BERLIN : Symphony of a Great City · 1927 · Full Movie · 4K · New Soundtrack · REMASTERED · ULTRA HD

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City is a 1927 German silent film directed by Walter Ruttmann, co-written by Carl Mayer and Karl Freund. New soundtrack by Richard Gold.

With this remaster I have removed the breaks and cards for each act, so that the film is one of continuous motion. The new timings for the film are as follows...

Chapters:

0:00 - 0:18 - OPENING TITLE CARDS
0:19 - 7:44 - ACT 1
7:45 - 23:15 - ACT 2
23:16 - 35:28 - ACT 3
35:29 - 51:39 ACT 4
51:40 - 1:01:05 ACT 5
1:01:06 - 1:01:34 END TITLE CARDS

Aside from removing these breaks, I made no other edits to the film and preserved its original aspect ratio and frame rate. By way of restoration/remastering, I mainly used DaVinci Resolve to remove a lot of debris, scratches, flicker and also to bring out detail. Topaz Ai was then used to increase the resolution from HD to Ultra HD. I then graded the film again and added film grain to restore the original "character" of the images. Film grain is tricky to get right when it comes to YouTube due to their general compression practices.

The album release for this soundtrack is titled "The Great City" and splits the score into three tracks. It is available on this channel and on all music streaming apps now!

This score was very much inspired by the "Berlin School" electronic music of the 1970s, particularly Kraftwerk as I felt this fitted thematically and practically, given the frenetic editing of the (great) film. Also of particular influence was the proto-techno album "E2-E4" (1981) by Manuel Göttsching (another Berliner).

A full discussion of the film and of my scoring process will be published soon.