Berlin, Symphony Of A Great City / Opus I

Berlin, Symphony Of A Great City / Opus I DVD VIDEO DOCUMENTARY silent film 1927 

Movie 

DVD 

Image Entertainment 

1927 

DVD 

$11.99
Packaging
BERLIN, SYMPHONY OF A GREAT CITY / OPUS I

At once an invaluable photographic record of life in Weimar Berlin and a timeless demonstration of the cinema's ability to enthrall on a purely visceral level, Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (Berlin, die Symphonie der Grossstadt) offers a kaleidoscopic view of a single day in the life of the bustling metropolis.

Carl Mayer (The Last Laugh), influenced by the naturalistic Kammerspiel movement, envisioned 'a melody of pictures' sprung from daily reality instead of the stylized artificiality of the studio-bound expressionist film. Following Mayer's rough outline, photographer Karl Freund deployed a team of cameramen to explore the avenues, alleyways and factories of Berlin and secure hidden-camera glimpses of the people and machinery that provide the city with its constant motion. The many hours of footage were then edited into a series of five acts, like movements of a symphony, by Walther Ruttmann as a continuation of his experiments with abstract motion.

BERLIN defined the formula of the 'city symphony' film and, according to John Grierson — the filmmaker/critic who coined the term "documentary" — "No film has been more influential, more imitated."

Credits & Details

Directed by Walther Ruttmann

Screenplay by Walther Ruttmann & Carl Mayer (from an idea by Carl Mayer)

Photography: Reimar Kunze, Robert Baberske, Laszlo Schaffer

Production: Fox-Europa Film

Music composed & conducted by Timothy Brock

Performed by the Olympia Chamber Orchestra

Country: Germany

Year: 1927

Format: Black & White; Stereo

Running time: 62 minutes (Berlin) — total disc runtime 72 minutes including Opus I

Opus I

A rare example of the German avant-garde cinema known as absoluter Film, Walther Ruttmann's hand-colored Opus I is an exploration of the geometry of movement within the frame and the sensory effect these abstract shapes evoke as they streak and swim across the screen. Viewed alongside Berlin, Opus I seems a thumbnail sketch for the sweeping slice-of-life documentary, revealing the degree to which Ruttmann's 1923/1922 film was more a spectacle of raw motion than a documentary portrait of Berlin's daily routines. Opus I is accompanied by Max Butting's 1922 score, adapted and conducted by Timothy Brock.

Opus I — Directed by Walther Ruttmann. Germany 1922. Color. Stereo. Approximately 10 minutes.

Includes the short film Opus I.

For DVD Player (North American NTSC)

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