Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) on Netflix
NR19271h 5mDocumentary
A single day in Berlin, assembled from images rather than a story. A train arrives at the Anhalter Bahnhof, crowds head to work, and factories, offices, shops and nightlife fill the city.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.6/105,216 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
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Plot summary
Arranged to suggest the passage of a single day, the film observes Berlin in the mid 1920s in a semi-documentary style, cutting between shots on the basis of image, motion and point of view. Calm water and a graphic sunrise open the day; railway crossing gates lower and a train runs into the city, reaching the Anhalter Bahnhof. The streets are nearly empty at first, then people appear and the crowds of workers, pedestrians and streetcars build. A hand moves a lever and factory machinery comes to life, producing glass bulbs and cut metal while molten steel is poured. Mailmen, shops, offices and banks of typists follow, and an edit places workers filing into a factory beside cattle driven into a corral.
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Over 30% of central Berlin was leveled by the end of World War II, so the 1927 film survives as a time capsule of buildings that vanished, among them the Anhalter Bahnhof station and the Hotel Excelsior, once the largest hotel in Europe.
- In 2006 the film was re-scored by DJ Spooky at The Tate Modern, in one of the first performances the museum staged to focus on live, large-scale experimental cinema using its Turbine Hall.
- According to director Walter Ruttmann, a "hypersensitive film stock" was developed specifically for Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis in order to solve the lighting difficulties the crew faced while shooting night scenes.
