By Chloé and Marina
Introduction
Although
every documentary filmmaker is known to have an aim and purpose to their film,
they wouldn’t be able to convey the message without the help of sound and
music. These two play a huge role in the film industry since it directs us to
the way the filmmaker wants us to understand everything. By watching Berlin: Symphony of a Great City with
our own choice of music, we got the chance to experience a documentry film in a
whole new way; the way we wanted to see it, with the message we wanted to
learn.
Part 1- Berlin: Symphony
of a Great City
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City is a
silent movie directed in 1927 by Walter Ruttmann. The 64 minute movie displays
the life in Berlin city at that time. The movie is separated in five parts like
a symphony and its acts. The movie starts in an interesting way, a camera
attached to a train captures images of the rural side of Germany and it leads
us to Berlin's train station. It brings us on a tour, we will spy upon common
people mostly unaware of the camera. Our journey in Berlin beggins; it is five
in the morning, few drunk people on their way home wander in the streets. Men
owning commerces wake up and start heading to work. Policemen make sure
everything is fine. Berlin is still asleep, no cars, only the skeleton of the
city. At 7 o'clock, the city wakes up, cars, tramways and school kids appear in
the streets. Women are also shown at work, whether at home cleaning, as typist
or as phone operator. Kiosques open and happy children play in the streets as
they get crowded. It is now 12, lunch break for everyone. Animals get fed in
zoos, workers eat in the cantine and some richer folks eat in restaurants.
After lunch, sports tournaments are organised, people rassemble to play games.
Some prefer to take naps! In the fifth part, it is night time. Everybody is
enjoying themselves, clubs are full, shows are presented in which some ladies
are displayed in big underwear (it was considered very daring at that time). Casinos, drinking bars, nobody stays at
home, they have fun as a community. The last image is of lights on a tower
shutting off, as the cycle starts again.
Throughout
the film, the population seems mostly unaware of the camera except at one point
when a woman jumps from a bridge, the scene was obviously staged. This movie
was particular because there were no speech nor noises, only music in the
background that was not recorded with the movie; it was commentative and
extradiegetic since the music does not actually come from what happens in the
scene. It is also asynchronous since it did not happen at the same time except
at one point, the image was one of a man ringing a bell on a tramway and at the
same time, the music did a "bell like" sound which went well together.
We can not really say music was contrapuntal because the medley playing at the
time was well agenced with the story. When listening to our own music, we feel
it did not go well at all with what was presented and it made us see that music
was not always a good thing since it was more of a distraction.
A
man who shared the same opinion, named Stan Bakhrage, made a silent movie
entitled Window water baby moving of
his wife giving birth in 1958, enlighting us as to what difference does
soundtracks make. The lack of sound in Stan's movie makes viewers focus even
more on the images that are already pretty shocking for most people. Sounds are
not required, the movie is brief enough to captivate the viewer throughout the
whole screening. A soundtrack is in someway a cushion to fall back to when
tired of looking at the screen. It distracts us and make the presentation more
agreable and "easy". It sometimes also reinforce the feelings
projected by the movie. In Berlin, there was not really much action but in certain
movies, even just the trailer, music plays an important role. The movie 9, made
by Tim Burton in 2009, is a great example of that. Even though barely any words
are spoken, the difference is felt when watching with sound and without.
As
we include an other sense, it brings an other dimention to the movie as well as
continuity.
continuity.
Part 2 - Night and Fog
Part 2 - Night and Fog
The
1955 French documentry short film, Night
and Fog, was directed by Alain Resnais, and written by Jean Cayrol, who was
sent to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp and
survived. The 32 minute french documentry shows the audience a clear
understanding of how the victims of the Nazi Germany concentration camps, that
took place from 1933-1945, were treated by using horrid videos and photos.
The
documentary begins by filming a beautiful landscape where the narrarator,
Michel Bouquet, describes as being an area where people drive past, and a
village where people spend a vacation. He then suddenly tells us that this
beautiful place was once a concentration camp. The camera passes through the
wired fence and into the building where hell took place in 1933. Images of the prisoners working, dying
of thirst, were shown in black and white right after showing the buildings
where they slept in the present day in color. Michel Bouquet explains that the
70 pound workers were being watched every step that they took. Everytime they
tried hiding for just a few minutes for rest, or running, they were killed. At
some point, they were gathered altogether, where they were “inspected and
frisked” before sending them back to the camps. A picture of a tally of the
victims is shown with the numbers being as high as 94, which is the amount they
killed in one day for several rubbish reasons. Prisoners that weren’t good enough to work, were put into a
cabin-like box, where they died with gas, and their bodies were then stacked on
top of one another as if they meant nothing, which is how Alain Resnais ended
the film.
The documentry ends with Micheal Bouquet saying “we turn a blind
eye to what surrounds us, and a deaf ear to humanities never-ending cry.” The
point he is trying to show the audience is that with our busy lives, we think
that our world is hard, when the truth is that thousands of people died trying
to survive during the Holocaust in the concentration camps. In today’s society,
we get breaks during work, whereas these prisoners were killed for even taking
a break for a few seconds.
Throughout
the film, Alain Resnais goes back and forth from black and white to color
images to clarify that he’s showing us the past compared to the present. He
chooses to do so, because he wants to show that the place that now looks like a
landscape to spend a vacation was once a place where hundreds of prisoners were
put into a train for nights against their will, where some starved to death.
Others were even shot as soon as they stepped off the train for going mad and
being too weak. Resnais uses black and white to clearly show the audience that
we are lucky to have such a beautiful landscape as a vacation spot, while the
victims had that same beautiful place as a torture spot. By comparing the same
landscape from now and then, the director is trying to convey that we shouldn’t
take things we have for granted; those innocent victims would do anything to
live the peaceful life we are given. We should be grateful for what we have,
especially for the people who died trying.
Sound
was used very creatively in Night and Fog
since it gave the images an even more dramatic push. The audience was able
to be more into the film than they expected since the music went so well with
the images presented. Although, without the narrarator, Michel Bouquet, the
viewers would not understand what is going on in the film, they would only be
watching the horrid videos and images, without understanding the purpose.
Part 3: Fear.
Through
this movie, we visited the daily life of citizen of Berlin in 1927 and I could
not help but to compare with the modern way of living. Some workers woke up so
early and left for their jobs where they worked hard all day long. As soon as
they got a break, they would meet and play together. They lived at their
fullest, as a community. Today's generation, with computers and television,
children are born and raised in a community focused on the individual. This
behaviour is also caused by fear, we fear our own neighbours. Media scares us
with shocking images of shootings, roberies and sicknesses, for example, Sandy
Hook's shooting. In the movie, we
saw female dancers taking off their skirts to be left in some big underwear and
at that time it was very revealing. Nowdays, bathing suits are more sexy than
their underwears! Women are no longer as prude and they reveal their body so
easily for the purpose of commercials or just in everyday life, some might be
considered "objects".
On a positive note, great advancement was achieved in the work
field; women can occupy almost any job they want and in the same conditions as
men. In the last part of the movie, we can see young folks having a blast in a
pub dancing. Partys today are now mostly just an occasion to get drunk and
"hook up" with people. Of course those are generalities and not
everyone live like that! Even more, throughout the movie we barely get to see
the inside of a private residence so the sample of people portrayed was biais.
As every documentary, you can't alway show everything, and the movie would not
be as interesting nor as flattering if it was any ordinary day.
In conclusion, Berlin:
Symphony of a great city and Night
and Fog opens our eyes on several aspects of filmaking. The fact that there
was no speech in Berlin is a new experience that was quite interesting and
educative. There is not a good or bad way of selecting a soundtrack, whether
there is sound or no; it all depends on the director's intentions. As for Night and Fog, the fact that there was a
narrarator explaining everything the whole way through, made the audience learn
more about the Holocaust, and opened our eyes to a new way of looking at the
world.
Very interesting blog post! It covered many topics and aspects of the films given however, it could have maybe been all put together more smoothly. Rather than going from one subject to the next, perhaps they could have connected in a more visible way. Besides that it was all very interesting, especially part two where you covered the contrast between a vacation area and a concentration camp. I was considering after reading about this film, how Night and Fog might be if there wasn't constant narration...
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, you did an amazing job guys! It was one of the most interesting and captivating subject and you really talk about everything that we have covered in class. For my part I think that your way to tell us the information is a bit heavy may be with more space it will help to understand more the information. Finally, it was really interesting to watch the movie without sounds because we can really feel the emotions.
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