Less-Known City Symphonies

[My Man Godfrey]

Maybe I missed it . . . but as long as we're talking about Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, what about Slacker? I guess docs aren't what you're asking for . . . but Amsterdam Global Village is quite a "city symphony." And what about The Cruise? The King of Marvin Gardens and Atlantic City would seem to fit. And what about David Lean's Summertime?

Ah, I could go on . . .

[Belmondo]

Peter Bogdanovich's THEY ALL LAUGHED (1981) is all over the streets of New York and includes a couple of magic moments with Audrey Hepburn and the late Dorothy Stratten right in the middle of Times Square.

Bogdanovich used guerilla filmmaking techniques for this all location shoot and the light as a feather plot almost doesn't matter, given the cast, the locations, and the worthwhile extras on the DVD.

[Eligius]

Julien Duvivier's AU BONHEURE DES DAMES (1930). A fascinating symphony of Paris in which Duvivier uses an editing-style which really made me think of Murnau's Sunrise.

[postmodern-chuck]

Julien Duvivier's AU BONHEURE DES DAMES (1930). A fascinating symphony of Paris in which Duvivier uses an editing-style which really made me think of Murnau's Sunrise.

Does anyone know where one could find a copy of this film?

[Eligius]

As far as I know there is only one copy left of this film which is property of La Cinémathèque Français (though, correct me if I'm wrong.) I was extremely lucky to be able to see this beauty with an newly composed score, especially arranged for the farewell ceremony of a professor at my university.

[Awesome Welles]

Does anyone know anything about Cavalcanti's City Symphony Rien que les heures? I have read very little about the film but all I know is that is was Cavalcanti's first film when he moved to Paris and got into film, started after Ruttman's sublime Berlin but finished before. No DVD it seems?

[HerrSchreck]

You and me both, pal. Any additional Cavalcanti would be a godsend. Just on the strength of Dead of Night and the bitter masterpiece They Made Me A Fugitive (one of my favorite crime films of all time and definitely one of the best films o fthe 40's) has turned into an icon for me.

[Knappen]

Rien que les heures is announced in the opening titles as the exact opposite of a city symphony like Berlin, since it is not trying to depict a particular city, but city life as a universal life form.
Seeing this wildly exciting ciné-poème before the utterly conventional Fracasse by the same Cavalcanti last week was quite a bit of contrast.

Godsend? Hm...

[HerrSchreck]

Go on...

[Knappen]

The last thing was more of a private joke.

The film is structured around three small stories between more free form montage if I am not mistaken. Cavalcanti focuses almost exclusively on the more gloomy sides of city life.
The finale states that it is impossible to capture a moment in space and time while showing things happening simultaniously in Paris and China. It may sound pretentious but it works very well on screen. And looks perhaps like something that Chris Marker could have done in the silent days
I will get back to this when I have had time it rewatch the thing next weekend.

... or when Schreck starts raving about having received some sort of divine sending.

[Gregory]

I cross-posted this in the Avant-Garde on DVD thread but thought I'd bump this thread by mentioning 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs, newly on DVD from Mode. John Cage had done a sort of painting involving 49 triads (thus the waltzes) of images chosen by chance operations from a list of locations on the Hagstrom map of NYC. He later produced a score based on the same idea, which his colleague Don Gillespie used to create this film, which incorporated chance-derived video and sound clips from the same locations.
Cage of course was closely tied to Manhattan for a significant portion of his career.

[Camera Obscura]

My favorite "City Symphony" is Menschen am Sonntag/ People on Sunday (1930), a beautiful ode to everyday life during a hot summer day in Berlin, shot in semi-documentary style by no less than Curt Siodmak, Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer and Fred Zinnemann and writing credits (well, there wasn't really a shooting script as far as I know) for Curt Siodmak, Robert Siodmak and Billy Wilder.

Wonderfully shot and it will tell you a lot more about day-to-day life in pre-1933 Berlin than thousands of hours of historical footage and certainly beats Walter Ruttmann's much better known, but astonishingly dull Die Synfonie der Grossstadt (1927), because it's not just about "the City itself", but about people. It's so much more refreshing and playful. Watched it many times, still captivates me.

[HerrSchreck]

Walter Ruttmann's much better known, but astonishingly dull Die Synfonie der Grossstadt

I couldn't disagree more! I adore Berlin, and find it's countless vigettes endlessly moving-- probably still my favorite city symphony, and I've seen jus about everything mentioned here. I do like Menschen am, but place it a tiny notch just below Berlin.

I should add that since posting this thread yrs ago I've managed to see the Cavalcanti (Rien que les heures), as well as the Duvivier AU BONHEURE DES DAMES, both of which are mesmerizing. The Cavalcanti is extremely difficult to see but those who manage to secure it will be endlessly rewarded.

I'd also add Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow to the list. Fabulous, fabulous film, and a perfect snapshot of the aspect of the city in stagnated zones of fomer times.

[Antoine Doinel]

This blog post has a pretty comprehensive overview at NYC symphonies, mostly focusing on the 60s, 70s and 80s.

[Camera Obscura]

Walter Ruttmann's much better known, but astonishingly dull Die Synfonie der Grossstadt

I couldn't disagree more! I adore Berlin, and find it's countless vigettes endlessly moving-- probably still my favorite city symphony, and I've seen jus about everything mentioned here. I do like Menschen am, but place it a tiny notch just below Berlin.

Ha, you're not alone of course - bit of a bald statement perhaps from my side. It's been a while since I've seen Ruttmann Synfonie einer Grossstadt, which I kinda liked at the time till I saw Menschen am Sonntag, which really struck a nerve and made me forget Synfonie instantly. Perhaps I should give it another shot one of these days..

[Camera Obscura]

This blog post has a pretty comprehensive overview at NYC symphonies, mostly focusing on the 60s, 70s and 80s.

That's a great link. I'm especially fond of early eighties New York. I suck up just about everything "New York" from the early graffiti days, or anything else on film with a post punk/ New Wave flavor and atmosphere. Films like Smithereens, Subway Riders, Downtown '81, Ms. 45, Liquid Sky, Basket Case.. love those.

[Antoine Doinel]

The importance of stock footage in creating NYC's symphonies.

[Lemmy Caution]

I always thought the video to Crosstown Traffic was a great portrait of NYC, albeit brief. I would try to provide a YouTube link, but the PRC has other ideas.

[Vic Pardo]

1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS (1983).

And its star, Vic Morrow, was born and raised in the Bronx!

[erezija]

I recently watched THE OUTSIDE MAN. I'd include it as a "city symphony". The sprawl of Los Angeles as something of a no man's land really comes through in that film. I've never been to the city, but the film gives me that impression.

[puxzkkx]

Laugh, but I love AMELIE and the evocative glimpses of Paris it gives. Also, Julie Delpy's 2 DAYS IN PARIS is a really nice one that thankfully avoids the touristy 'travelogue' route.

[LQ]

I think the sumptuous In the City of Sylvia definitely belongs in this thread. Trailing the young artist through the labyrinthine, beautiful corridors of Strasbourg, listening to the ambient city noise and snatches of conversation...the entire film produces such a powerfully symphonious feeling, I just had to mention it here. I watched it the other day for the 2000s list project, and the city made such an impression on me that I immediately wanted to pick up and resettle in sundrenched Strasbourg.

[Michael Kerpan]

Ozu's Walk Cheerfully and Naruse's Morning's Tree-Lined Streets are both _almost_ city symphonies.

[karmajuice]

I saw a film called Helsinki, Forever earlier this summer, and it certainly qualifies as a city symphony. Rosenbaum made a brief post about it on his blog, which is about all I can find about the film in English, but it's an accurate description. Made by Finnish scholar and filmmaker Peter van Bagh, who also coordinates the festival where I saw it (the Midnight Sun Film Festival that Rosenbaum mentions in the second paragraph of his post). Parts of the film don't quite mesh for me (its attempts to explore different aspects of Finnish culture seem more non sequitur than tangential) but on the whole it's very well made. It contains some amazing footage and the voice overs often elevate even the mundane footage with their observations. I was lucky enough to see this two weeks after visiting Helsinki for the first time, so it resonated especially well for me. I recommend it to anyone, though, in part because its subjects (Helsinki and Finnish culture, its cinema in particular) are so scarcely known outside of Finland.

[HerrSchreck]

Something I felt very fortunate to have seen recently is Carson Davidson's 16mm color short "3rd Ave. El" from 1954.. I actually prefer this to Pennebaker's Daybreak Express, made at approx the same time. El is a wonderful slice of NYC, you feel the sunlight coming in thru dusty subway windows, smell the steel dust hanging in the daytime air, feel the squeak of the wheels and the chatter from the streets below.

I've always been lured by some strange pull to the NYC subways, and miss the old rickety rackety squealing, squalid incarnation of the subways that were in evidence when I was a child. Of course I'd rather ride in a cool, air conditioned, smooth riding train where the announcements are audible and the wheels and the rumble are not deafening... but the old, rusting swaying trains of the old days seemed to evoke the character of the neighborhoods that they passed through, and which passed thru them: stickball on cobble stoned streets lined with tenements, summers spent running thru fire hydrants turned on, egg creams & pretzels & comic books in the corner candy store, grizzled old Bowery bums snuggled over grates with Wild Irish Rose, card games behind storefront backrooms.

Tonight I'm going to take a look at Lionel Rogosin's On the Bowery from 1957, another doco masterpiece on the hardboiled streets of NYC yesteryear.