Walter Ruttman’s BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A GREAT CITY(Germany 1927) (1. & 5.6) is not just the singular portrait of a glittering mid-1920s metropolis, but also the linchpin of a series of documentaries from the 1920s and 30s which carry its name: the city symphonies, which employed rhythmic montage and associative sequences of images to capture the increasing dynamism, mechanization and modernity of cities and how it felt to live in them at the time. We are showing it as a preview of the July/August Magical History Tour focused on city symphonies and flaneurs. In this classic the director edits together shots of the city, urban life and Berliners, alternating between a faster pace and slower tempo. Street canyons, trains, roads, masses of people, machines, neon advertising and evening entertainment merge into a visual rhythm, a gush of impressions and a pulsating river of images.
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