City Symphonies of the 1920s: A Silent Film Comparison
This paper compares four city symphony films from the silent and early sound era, examining how each uses music and visual imagery to portray urban life. The films analyzed include Walther Ruttmann and Otto Umbo's Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927), Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand's Manhatta (1921), Bonney Powell's City Symphony Manhattan Medley (1931), and A. Brick's Split Skyscrapers and Tenth Avenue (1924). The paper describes how each film constructs the city as a character through rhythm, camera technique, musical accompaniment, and ideological tone — ranging from Romantic grandeur to modernist detachment, optimistic humanism, and whimsical trick photography.
- Introduction: Silent-era film scores and city symphony genre overview
- Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927): Ruttmann's Romantic, rhythmic portrait of Berlin
- Manhatta (1921): Strand and Sheeler's modernist, distanced view of New York
- City Symphony Manhattan Medley (1931): Powell's humorous, individual-focused Manhattan portrait
- Split Skyscrapers and Tenth Avenue (1924): Brick's whimsical trick-photography city film
- Conclusion: Range of aesthetic approaches across the genre
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What makes this paper effective
- Each film is analyzed through two consistent lenses — visual language and musical accompaniment — giving the comparison a clear, unified framework.
- The paper moves from the most serious and Romantic films to progressively lighter, more whimsical ones, creating a natural tonal arc across the comparisons.
- Specific scene descriptions (e.g., children in overalls, horse-drawn carriages, split-screen cars) ground abstract aesthetic claims in concrete evidence from the films.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative close reading applied to visual media. Rather than simply summarizing each film, the author identifies recurring structural devices — the dawn-to-dusk temporal arc, the city-as-character construction, the relationship between music and image — and uses them as a consistent analytical framework across all four works. This approach allows meaningful contrast even between films of very different tones.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief framing introduction, then devotes one focused paragraph (or pair of paragraphs) to each film in roughly chronological order. Berlin and Manhatta receive the most sustained analysis, with direct quotations from secondary sources. Powell's Manhattan Medley and Brick's Split Skyscrapers are treated more briefly but with specific scene-level detail. A short conclusion is implied by the final film's discussion. The Works Cited section follows MLA format.
Introduction
During the silent era of cinema, the scores used to accompany various films were employed to enhance the experience of watching the production. The city symphony film emerged in the 1920s as a distinct genre in which filmmakers used music and imagery — rather than conventional narrative — to portray the rhythms and character of modern urban life. Four films in particular illustrate the range of aesthetic and ideological approaches within this genre: Walther Ruttmann and Otto Umbo's Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927), Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand's Manhatta (1921), Bonney Powell's City Symphony Manhattan Medley (1931), and A. Brick's Split Skyscrapers and Tenth Avenue (1924).
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)
Director Walther Ruttmann and photographer Otto Umbo's Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) portrays the city of Berlin from dawn to dusk, beginning with a train pulling out of the station early in the morning and ending with the nightlife that brings the day to a close. The film chronicles the rhythms of the city as they gradually build, grow more intense, and finally climax at night — just like the corresponding music itself. The film suggests that Berlin's natural rhythms are a symphony, and the music strives to highlight this phenomenon. The images are lush, over-the-top, and Romantic, reflecting the character of the score. As one critic observed, "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, by focusing on a temporal structure instead of a traditional character-driven narrative, manages to turn the city itself into a character" (Karreau, 2006).
Works Cited
Karreau, Ash. "Buried Treasure." 23 Mar. 2006. 9 Feb. 2013.
"Manhatta (1921, Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler)." The Stop Button. 12 May 2011. 9 Feb. 2013.
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