The City
The end of World War I brought about a great series of change within the German atmosphere. A combination of the shift to a democratic government, a desire to consciously drive away from cultural styles and values of Germany prior to the end of the war, and the increasing urbanization of Berlin led to a period of intense creation and production in all disciplines. With the introduction of film as a narrative tool in the early 20th century, the camera became a powerful tool to capture this modernizing culture. As industries began to flourish, Berlin transformed from a city recovering from the aftermath of the war to a pulsating urban center. The new sensations, restructuring of the economic and political spheres, and the creation of new social classes became a central focus in several films created in the Weimar Republic. The theme of “the city” takes on the role of presenting the themes of both dystopias and utopias, along with the decreasing importance of the individual amid the roaring life of the city.
The restructuring of the economy led to an inevitable rise of industries, resulting in the presence of factories and a clearly visible presence of the skyscraper, a great symbol of urbanization. The establishment of factories created a need for factory workers. The desire to rise to the level of American modernity is reflected in the mechanization of urban life, a routine lifestyle that developed from a need for speed and production[1]. Factory workers became subject to repeating the same specialized tasks within a greater framework, mimicking the functionality of the very machinery being used. The image of the routine life is exemplified in Ruttmann’s 1927 film Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, a documentary type of film that utilizes the actual city itself as the set[2]. The film lacks a musical score, but its inclusion becomes unnecessary as Ruttmann employs speed and strategic editing to illustrate the chaotic yet structured order of the city. The slow pacing of the beginning of the film reflects the calm and resting state of the city, but takes a turn as the number of citizens begins to fill the streets and trolleys. The beginning of the work day is directly represented by the activation of the machinery and completing their mechanized functions, with an evident lack of visual representation of the human hands that run the machines[3]. With a clock signifying the start and end of a break time in the worker’s schedule, the pacing of the film reflects the speeding nature of a typical workday in Berlin.
Ruttmann’s use of editing to evoke the chaotic and routine structure of a typical workday in Berlin, including the slightly more non-documentary-like scenes of the rollercoaster that serves as yet another metaphor for the programmed and mechanical nature of a worker’s life, criticizes the urbanization of Berlin[4]. The underlying structure of the city, the hundreds of workers completing their individual tasks to keep the “greater machine” running, demonstrates a collective emptiness; the individual no longer matters[5]. This same criticism of the dystopian urban city is dramatized in Lang’s Metropolis, also released in 1927, where the advent of an actual apocalypse reflects the fragility of the machine-driven society; the workers are kept in their positions of anonymity and are disposable and easily replaced in order to keep the greater machine running, represented as the Moloch god in a nightmarish scene of industrial disaster[6]. The worker’s revolt in the film results in the physical destruction of the city as the social disparities between the working class and upper classes reached a threshold.
The stylized imagery in Metropolis completes the same representation of the worker spending a 10-hour shift repeating a mechanical function. The nonstop nature of urban society reveals a lack of individualization of the mass population. This sort of criticizing representation of a collective body alludes to the influence and power of the filmmaker and their utilization of the camera as a tool to create these representations. The camera’s status as a machine that creates dynamic replications of the current life and visuals of Berlin, rather than an art form, gave these forms a different audience to influence that other art forms wouldn’t reach[7]. The advent of cinematic film, especially silent film, gave these German films a national audience. This global outreach can be interpreted to be seen as the republic’s efforts to achieve a level of American modernity[8]. American film reached a wide global audience, especially with the popularity of Charlie Chaplin’s films and his character of the Tramp, which makes a cameo in a brief clip in Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, with only the characteristic oversized shoes and waddle of the Tramp being shown on a screen. This demonstrates the encroachment of America’s urban scene into Germany’s emerging one, reflecting the constant desire to reach a high level of urbanization in the Weimar Republic.
Contrasting the dystopian representations of the city in Lang and Ruttmann’s films, Siodmak’s People on Sunday, released in 1930, represents a break from the chaotic and routine life in Berlin. This film focuses on the carefree and leisurely weekend at a suburban park of four young citizens of differing occupations. Despite the frivolous narrative depicted in this film, the presence of the hectic city is represented by the text at the end of the film in which the viewer is informed of the characters’ inevitable return to their routine lives come the following Monday. The inclusion of that return to urbanity reflects the importance of the individual’s miniscule role in the greater scheme of the city, making the relaxed weekend and interactions among these characters seem more of a distraction from their daily lives and roles, rather than an integral part of their existence within Berlin[9].
- Janet Vargas
[1] Timothy O. Benson, Expressionist Utopias: Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy, (Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles County Museum, 1994), 155.
[2] Anton Kaes, "The Phantasm of the Apocalypse - Metropolis and Weimar Modernity," Noir Urbanisms, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 27.
[3] Anton Kaes, "The Phantasm of the Apocalypse - Metropolis and Weimar Modernity," Noir Urbanisms, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 18.
[4] Anton Kaes, "The Phantasm of the Apocalypse - Metropolis and Weimar Modernity," Noir Urbanisms, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 27.
[5] Anke Gleber, The Art of Taking a Walk - Flanerie, Literature, and Film in Weimar Culture, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999), chap. 3.
[6] Anton Kaes, "The Phantasm of the Apocalypse - Metropolis and Weimar Modernity," Noir Urbanisms, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 20.
[7] Timothy O. Benson, Expressionist Utopias: Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy, (Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles County Museum, 1994), 155.
[8] Timothy O. Benson, Expressionist Utopias: Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy, (Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles County Museum, 1994), 155.
[9] Anke Gleber, The Art of Taking a Walk - Flanerie, Literature, and Film in Weimar Culture, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999), chap. 3.
The restructuring of the economy led to an inevitable rise of industries, resulting in the presence of factories and a clearly visible presence of the skyscraper, a great symbol of urbanization. The establishment of factories created a need for factory workers. The desire to rise to the level of American modernity is reflected in the mechanization of urban life, a routine lifestyle that developed from a need for speed and production[1]. Factory workers became subject to repeating the same specialized tasks within a greater framework, mimicking the functionality of the very machinery being used. The image of the routine life is exemplified in Ruttmann’s 1927 film Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, a documentary type of film that utilizes the actual city itself as the set[2]. The film lacks a musical score, but its inclusion becomes unnecessary as Ruttmann employs speed and strategic editing to illustrate the chaotic yet structured order of the city. The slow pacing of the beginning of the film reflects the calm and resting state of the city, but takes a turn as the number of citizens begins to fill the streets and trolleys. The beginning of the work day is directly represented by the activation of the machinery and completing their mechanized functions, with an evident lack of visual representation of the human hands that run the machines[3]. With a clock signifying the start and end of a break time in the worker’s schedule, the pacing of the film reflects the speeding nature of a typical workday in Berlin.
Ruttmann’s use of editing to evoke the chaotic and routine structure of a typical workday in Berlin, including the slightly more non-documentary-like scenes of the rollercoaster that serves as yet another metaphor for the programmed and mechanical nature of a worker’s life, criticizes the urbanization of Berlin[4]. The underlying structure of the city, the hundreds of workers completing their individual tasks to keep the “greater machine” running, demonstrates a collective emptiness; the individual no longer matters[5]. This same criticism of the dystopian urban city is dramatized in Lang’s Metropolis, also released in 1927, where the advent of an actual apocalypse reflects the fragility of the machine-driven society; the workers are kept in their positions of anonymity and are disposable and easily replaced in order to keep the greater machine running, represented as the Moloch god in a nightmarish scene of industrial disaster[6]. The worker’s revolt in the film results in the physical destruction of the city as the social disparities between the working class and upper classes reached a threshold.
The stylized imagery in Metropolis completes the same representation of the worker spending a 10-hour shift repeating a mechanical function. The nonstop nature of urban society reveals a lack of individualization of the mass population. This sort of criticizing representation of a collective body alludes to the influence and power of the filmmaker and their utilization of the camera as a tool to create these representations. The camera’s status as a machine that creates dynamic replications of the current life and visuals of Berlin, rather than an art form, gave these forms a different audience to influence that other art forms wouldn’t reach[7]. The advent of cinematic film, especially silent film, gave these German films a national audience. This global outreach can be interpreted to be seen as the republic’s efforts to achieve a level of American modernity[8]. American film reached a wide global audience, especially with the popularity of Charlie Chaplin’s films and his character of the Tramp, which makes a cameo in a brief clip in Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, with only the characteristic oversized shoes and waddle of the Tramp being shown on a screen. This demonstrates the encroachment of America’s urban scene into Germany’s emerging one, reflecting the constant desire to reach a high level of urbanization in the Weimar Republic.
Contrasting the dystopian representations of the city in Lang and Ruttmann’s films, Siodmak’s People on Sunday, released in 1930, represents a break from the chaotic and routine life in Berlin. This film focuses on the carefree and leisurely weekend at a suburban park of four young citizens of differing occupations. Despite the frivolous narrative depicted in this film, the presence of the hectic city is represented by the text at the end of the film in which the viewer is informed of the characters’ inevitable return to their routine lives come the following Monday. The inclusion of that return to urbanity reflects the importance of the individual’s miniscule role in the greater scheme of the city, making the relaxed weekend and interactions among these characters seem more of a distraction from their daily lives and roles, rather than an integral part of their existence within Berlin[9].
- Janet Vargas
[1] Timothy O. Benson, Expressionist Utopias: Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy, (Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles County Museum, 1994), 155.
[2] Anton Kaes, "The Phantasm of the Apocalypse - Metropolis and Weimar Modernity," Noir Urbanisms, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 27.
[3] Anton Kaes, "The Phantasm of the Apocalypse - Metropolis and Weimar Modernity," Noir Urbanisms, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 18.
[4] Anton Kaes, "The Phantasm of the Apocalypse - Metropolis and Weimar Modernity," Noir Urbanisms, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 27.
[5] Anke Gleber, The Art of Taking a Walk - Flanerie, Literature, and Film in Weimar Culture, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999), chap. 3.
[6] Anton Kaes, "The Phantasm of the Apocalypse - Metropolis and Weimar Modernity," Noir Urbanisms, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 20.
[7] Timothy O. Benson, Expressionist Utopias: Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy, (Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles County Museum, 1994), 155.
[8] Timothy O. Benson, Expressionist Utopias: Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy, (Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles County Museum, 1994), 155.
[9] Anke Gleber, The Art of Taking a Walk - Flanerie, Literature, and Film in Weimar Culture, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999), chap. 3.