A CRITIQUE OF WALTER RUTTMANN'S "BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A GREAT CITY"

The ‘impressionistic’ documentary began in the 1920’s and became a new and revolutionary way of bringing the documentary film genre to the big screen. 

 

Rather than showing reality in a still and passionless way, as it had been shown since the very first ‘actuality’ films of the Lumiére Brothers, theimages would show a more enthusiastic perspective of space and time through a more liberated use of cinematography and analogical editing. While the outcome of the style may have been of less historical and instructive depth then the more conventional filmmaking style of the documentarians like Grierson and Flaherty, it is without a doubt that they would often more entertaining and beautiful on an aesthetic point of view.

 

Very often, the ‘impressionistic’ documentaries of this time were ‘slice-of-life’ documentaries, meaning that they portrayed ordinary events of everyday life in chronological order from the earliest hours of the day to the darkest hours of the night e.g. Dziga Vertov’s The Man With the Movie Camera , 1929, and Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, 1927.

 

In the case of Ruttmann’s work, no title could have been more adequate, for a documentary whose structural style and nature made the images on the film resemble very closely notes on a pentagram. This was quite an innovative doctrine pf collaboration between filmmaker Walter Ruttmann and his composer, Edmund Meissel, as the filmmaker’s images on screen shift from man to machinery, rich to poor, train ride to horse race, workplace to fairgrounds as gracefully and as violently as the composer’s original score. 

 

There is an understanding between them that seem normal in today’s MTV generation, but was quite modern at the time of its release, especially in documentary work, where the music and images rarely followed one another as in fiction films.

 

Berlin has an original approach that distinguishes it from other similar works of the period. This of course is due to Ruttmann’s background in animation, in which he also had quite an original style where he was used to placing a subject in the frames and animating it within their confines. This techniques is directly related to his documentary, with one key difference; he is not animating the subjects, he is letting the subjects themselves animate. By doing so, he is able to capture their coming to life in a strikingly natural way.

 

These subjects together tell the story that represent the essence of the City Symphony feature, exhibiting the purpose of each main subject in his shots, whether it is the ones he creates , like the reconstructions of the woman jumping off a bridge or two men fighting in the street, or ones that aren’t works of his imagination (early examples of reconstruction in a somewhat poetic manipulation of realism), like the wheels of some machinery turning or a tram moving. And while he places the camera himself, often in some spectacular photographic manner and even fascinating avant garde cinematography, he never does distort the image and the objectivity of space and time, something that Vertov does a lot in The Man With the Movie Camera, where not only is the cameraman the real subject of the documentary, but also a key representation of the entire’s productive approach.

 

However, while the film is very beautiful to look at and some of the techniques simply revolutionary, the style of the film does not seem to allow it any value but the great aesthetic one.

 

Although the film portrays many aspects of the city, it never really brings up any significant social issue, and looks at everything from a safe distance.

 

What should surprise today’s audience the most, however, should be the lack of any real sign of that unhappiness that only a few years later would lead to the rise of Hitler and the National Socialist Party to power. It is also strange to consider that the Germany that had fought and come out as the biggest loser out of the First World War should not offer any opportunity at all to inspire a cry for awareness of any social issue of the city of Berlin.

 

For example, during the lunch hour sequences, when we see the rich eating in fancy restaurants and the poor eating in harder conditions. Ruttmann then follows it up with the shots of a lion eating his big meal of raw flesh and a few kittens looking for food in some garbage cans. This is the only real significant hint but rather than seem like the portrayal of a serious social issue it seems more like the portrayal  of the natural fact that kings and peasants, humans and beasts are all alike in their primary needs for food.

 

This further that humanity is very distant from being a theme of the film. Even when we witness the shocking sequence of the woman’s suicide, we are led to dismiss it as an everyday tragedy, and eventually forget about it, much too overwhelmed by the other juxtaposing images.

 

All this, however, seems to matter very little. Ruttmann naturally stay true to the title, and portrays Berlin as a great city; perhaps indirectly, the idea is that it may also be staying away from portraying its vulnerabilities. What is of great interest to him is movement, and more importantly, the movement of advancement.

 

The advancement in question takes place in a few different ways, but essentially, it can be narrowed down to two of these; they are the advancement in the workplace and the advancement in the social landscape.

 

Advancement in workplace comprehends different various aspects; transportation and machinery however show a modern development that shows a growing influence of futurism. which was an art wave that developed at the start of the 20th century and praised development and a colder more mechanised future. The strong futuristic influence further proves that Ruttmann did not have humanity in mind in making this film.

 

Advancement in costumes and social ways is everything that the first advancement revolves around. This includes simple things, like lunch and dinner, as well as more vain things like nightlife, with new swinging dances and music.

 

The experience of it all is poetic and fulfilling. An influential advancement of the documentary genre, and a futuristic portrait of Berlin at the fulcrum of its advancement at the start of the 20th century. A success of pace and rhythm, and an avant garde use of cinematography, photography and editing, to give us a brand new advancement; a sublime and energetic synchronisation of sight and vision.