Classic city symphony, from 1927, to go with the truly marvellous 'Man With A Movie Character'.
We watched this film without a soundtrack, which didn't help, but all the same it is clearly a great work of art, of brilliance. How does it differ from Vertov's masterwork? It is less violent formally, using montage more rarely as a technique for effecting the very visual aparatus of the viewer.
It is also rather more sympathetic, though still focussing on the object rather than the person it is more cuddly, to a small extent, more playful. This may be as it concentrates more on the actual way the exposure levels are used; the wonderful heavy, uncontrasted blacks of the nighttime shots are magical rather than sharp.
They also have the train shots, and amazing shots of the street we saw from Vertov. It is more structured, more particular, making it easier to parse, with the positives and negatives so entailed.
This, obviously, is a film of a higher level; a treasure.
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