{"id":192,"date":"2009-01-12T22:04:17","date_gmt":"2009-01-12T21:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/watch.deptford.tv\/blog\/?p=192"},"modified":"2009-01-12T22:04:17","modified_gmt":"2009-01-12T21:04:17","slug":"deptford-symphony-of-a-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/?p=192","title":{"rendered":"Deptford Symphony of a City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Composer Rob Canning http:\/\/robcanning.info moved to http:\/\/dek.spc.org we started brainstorming about Deptford Symphony of a city in homage to Walter Ruthman &#8220;Berlin: Symphony of a great City&#8221; and Adnan Hadzi&#8217;s professorThomas Schadt who produced the remake &#8220;Berlin Symphony of a City&#8221; from http:\/\/www.filmakademie.de<\/p>\n<p>see the film on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/details\/BerlinSymphonyofaGreatCity\">archive<\/a><\/p>\n<p>excerpt about &#8220;Berlin: Symphony of a great City&#8221; from<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Berlin_symphony_of_a_city\"> wikipedia<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Berlin: Symphony of a Great City<\/strong><\/em> (German: <em><strong>Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Gro\u00dfstadt<\/strong><\/em>), a <a title=\"1927 in film\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1927_in_film\">1927<\/a> German <a title=\"Silent film\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Silent_film\">silent film<\/a> directed by <a title=\"Walter Ruttmann\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Walter_Ruttmann\">Walter Ruttmann<\/a>, and co-written by <a title=\"Carl Mayer\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Carl_Mayer\">Carl Mayer<\/a> and <a title=\"Karl Freund\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Karl_Freund\">Karl Freund<\/a>, is a prominent example of the <em>city symphony<\/em> genre.<a class=\"external autonumber\" title=\"http:\/\/www.allmovie.com\/cg\/avg.dll?p=avg&amp;sql=1:4873\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allmovie.com\/cg\/avg.dll?p=avg&amp;sql=1:4873\" rel=\"nofollow\">[1]<\/a> A musical score to accompany the film was written by <a title=\"Edmund Meisel\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edmund_Meisel\">Edmund Meisel<\/a>. As a &#8220;city symphony&#8221; film, it portrays the life of a city, mainly through visual impressions in a semi-<a title=\"Documentary film\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Documentary_film\">documentary<\/a> style, without the narrative content of more mainstream films, though the sequencing of events can imply a kind of &#8220;narrative&#8221; of the city&#8217;s daily life.<\/p>\n<p>Other noted examples of the genre include <a title=\"Charles Sheeler\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charles_Sheeler\">Charles Sheeler<\/a> and <a title=\"Paul Strand\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Paul_Strand\">Paul Strand<\/a>&#8216;s 1921 film <em><a title=\"Manhatta\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Manhatta\">Manhatta<\/a><\/em>, <a title=\"Dziga Vertov\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dziga_Vertov\">Dziga Vertov<\/a>&#8216;s 1929 film <em><a title=\"Man with a Movie Camera\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Man_with_a_Movie_Camera\">Man with a Movie Camera<\/a><\/em>, Andre Sauvage&#8217;s 1928 film <em>Etudes sur Paris<\/em>, and the 1929 Dutch film <em><a title=\"Regen\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Regen\">Regen<\/a><\/em> directed by Mannus Franken and <a title=\"Joris Ivens\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joris_Ivens\">Joris Ivens<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This film represented a sort of break from Ruttmann&#8217;s earlier &#8220;Absolute&#8221; films which were abstracts. Some of Vertov&#8217;s earlier films have been cited as influential on Ruttmann&#8217;s approach to this film, and it seems the filmmakers mutually inspired one another, as there exist many parallels between this film and the later <em>Man with a Movie Camera<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The film displays the filmmaker&#8217;s knowledge of <a title=\"Soviet montage theory\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Soviet_montage_theory\">Soviet montage theory<\/a>. Some Socialist political sympathies, or identification with the underclass can be inferred from a few of the edits in the film, though critics have suggested that either Ruttmann avoided a strong position, or else he pursued his aesthetic interests to the extent that they diminished the potential for political content.<a class=\"external autonumber\" title=\"http:\/\/www.sensesofcinema.com\/contents\/cteq\/00\/5\/berlin.html\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sensesofcinema.com\/contents\/cteq\/00\/5\/berlin.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">[2]<\/a> Ruttmann&#8217;s own description of the film suggests that his motives were predominantly aesthetic: &#8220;Since I began in the cinema, I had the idea of making something out of life, of creating a symphonic film out of the millions of energies that comprise the life of a big city.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>excerpt about &#8220;Berlin Symphony of a City&#8221; from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.german-films.de\/app\/filmarchive\/film_view.php?film_id=759\">german films<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think most people who feel a rush of excitement watching my Berlin film don&#8217;t know where it&#8217;s coming from. If I managed to give people a sense of that excitement, of allowing them to experience the city of Berlin, then I achieved what I set out to do and proved that I was right all along.&#8221; (Walther Ruttmann)<\/p>\n<p>In 1927, Walther Ruttmann shot his majestic documentary Berlin. Symphony of a City. In September of that same year, this milestone of the silent film era was premiered at Berlin&#8217;s Tauentzien Palast with a specially composed live soundtrack.<\/p>\n<p>Seventy-five years later, Berlin is in the midst of a uniquely vibrant and exciting transition. Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the re-energized drive of history is bringing forth a new city. People from all over the world and from all walks of life are coming together to form a new metropolis, one reminiscent in many ways of 1920s Berlin.<\/p>\n<p>While retaining some of the original&#8217;s basic dramatic principles and characteristics -organizing every shot in the film according to a symphonic structure, depicting one day in the life of the city using several main themes, and shooting on black-and-white 35 mm film &#8211; this remake also strives to establish its own cohesive pictorial language and narrative structure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Composer Rob Canning http:\/\/robcanning.info moved to http:\/\/dek.spc.org we started brainstorming about Deptford Symphony of a city in homage to Walter Ruthman &#8220;Berlin: Symphony of a great City&#8221; and Adnan Hadzi&#8217;s professorThomas Schadt who produced the remake &#8220;Berlin Symphony of a City&#8221; from http:\/\/www.filmakademie.de see the film on archive excerpt about &#8220;Berlin: Symphony of a great&hellip;<a href=\"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/?p=192\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Deptford Symphony of a City<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dorothea.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}