Walther Ruttmann’s Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, represented aesthetically, the work of one of the most captivating social theorists of the twentieth century: Georg Simmel. Simmel’s theorising about the nature of the relationship between the individual and the modern metropolis became central to Weimar discourses on urban modernity. Berlin, Symphony of a Great City captures the aura that is represented in the following quote:
Men regard one another, and men are jealous of one another, they writer one another letters or dine together; they meet in sympathy or antipathy quite apart from all tangible interests; their gratitude for altruistic service weaves a chain of consequences never to be sundered; they ask the way of one another, and they dress and adorn themselves for one another;- these are instances chosen at random from the thousand relations, momentary or lasting, conscious or unconscious, transitory or fraught with consequences, which, playing from person to person, knit us incessantly together. Every moment such threads are spun, are dropped and caught up, replaced by others, woven up with others. These… determine all the tenacity and elasticity, all the variegation and unity of this so intelligible and yet so mysterious life of society.
-Simmel*
Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, captures the idea that the city holds infinite possibilities for the individual. At the same time, countless shots concentrate on the faceless-ness of the modern city and capture the twofold nature of Simmel’s critique of modern life in the metropolis. Simmel described the alienation that inheres in modern cities and is captured by Ruttmann in the repeated shots of the increasingly mechanised worklife of the citizens of modernity. For instance, the identity (or lack thereof) of tram commuters is discernable only through images of their legs.
The greatest achievement of Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, is that it does not come to these conclusions for us. The camera is simply a voyeur of these modern processes of mechanization and of industrialisation. Berlin, Symphony of a Great City does not moralise. According to AlSayyad, ‘its techniques of montage thus leave issues open-ended, and it is up to the viewer to interpret its relatively optimistic message.’** This optimism is occasionally challenged by cross cutting shots which juxtapose, for instance, humans with animals or, a courting couple with mechanised toys in a store window. No particular reading of the film is prescribed.
Berlin, Symphony of a Great City is a beautiful and fascinating account of one of the greatest and most turbulent eras of the twentieth century. The film provides a snapshot of a time burdened by war guilt and post war destruction and a place that saw hope through creative expression. While Berlin, Symphony of a Great City provides a portrait of Weimar Berlin, it is also timeless. The film puts forth a generic portrayal of life in the modern metropolis.*** Projects similar to that of Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, that attempted to capture the essence of the city, sprung up in cities the world over. Eugene Atget spent almost 30 years of his life preserving, for posterity, the cityscape of a Paris threatened by modernisation.
Men regard one another, and men are jealous of one another, they writer one another letters or dine together; they meet in sympathy or antipathy quite apart from all tangible interests; their gratitude for altruistic service weaves a chain of consequences never to be sundered; they ask the way of one another, and they dress and adorn themselves for one another;- these are instances chosen at random from the thousand relations, momentary or lasting, conscious or unconscious, transitory or fraught with consequences, which, playing from person to person, knit us incessantly together. Every moment such threads are spun, are dropped and caught up, replaced by others, woven up with others. These… determine all the tenacity and elasticity, all the variegation and unity of this so intelligible and yet so mysterious life of society.
-Simmel*
Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, captures the idea that the city holds infinite possibilities for the individual. At the same time, countless shots concentrate on the faceless-ness of the modern city and capture the twofold nature of Simmel’s critique of modern life in the metropolis. Simmel described the alienation that inheres in modern cities and is captured by Ruttmann in the repeated shots of the increasingly mechanised worklife of the citizens of modernity. For instance, the identity (or lack thereof) of tram commuters is discernable only through images of their legs.
The greatest achievement of Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, is that it does not come to these conclusions for us. The camera is simply a voyeur of these modern processes of mechanization and of industrialisation. Berlin, Symphony of a Great City does not moralise. According to AlSayyad, ‘its techniques of montage thus leave issues open-ended, and it is up to the viewer to interpret its relatively optimistic message.’** This optimism is occasionally challenged by cross cutting shots which juxtapose, for instance, humans with animals or, a courting couple with mechanised toys in a store window. No particular reading of the film is prescribed.
Berlin, Symphony of a Great City is a beautiful and fascinating account of one of the greatest and most turbulent eras of the twentieth century. The film provides a snapshot of a time burdened by war guilt and post war destruction and a place that saw hope through creative expression. While Berlin, Symphony of a Great City provides a portrait of Weimar Berlin, it is also timeless. The film puts forth a generic portrayal of life in the modern metropolis.*** Projects similar to that of Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, that attempted to capture the essence of the city, sprung up in cities the world over. Eugene Atget spent almost 30 years of his life preserving, for posterity, the cityscape of a Paris threatened by modernisation.
Berlin, Symphony of a Great City æstheticizes the everyday experiences in the life of Berlin and the life of all cities. The film reminds its audiences of the wonder and the mystery of life in the city.
Eugene Atget
avenue de segur 1925
magasins du bon marche 1926
rue de ursins 1923
* G. Simmel in H. D. Duncan ‘Simmel’s Image of Society’ in Georg Simmel, 1858-1918, K H. Wolff (ed), Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1959, 100-118. p. 103.
**N. AlSayyad, Cinematic Urbanism: A history of the modern from Reel to Real, London: Routledge, 2006, p. 35.
***N. AlSayyad, p. 34.
