BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A GREAT CITY

Rutmann’s 'Symphony of a Great City' captures everyday life in the city of Berlin (that is tracing the city and its people from morning, to peak hour, to work, holiday and nightlife). What is made most explicit by each of these segments is that Berlin is a city in constant motion, a city where mobility is the key to its ultimate functioning. Just as the word ‘Symphony’ implies an orchestra or an ensemble of various parts that interact with one another to produce or create a ‘whole’, the film characterises Berlin city as ‘Symphonic’ by nature in that what is produced is an aesthetic experience conveyed through the dynamic expression of the city in motion; revealing the interaction of parts of the city that make up a ‘whole’.

One could suggest upon viewing Rutmann’s film that it is a portrayal of how life changed with the industrial revolution where perhaps the most poignant and or central motif is that of the train. In fact, the opening railway scene can be viewed as an ‘organising image’ with the image of the train as being an omnipresent image of modernity. The railway here can be regarded as a concise image of the impact of modernist technology on the individual body and consciousness, whereby the traditional ways of life have been replaced by uncontrollable change and effectively creates ‘shock’ upon the senses. This is visually communicated or produced by Rutmann through employment of a frenetic editing sequence which collates images of trains and captures their movement as they rush past and toward the viewer.

Another important observation of the film is that it is highly melancholic in nature, and in this, the issue of self-estrangement and consequently the figure of the 'flaneur' becomes highly pervasive. In the film, buildings often appear to engulf the images of people that are usually overlooked or dwarfed. What becomes evident is that the cityscape is void of people and if anything, machines appear to have more autonomy (as is evidenced by the factory sequence where machines fill the film frame and people are most frequently disembodied e.g. with only their hands in focus). As we reach the Peak hour sequence however the urban crowd becomes more prevalent and it is here we can suggest that the camera begins to embody the persona of the ‘flaneur’ (an aimless wanderer). This is because the camera appears to make no attempt to embody the crowd and retains a detached position from what’s essentially ‘going on’. This is most evident during the peak hour sequence, where we are confronted with the continuous flow of bodies and the random nature of images. Within this scene there is no particular subject of interest, rather a random confrontation of fleeting images that have no particular connection other than being apart of the ‘everyday’. In this light, the city conduces alienation and the closest one could get, to obtain a private experience of the city, is to enter the urban landscape perhaps in the most advantageous position of the flaneur who has the ability to experience the city at its most transitory. Through such sequences, we can begin to see that the film is preoccupied with modernity and urban spaces, and it is here that the urban angles and the urban crowd become a subject of importance.