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Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927)
Introduction
A brief glimpse into Berlin, Germany, and film and documentary production in the 1920s will provide historical context to better understand and appreciate the quality and value of this innovative documentary. Cultural life blossomed after the 15 million deaths and destruction of World War I. In the 1920s, the German film industry, despite uncertainties and financial difficulties, became firmly established and very productive (Goesch 61, 72). The emphasis on Expressionism became reality, objectivity and good times in the late 1920s. The art scene in Berlin became “cold, raw and sharp-edged . . . [with an emphasis on] unadorned expression [and] haunting reality” (Schreiber 1).
Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927) is a product of what is often called the Weimar Republic which influenced filmmaking and other art forms with its striking and modernizing influences (Fritzsche 4). During the decade, this film joined others to produce city symphonies that captured the pulse and intense variety of urban modernity by using “temporal and spatial fragmentation” (Jilani n. pag.). It was a creative but difficult time. It would be a time that linked the defeat of Germany early in the century to its rise to power a few decades later.
This essay discusses topics related to this film, “one of the most important visual documents of the history of the cinema on an urban space” (“Biography of Carl Mayer”): the background and contributions of major production personnel, filmic techniques and innovations, a summary of the perspective and content of the film and how it is distinguished from other films.
Berlin, Symphony of a Great City is an important city symphony film that expressed creatively the artistic patterns and initiatives active in 1920s Germany.
Berlin’s Major Production Personnel Backgrounds and Contributions
Walter Ruttmann was Berlin’s director, editor and co-writer. He said he wanted to go beyond the abstract expressions of his architecture and painting background to “create from living materials, from the millions of movement-related energies that actually exist in the organism of the big city, a film symphony,” (qtd. in “Walter Ruttmann”).
Carl Mayer was a co-writer and shared Ruttmann’s frustration with the limitations and restraints of studio work. He had worked on Eisenstein’s October and Battleship Potemkin. For Berlin, Mayer wrote a film treatment that structured the film as a symphony with reality and form the main characters and story of the film. Both wanted viewers “to experience the energies, dynamics and movements of the big city . . . [using] original cinematographic means.” Dynamic editing and montage sequences conveyed filmed objectivity and creativity showing the quick pace and tempo of a vibrant city (“Walter Ruttmann”).
Karl Freund was the film’s producer, co-writer and uncredited cinematographer. He was fascinated with technological developments that could improve his cinematography on notable UFA films. Freund made unique cinematographer contributions to Ruttmann’s Berlin as he had for Lang’s visually striking Metropolis. Later he added director to his credentials (Eder, “Karl W. Freud”).
Edmund Meisel was “one of the more important . . . pioneering figures in serious film music.” From incidental stage music to experimental and jazz music, he demonstrated his musical versatility in films such as Eisenstein’s October and Battleship Potemkin in which music was designed shot-by-shot and scene-by-scene to match the audience’s emotional needs. He composed Berlin’s score for a 75-piece orchestra to play (Eder, “Edmund Meisel;” Watson).
Berlin’s Story Overview and Perspective
The modernization evident in the 1920s in Germany produced rapid changes in urban life – at home and work, in politics and culture. The city of Berlin epitomized this transformation, radically reshaping the city’s landscape for those who lived there – in visible ways (e.g., dress codes and fashions, new technologies, display windows and cultural forms such as cabarets and radio) that changed “the very psychic make-up of urban dwellers” (Wizansky).
1920s Berlin was considered by many the model for this urban living revolution; in their view, Berlin provided modern technological progress with limitless experimentation and activities in every phase of city life. Others believed the changes created chaos, alienation and dehumanization that produced decadence and a decline in moral values (Wizansky).
Several themes or motifs emerge from the five “acts” or sequences of the 62-minute film. The film emphasizes mechanization and its impact and often control of human activity. A clock face punctuates the start of a new “act” by emphasizing how time controls activities and lives in the city. People and objects are constantly in motion, operating at a frenzied, hysterical pace, emphasizing “the dynamism of a city in motion” (Thomas). Traditional visualization and linear storytelling structures were considered outdated so montage sequences and juxtapositioning of images and perspectives gained favor “to convey this new reality.” Ruttmann shows both the wealthy and the poor of the city often cutting directly from one to the other. Geometric abstraction is also used. Film grammar and its role as an art form were still developing in the 1920s but film’s early capabilities could capture and intensify the city’s striking new characteristics: “continuous mobility . . . nervousness, loss of concentration . . . [and the] meaninglessness of traditional values.” The film tends to emphasize both broad views and specific images, especially signs. Berlin links a variety of city images produced by cameras imbedded within the physical locations with the people and places of the city in constant motion. Film, urbanization and modernity are bond together in an unsettling vision of time and space. Visual details are scattered and left for viewers to assemble in their minds. Remnants of the traumatic effects of World War One lingered in Germany’s psyche, so a revitalized Berlin gave them hope for better times (Wizansky; Watson).
Berlin’s Filmic Techniques and Innovations
Berlin was shot during a full year but presented a cross-section of Berlin life in a single day, from dawn to midnight. Three camera operators, often using hidden cameras, shot “documentary” style emphasizing the motion and congestion of crowds, spinning wheels, races of various kinds, dancing, trains, street cars and night traffic in a great city. High quality film stock was used for night scenes. The film was edited to match and enhance changes in the film (Wizansky; Thomas).
Distinguishing Berlin from Other City Symphony Films
In the twenties in Europe there was a growing interest in “urban spaces and their effects on city dwellers.” Like other visual arts, films explored this interest in films such as Metropolis, Modern Times and The Last Laugh. Berlin, Symphony of a City differs from these films because the city is not a backdrop or setting about those who live in the city. Rather, the city itself becomes the film’s subject and principal actor. “The film blurs the boundaries between people and inanimate things” (Wizansky). Ruttmann used montage and editing effectively to extract the extraordinary symbolic imagery from the people he filmed. Berlin became the blueprint for future non-narrative documentary experimental filmmaking. Thomas concluded Berlin shows the universality or similarity of people – rich or poor their essential needs are the same. Thomas also claimed the film is “an uncanny, ghostly foreshadowing of what will be” -- World War II.
Works Cited
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05 Apr 2016. <http://thebiography.us/en/mayer-carl>.
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2016. Web. 05 Apr 2016. <http://www.allmovie.com/artist/edmund-meisel-p163004>.
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2016. Web. 05 Apr 2016. <http://www.allmovie.com/artist/karl-w-freund-p90555>.
Fritzsche, Sonja. "German Science Fiction." A Virtual Introduction to Science Fiction. Ed.
Lars Schmeink. Web. 2012. 1-10.
<http://virtual-sf.com/wp content/uploads/2012/02/Fritzsche.pdf>.
Goesch, Tamara Dawn. A Critique of the Secondary Literature on Weimar Film:
The Importance of the Weimar Film Industry. MA thesis. Oregon State University, 1982. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1982. Print. <http://hdl.handle.net/1957/41894 >.
Jilani, Sarah. “Urban Modernity and Fluctuating Time: ‘Catching the Tempo’ of the 1920s
Schreiber, Mathias. “The Age of Excess: Berlin in the Golden
Twenties.” spiegel.de/international/germany/. Spiegel Online International, 23 Nov 2012. Web. 05 Apr 2016. <http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/spiegel-series-on-berlin-history-the-golden-twenties-a-866383.html>.
Thomas, Allan James. “Berlin: Symphony of a City.” Senses of Cinema Issue 5 (2000 Apr): n pag.
Web. 07 Apr 2016. <http://sensesofcinema.com/2000/cteq/berlin-4/>.
“Walter Ruttmann.” medienkunstnetz.de/artist/ruttmann/biography. Media Art Net, n.d.
Web. 05 Apr 2016. <http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/artist/ruttmann/biography/images/2/?desc=full>.
Watson, Stephen. “Berlin, Symphony of a Great City.” takeonecff.com/2014/. TakeOne,
07 Sept 2014. Web. 07 Apr 2016. <http://www.takeonecff.com/2014/berlin-symphony-great-city>.
Wizansky, Noga. “Motion, Mechanization, and Migration: The Urban Experience in
Walther Ruttmann’s Weimar Film Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927).” Printed in The IES Newsletter 8.1 (Winter 2008). Web. Address. 06 Apr 2016. <http://ies.berkeley.edu/enews/articles/berlinsymphonycity.html>.
