{"id":13344,"date":"2020-01-19T21:00:51","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T02:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=13344"},"modified":"2020-01-19T18:30:10","modified_gmt":"2020-01-19T23:30:10","slug":"berlin-and-opus-i-iv-1920s-walter-ruttmann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/13344","title":{"rendered":"Berlin and Opus I-IV (1920’s, Walter Ruttmann)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City<\/em> (1927)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Opens with exciting abstractions, sunrise and shapes seen through blinds, then we catch a
\ntrain into Berlin and it chills out for a while, the depopulated city reminding me creepily of In My Room<\/a><\/em> before people start to wake up and head to work (more trains), then the movie amps up again, the mass production lines looking very much like the ones I see on the Machine Pix twitter feed 100 years later. This movie probably works better as a city-story than Man with the Movie Camera<\/a><\/em> does, though I love the fanciful effects and meta-scenes of the latter.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

German Harold Lloyd:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

In act II, telephone users and operators are compared to chattering monkeys and fighting dogs. I’d noticed a brief animal comparison in act I and shrugged it off, since a “symphony of a great city” wouldn’t do that to its people? Lunch, siesta, play – then hurry back to work, with a focus on newspapers. Motion of the day is exaggerated by strapping a camera to a rollercoaster.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ruttmann died in WWII. He worked with Lotte Reiniger and Leni Riefenstahl, apparently knew Oskar Fischinger, and made a dream sequence in Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen<\/em>. Music by Eisenstein collaborator Edmund Meisel, cinematography by Murnau’s DP Karl Freund, conceived by Caligari<\/em> writer Carl Mayer – everyone in silent cinema knew each other.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I also watched Ruttmann’s earlier Opus series…<\/p>\n

–
\nOpus I<\/em> (1921)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ghostly motion blobs against a dirty dark background
\nAbout four different motions, mirrored, colored and repeated
\nA third of the way through, new shapes and variations, and more at a time
\nNext part adds dyed searchlights and sun pendulums and tumblecubes
\nThe shapes never quite interacting, just almost<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

–
\nOpus II<\/em> (1921)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The same shapes on more charcoaly textures, and with more interaction between shapes
\nBlack and white with some soft blue and a shock of red towards the end<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

–
\nOpus III<\/em> (1924)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some new cube overlays and color pulsations look almost 3D
\nFactory-machinery rectangles then a blue field with 3D blob rotation in the center
\nThe same Red ending as II<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

–
\nOpus IV<\/em> (1925)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pulsing horizontal blinds with walking verticals mixed in later – faster and faster till pale purple blobs take over, then the traditional red ending. More advanced music on this one, by Helga Pogatschar – I hadn’t noticed that each film has a different musician. Rewatching the opening of Berlin<\/em>, there are the blinds and the blobs, like a mini Opus V<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) Opens with exciting abstractions, sunrise and shapes seen through blinds, then we catch a train into Berlin and it chills out for a while, the depopulated city reminding me creepily of In My Room before people start to wake up and head to work (more trains), then the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,122,64,294,2601],"class_list":["post-13344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-avant-garde","tag-germany","tag-silent","tag-trains","tag-walter-ruttmann"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13344"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13388,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13344\/revisions\/13388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}