Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt (1927)

Director:

Walter Ruttmann

Writers:

Karl Freund (screenplay)
Carl Mayer (idea)

Release Date:

13 May 1928 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

This movie shows us one day in Berlin, the rhythm of that time, starting at the earliest morning and ends in the deepest night.

Plot Keywords:

Train | Avant Garde | Night Life | Building | Pre War

Cast

Paul von Hindenburg

...

Himself (uncredited)

Also Known As:

Berlin: A Symphony of a Big City (International: English title) (informal literal title)
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (USA)
Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (USA)
A Sinfonia de Uma Capital (Portugal) (informal title) [pt]
Berlín, sinfonía de una ciudad (Spain) [es]
Berliini - Suurkaupungin sinfonia (Finland) (TV title) [fi]
Berlim - Sinfonia da Metrópole (Brazil) [pt]
Berlin - symfonia wielkiego miasta (Poland) [pl]
Berlin, symphonie d'une grande ville (France) [fr]
Berlino - sinfonia di una grande città (Italy) [it]
Verolinon i i symfonia mias megaloupoleos (Greece) [el]

Runtime:

65 min | Finland:79 min

Country:

Germany

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Filming Locations:

Berlin, Germany

Company:

Deutsche Vereins-Film

Movie Connections:

Featured in Tying the Knot (2004)

more interesting as history than film-making, but it has its moments

Berlin: City Symphony is one of those early experiments in montage - early as in before sound was invented and right after Battleship Potemkin changed everything. It's not always montage, as some might believe from its recommendations (i.e. Koyannasquati), as the director Walter Ruttmann is making documentary as much as city-scape. It's about a full day and night among the dwellers and the objects of a city: the moving trains, the people shuffling by about their various concerns, and the people at jobs and things like a factory at work and phones being answered used for editing fodder.

Some of this is dazzling work, cut and speed up to reflect a mood of a city that is vibrant and hectic, imaginative and crazy, and sometimes tending for the dramatic. Ruttmann also has a rather weird design with the pacing at times; a woman in one 'scene' looks over a river, and in a state of sorrow falls over. People rush over to see what has happened, and we see a shot of the water and the woman gone under... and then it cuts right away to a beauty pageant! It throws a viewer off to see Ruttmann's unconventional choices, and how images flow together like the racers (cars, horses, people, boxcars), and there develops a simple but engrossing poetry of people as "actors" in front of a camera on their daily travels or having fun like at the funshow in the auditorium. It's not always as exciting or delirious as a Russian counterpart like Man with a Movie Camera or Kino Eye, but it pays loving tribute to its city at its time and place, showing the light with the dark, the commonplace with the unusual.