Berlin: die Sinfonie der Großstadt Thoughts

Reading Kracauer was a bit of a relief after I watched this film, insomuch as that I actually agreed with his point of view. He writes that Berlin "proves as noncommittal as the other cross-section films," and that it "bur[ies its] meaning in an abundance of facts."
I found it just as pointless - there was so much footage, and every once in a while it would loosely be tied together through transitions between shots of animals fighting and people doing the same, or through chaotic music with chaotic scenes, such as the furious typing in Akt II. But overall, the music was only background noise, and I didn't hear it really accentuate the film itself in more than a couple brief instances.

Obvious metaphors were seemingly randomly placed (i.e. the 'roller coaster as life' metaphor), and symbols Kracauer has previously established as symbolizing chaos (revolving doors, spinning images, the man turning the crank, whirling machinery) were present, too.

Some curiosities that were raised for me while watching:

--What was the point of the plastic bag drifting down an empty street? To symbolize lonliness? Because that's what I got out of it. Not that this was a great city in a state of slumber.
It actually reminded me of a scene from a film called American Beauty, which you can check out here.

Because it's been so long since I've seen the movie, I Wikapedia'd the intended symbology behind this scene:

The film presents Ricky as its "visionary ... its spiritual and
mystical center". He sees beauty in the minutiae of everyday life, videoing as
much as he can for fear of missing it. He shows Jane what he considers the most
beautiful thing he has filmed: a plastic bag, tossing in the wind in front of a
wall. He says capturing the moment was when he realized that there was "an
entire life behind things"; he feels that "sometimes there's so much beauty in
the world I feel like I can't take it ... and my heart is going to cave
in." Anker argues that Ricky, in looking past the "cultural dross", has
"[grasped] the radiant splendor of the created world" to see God.

--What as the point of the newspaper headline "Geld" come out at the audience again and again? It followed the juxtaposition of the hungry mom with her two kids and the "oppulent platters," as Kracauer put it, so possibly this alludes to the economic and class disparity?

--I don't know if any of you continued watching, but at the very end, after the giant "Ende!" shot came and went, a colored animation of geometric shapes set to music began to play, similar to the ones we watched in class. But the music for this was so poor, it sounded like the record was skipping. What was the purpose of putting this at the end? Is it just somehting for background noise while the audience leaves the theater?

People on Sunday (1930)

A delightful companion piece to Berlin Symphony of a Great City is People on Sunday, directed by Robert Siodmak and Edgar Ulmar, with help from the soon-to-be-legendary Billy Wilder. It's the story of a group of young Berliners (all amateur actors!) who go on an excursion to the parks outside of Berlin. It gives some fantastic images of Weimar Berlin and a great sense of the lifestyle. Here's a trailer from the recent edition lovingly restored by Criterion. And here's a somewhat sexier clip.

Robert Siodmak (1900-1973) went on to a successful career in Hollywood, where he was known for his films noirs, such as Phantom Lady (1944). Here's the trailer, which will make you want to see it! After the war, he went back to Germany. Robert's brother Curt (1902-2000) was also in the film industry, as a writer.

Billy Wilder (1906-2002) went on to become incredibly successful, directing such fantastic films as Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment, and Double Indemnity. Watch all of them!

Carl Mayer: A Tribute of Sorts?

There's a very good chance I am going to take a look at the copy of Kracauer on reserve at the library and look up whether or not that edition says "Meyer" or "Mayer". I can't seem to find anywhere online where Carl's name is misspelled and it seems quite crazy that there is an edition of From Caligari to Hitler with such a large typo. But that is what I wrote down when taking notes before I had my own copy of the book!

But it made me think - this guy was clearly F.W. Murnau's right-hand man for five films. He co-wrote The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He came up with the original idea behind Berlin: Symphony of a Great City. But his name is misprinted in an edition of a book!? Do any film scholars really know much about him today?
Kracauer certainly discusses him a lot. He is, in fact, a pretty big fan of Mayer's. On page 62 a brief summary of his life story is told - and it isn't terribly pretty. But he was passionate about art - theater, sketching, and eventually film. It seems that Kracauer gets his information from Caligari co-writer Hans Janowitz, but it is unclear how Kracauer knows so much. Furthermore, Kracauer again and again in his text goes back to "Carl Mayer's instinct films" in comparison to other films. On page 136, which I assume we will read at some point, Kracauer even says "without the Austrian Jew Carl Mayer the German film would never have come into its own". (I decided to look at the index!)

Caligari's ending was twisted from Mayer & Janowitz's original idea, as our text explains. Berlin also went in another direction even though it was Mayer's idea. He had grown tired of the fakeness of studios and wanted to make something out of reality. Cameraman Max Freund was similarly sick of it and began filming the city. Walter Ruttman edited the footage...but not at all into what Mayer wanted. Kracauer simply says Mayer "dropped out" - but why? Did he give up easily? I want more information! On page 184 Kracauer gives another nod to Mayer's brilliance. He drafted a script of the story of Danube, years before any other country had done the "river film". It was not finished - presumably because of Mayer's illness and death.

According to Wikipedia, he was both a Jew and a pacifist - obviously fleeing at the first signs of Nazi Germany. If he had stayed, would he have gone on to greater things? Well, he also fell victim to cancer in 1942. War times led to poor treatment of his condition and he died at age 49, fairly poor.

Apparently, John Mayer's brother is named Carl. That Carl Mayer seems to be far more well-known than this film legend.

The Berlinale is about to begin!

The 62nd Berlinale is set to begin on February 9! Spend some time looking around the website of this film festivals, one of the major film festivals in the world. There is a huge amount going on there!

And here's a lovely picture of Sophia Loren, Yvonne de Carlo and Gina Lollobrigida at the 1954 festival. That's when movie stars were movie stars!

Arantzazu Martinez' Dracula

64” x 38”/ 162 x 97cm. Oil on linen.
Arantzazu Martinez is an academic painter from Vitoria, Spain. Shenrolled in the New York Academy of Figurative Art (NYAA) MFA program and graduated in 2002, and then studied at the Water Street Atelier with Jacob Collins.

"The technical expertise, the considered compositions, the exceptional treatment of light and the human form are evident and much appreciated in Martinez’s work. It has the ability to recreate a dream world where magic and fantasy are part of reality."

I stumbled across this image on my tumblr feed today and thought I would share. Here you can see some of that "vampires are sexy" thing leaking in, but I think it's fairly justified. The image itself seems to speak more to the sexual tension that we discussed during class, seeing Dracula (or Nosferatu) as sexual and appealing in his own manner. In this image, Dracula dominates over the woman, as evidenced by both his position above and behind her but also his dark aura surrounding her. Even his shadow is abnormal in that it is reflected in the form of a bat on the wall. Overall, this is a huge painting with exceptional technical skill that I think really captures some of the emotions of the Dracula tale.

The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008)

Every Friday night, a group of politically-minded Clarkies and Worcesterites gather in someone's living room to watch a rad movie. It is a new endeavor by a friend of mine and I am pleased to be a part of it (feel free to let me know if you're interested!) The other week I realized they were viewing Uli Edel's The Baader Meinhof Complex and I had to go! The film is a fictionalized look at Germany's terrorist group the Red Army Faction (RAF) - a communist, anti-imperialist urban guerrilla group that, not surprisingly, is not well-known about in America. Professor Rocheleau was actually there and explained how, in the '70s, she did try to get information on the RAF but found it to be extremely difficult.

The film is based on the 1985 non-fiction book of the same name by Stefan Aust. Obviously, there is a lot of fact versus dramatization in this film and no one really knows what happened within the groups meetings (although, when they are in prison of course they were being watched.) We had a couple folks there who had done extensive research into the RAF after the first time they viewed this film - they tended to agree that the chaos on screen reflected the reality of the situation. The rhetoric the RAF put out is very dense and hard understand, and it seemed that their actions were not always well thought out. They needed a better strategy - and the further generations of the RAF continued in rather chaotic, ineffective methods once the originals were in prison. The post-viewing discussion centered around effective strategies and everyone's personal thoughts on violence versus non-violence - always an unresolved debate in today's activism. Clearly, though, this groups violent tactics were largely ineffective.

We were told that the overly dramatic depiction of Andreas Baader seemed fairly accurate. His lover, Gudrun Ensslin, was really the only person able to reason with him or calm him down and he was incredibly misogynistic and rude even to her. Ensslin was, in reality, probably more of the leader of the RAF than Baader, but it makes sense for a film to portray the crazy male as the group's ringleader. The gender dynamics were actually highly interesting - a radical communist misogynist? Really? There is a scene where he yells at the ladies, berating the women's movement (I can't recall why). It is rather dumbfounding.

I'm not entirely sure what to write about Ulrike Meinhof (played by Martina Gedeck) so I will just say that her role and her story is incredibly fascinating. She is the left-wing journalist who begins innocently, but becomes a full fledged member of the group - hence her name in the title. As I said, though, Ensslin was far more of a leader. The "Baader-Meinhof Group" term was used by the media in attempts to delegitimize/devalue the RAF. None of the members would ever use that phrase.

There is a LOT going on in this film and honestly, I do not know that much about the political climate of this time so it was not always easy for me to understand, but the film does give a wonderful sense of the frustration of the German people. At the beginning of the RAF's attacks, there was actually great support for them. Our class is reading a lot about the psychology of the German people and I think further investigation of attitudes towards the RAF could be quite interesting. Furthermore, I find it fascinating that there are so many German productions about the RAF, a few Swiss, a BBC documentary - I don't think there has been an American take on it. This particular film was German's submission to the 81st Academy Awards (the year Hugh Jackman hosted and Slumdog won everything) - so, were they proud of the film itself, the history or both?

The film is on Netflix Instant for those who are interested. Fair warning - it is quite long - 150 minutes.

How symphonic IS the "Great City"?

The title itself, "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City," suggests a composition of sorts similar to one found in a great musical composition. A symphony for example. (Who would've thought!). A musical symphony is generally composed for an orchestra made up of instrumental sections, and is composed in movements (classically, four). These movements typically are characterized by different forms, and tend to exhibit alternating moods. Beethoven mastered the story-telling component of the symphony, arranging it in an arch, using related themes to build tension and drag us through series of events leading to a culminating climax and resolution. This organization resembles that of a human life, or even one day. The moods and themes, problems and solutions of one single day can easily be paralleled by the symphony's motion. Carl Mayer takes this a step further and paints a day in the life of Berlin in terms of a symphonic structure.

Particular themes recur in the film, as they would in a Beethoven symphony. The train is the greatest example of this. The train works as the Ode to Joy in the Ninth, a constant, whose personality changes and evolves to match whichever movement it inhabits. The individuals filmed are another great example of recurring thematic material. Their presence is fairly constant, yet their role changes and evolves throughout the symphony. While, at times, they are used to represent the busy movement of the "work day," later similar faces are used to convey "nighttime play" just as the orchestra is used in a symphony to convey both moods.

The film is obviously a visual symphony with movements carrying a vast orchestra through changing textures, themes, and moods. To complicate matters, though, we must account for the version of the film we see today, incorporating Timothy Brock's musical interpretation of the film, written in 1994*. Since the film clearly stands alone as a symphony, is Timothy Brock's score necessary? Did it add to the film for you? Or can it be said that it adds a second, unneeded layer? I want to hear what you all have to say about this. I see it as the latter, personally. If the film is a symphony in itself, Brock's interpretation adds aural moods, themes, and textures, when we already have many visual moods, themes, and textures to pay attention to. Sure, the score makes watching the film a lot more interesting, but one hears Carl Mayer's silent symphony at half the decibel with the added score.


*His website says 1994, the film says 1993. I don't know who to believe.