walter Ruttman, an experimental filmmaker, approached cinema in similar ways to his Russian contemporary Dziga Vertoz, mixing documentary, abstract, and expressionist modes for a nonnarrative style that captured the life of his countrymen. But where Vertov mixed his observations with examples of the communist dream in action, Ruttman re-creates documentary as, in his own words, "a melody of pictures." Within the loose structure of a day in the life of the city (with a prologue that travels from the country into the city on a barreling train), the film takes us from dawn to dusk, observing the silent city as it awakens with a bustle of activity, then the action builds and calms until the city settles back into sleep. But the city is as much the architecture, the streets, and the machinery of industry as it is people, and Ruttman weaves all these elements together to create a portrait in montage, the poetic document of a great European city captured in action. Held together by rhythm, movement, and theme, Ruttman creates a documentary that is both involving and beautiful to behold. The original score by Timothy Brock is lyrical and dramatically involving, complementing the mood and movement marvelously. Also included is the avant-garde short Opus 1, an abstract study in animated shapes and movement. --Sean Axmaker | |
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0 of 0 people found the above review helpful.: |  No OPUS on bootlegs., January 2, 2010 |
| | Be careful buying used copies of this DVD. Mine was a bootleg and the "bootlegger" neglected to put a copy of OPUS 1 on the DVD. It was the only reason I bought the DVD in the first place.
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0 of 0 people found the above review helpful.: |  A day in the life of a great city, July 1, 2008 |
| | An experimental film in its day, and still today, BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A GREAT CITY is presented as one day in the life of the city--Berlin, in 1929. In fact, the footage was taken over a longer period of time, and evidence of every season of the year is seen in the film's "movements." Less interested in story-telling than in matching shapes and shades to create a unified portrait of the city, Walter Ruttman assembles his images according to the rhythms of the day, beginning with a train arrival in Berlin, following with dawn and the start of the work day, the midday break, afternoon work, after-work recreation, and nightlife. The film is characterized by occasional social comment and ironic juxtapositions, some of which are all the more poignant to modern viewers, who know what Berlin would become in the years that followed. Absorbing viewing--a frozen moment in time, and a portrait of a relatively calm Germany in the lull between two catastrophic storms.
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3 of 3 people found the above review helpful.: | | Caveat Emptor, February 27, 2008 |
| | Warning to buyers of Ruttmann's "Berlin:" many copies are lacking the original soundtrack entirely, and this version does not have the one by Edmund Meisel (who also composed the music for Eisenstein's Potemkin). The VHS by Kino Video also has Brock's score, not Meisel's (of which only a piano arrangement seems to have survived). The European TV program ARTE broadcast in 2007 a re-orchestration by Berndt Thewes of the Meisel score: we need to have this on DVD, please.
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0 of 0 people found the above review helpful.: | | If you have motion sickness take a Dramamine before viewing, January 13, 2008 |
| | Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (1927), Berlin of 1927 before it was flattened and rebuilt. If you remember this you are in trouble.
This film is a beautifully designed black & white film that starts out with a steam engine train ride. We then travel through the city and through the different hours of the day until evening when we must leave. Try to spot the main streets and buildings. It is like taking a day trip into history.
Some of the details cover the technology of the day; we see overhead trains and street trolleys. Many of the factory machines are belt driven. Some of the technology has survived till today as the cappuccino machine.
We also get a glimpse of the different social strata and what people do throughout the day from waking up to school or secretarial work. Then it is off to lunch and afternoon activates.
In the evening we can go to the movies and watch Tom Mix. Or there are chorus lines and legitimate theater. Later we can stop off at the local bar or nightclub fro a drink and some dancing.
The music score is by Timothy Brock. The same person that wrote the score for Liebe der Jeanne Ney, Die (1927)
After watching the movie you need to look at the book "Lost Berlin" by Susanne Everett
Lost Berlin by Susanne Everett
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1 of 2 people found the above review helpful.: | | BERLIN YEARS BEFORE ITS DESTRUCTION, July 12, 2007 |
| | I RECOMEND EVERYBODY THIS DVD TOGETHER WITH A CD THAT THE CATALAN MUSICIANS GROUP PEGASUS COMPOSED IN 1986 TO HOMAGE THIS FILM. I SAW THIS FILM IN 1986 AND HAVE'NT SEEN IT AGAIN. NOW I BOUGHT THE FILM AND WILL PLAY IT SYNCHRONIZED WITH PEGASUS THEMES. YOU CAN READ BELOW INFO FROM IT.
Almost sixty years ago, a writer, Carl Mayer, and a moviemaker, Walter Ruttmann, had the happy occurrence to dedicate a filmed portrait of their own town, Berlin. They wanted to exalt it in an "images melody" to pick up all its movements and vital impulse.
That is how Berlin: symphony of a big city, was born, where rhythms and oscillations of the urban activity, get fused into a series of inspired musical/visual movements.
As fearless in concept as bright in resolution, nobody since then has been able to overcome this beautiful avant-garde film, that remains one of the great creative successes of silent movies.
Silent but not deaf. As well as Napoleon, which discovery had dazzled everybody, Metropolis, returned recently to the young audiences, Berlin: symphony of a big city did not stay as a cinematheque's curiosity, but has preserved a forceful modernity.
That is why the Setmana Internacional de Cinema (1986) is proud to present the personal version of Berlin: symphony of a big city that PEGASUS themes with images of Ruttmann, opens not only a dimension that goes over the film and the record, but proves the universality of cinema and music beyond time.
Pegasus "Simfonia d'una gran ciutat" 1986 - Pegasus Records 1990 - PDI (80.2305)
- Obertura (Overture)
- El despertar dels carrers (Awakening of the streets)
- Primer moviment (First movement)
- Rondó de les màquines
- Balada dels obrers (Workers ballade)
- Paranoia
- Joc d'oci (Leisure game)
- Tempo de rock
- Andante per dones i infants (Andante to women and children)
- Sector terciari (Tertiary sector)
- Punt de reunió (Meeting point)
Santi Arisa - Drums and percussions
Rafael Escoté - Bass & sequencing prog.
Josep Mas "Kitflus" - Piano and synths.
Max Sunyer - Guitars
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