Berlin - Die Sinfonie der Großstadt

[Felix C]

Saw this on TCM the other day and thought it was wonderful. Nice view of Weimar Berlin. Recommend.

[Hans1906]

Berlin - Symphonie einer Großstadt (1927) | von Walther Ruttmann



* The film would be worth a whole topic here in the forum, a journey back in time ...

The most famous artistic representation of Berlin's polyphonic world of noise in the 1920s was a silent film: Walter Ruttmann's Berlin - Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Berlin - The Symphony of the Big City) from 1927. However, Ruttmann not only made this film, but also created the first sound collage in the history of radio and radio drama three years later. Under the title Weekend, he captured a typical big-city weekend with sounds alone. In addition to work, one hears the traffic, the consumer world of the department stores, and the quiet of the Sunday drive into the countryside. Especially the noise of traffic and public life was a much discussed topic around 1930, not only in Berlin, but in all industrialized cities of the world. This is also shown by the example of New York, where a city noise abatement commission was specially set up in 1929. However, the noise world of the big city consisted and still consists not only of traffic noise, but also of sounds of pleasure and not least of politics.

Hans1906