Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis or Berlin: Symphony of a Great City () is a 1927 German silent film directed by Walter Ruttmann, co-written by Carl Mayer and Karl Freund. Much of the motion in the film, and many of the scene transitions, are built around the motion of trains and streetcars.
Composer Edmund Meisel was commissioned to write an orchestral score for its original release.
Background
The film is an example of the 'city symphony' film genre. It portrays the life of a city, mainly through visual impressions in a semi-documentary style, without the narrative content of more mainstream films, though the sequencing of events can imply a kind of loose theme or impression of the city's daily life. Other noted examples of the genre include Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand's Manhatta (1921), Alberto Cavalcanti's Rien que les heures (1926), Andre Sauvage's Etudes sur Paris (1928), Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Adalberto Kemeny's São Paulo, Sinfonia da Metrópole (1929) and Alexandr Hackenschmied's Bezúčelná procházka (1930). These films were conceived of in the mid to late 1920s among the "artistic" writers and filmmakers as an avant-garde, "new style" of film-making that evolved from a script-free open narrative form, seeking to present a less cluttered view of the world, free from a clear story or rigid structure.
This film represented a break from Ruttmann's earlier "absolute films," with influences from Vertov's earlier films apparent in Ruttmann's approach to this film.
The film demonstrates the filmmaker's knowledge of Soviet montage theory, and some socialist political sympathies can be inferred from a few of the edits in the film. Critics, however, have suggested that either Ruttmann avoided a strong position, or that he pursued his aesthetic interests to the extent that they diminished the potential for political content. Ruttmann's own description of the film suggests that his motives were predominantly aesthetic: "Since I began in the cinema, I had the idea of making something out of life, of creating a symphonic film out of the millions of energies that comprise the life of a big city."
What is critically interesting about this particular film shot in Berlin, Germany is the time when it was made: several years before any clear National Socialist influence, and well before Joseph Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry took over all German film production, which stalled creativity and forced many filmmakers to leave the country. Today it is often watched as a filmed time capsule, providing a historical filmed record of the city of Berlin in the mid 1920s. Over 30% of central Berlin was leveled by the end of World War II, which dramatically changed the face of Berlin from that depicted in this film forever. Many places and buildings that did not survive the war appear in the film, such as the Anhalter Bahnhof train station, and the Hotel Excelsior located opposite, once the largest hotel in Europe.
Production
According to Ruttmann, a "hypersensitive film stock" was developed for use in this film, to solve lighting difficulties during night scenes.
Synopsis
Events are arranged to simulate the passage of a single day. Shots and scenes are cut together based on relationships of image, motion, point of view, and thematic content.
At times, a sort of non-narrative commentary can be implied, as in edits that juxtapose workers entering a factory with cattle being beaten and driven into a corral.
The five-reel film is divided into five acts, and each act is announced through a title card at the beginning and end.
I Akt
The first act starts the day, beginning with calm waters and a graphic representation of a sunrise. Railroad crossing gates are lowered, and a train travels down the tracks and proceeds into the city, ending at the Anhalter Bahnhof with a graphic of the "Berlin" sign approaching. The film then transitions through calm and empty streets, to the gradual process of the city waking up. At first, only objects are seen, such as a bit of paper blowing through an empty street, but soon a few people arise, then more are about, and the activity builds to crowds of workers going to work, pedestrians, busy streetcars, trains etc. A hand manipulates a lever, effectively turning on the city, and factory machinery springs to life. Glass bulbs are produced, sheets of metal are cut, molten steel is poured, smokestacks are seen against the sky, and the first act ends.