Directed by: Walter Ruttmann
Germany | 1927 | Documentary | 65 min | Silent w/ live music
Sponsors: Todd Lockwood
Not available on Virtual
*Closing Night Film*
With live music accompaniment by Randal Pierce and his band of 7 musicians.
This composition was originally commissioned by The Flynn for the 2021 Burlington Discover Jazz Festival One of the groundbreaking works of Weimar cinema, captured at a time when the German nation was still reeling from the effects of WWI, Berlin: Symphony of a Great City is an impressive rhythmic collage of cinematic effects and documentary material. Predating Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929) by two years, the film elicits comparisons with the Soviet montage aesthetic but develops its own editing principles that align more with music and symphony than traditional forms of cinematic expression. Shot on location in a naturalistic style, it was a reaction to the then popular German Expressionism style of such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (shown at VTIFF 2019, also with live music by Randal Pierce). However, the creative editing makes it anything but naturalistic, offering a poetic day in the life of Berlin, in five acts. ~Orly Yadin