Week 3

How many centuries did it take Ruttman to even begin to develop his symphony, or to create his first sketch of Berlin? I consider the task my group has taken on as I walk the streets of Berlin day to day. What embodies Berlin? I don’t have any grand illusion of understanding the interweavings of Berlin this soon, but can I within sufficient time for our film? I allude to the potential issues raised last week. How do we create a fictional character that is supposed to embody Berlin when we do not truly know Berlin? How do we make a movie about Berlin as opposed to a movie that happens to be in Berlin? We strive to create a cinematic portrait of a city of which all we see is the façade. In order for the film to be about Berlin and for the girl to embody Berlin, we must be able to look deeper into the city and extract that which is Berlin. This city is so deep and complex that I constantly fear the depressing ending of “Displaced Person.” I do not want to leave this city with the lack of understanding of this new city that I possessed upon my arrival.
It appears that the members of my group have experienced the same overwhelming feelings throughout this last week. We began to discuss alternatives to achieving the initial goal. What does this movie really hope to portray? We concurred that our film should strive to record memory. It should paint a picture of Berlin based on our memories and of that which we experience. The first alternative was to cut the script down to only a skeleton of the story as to allow our experiences to shape the body of the film. Although, it still seemed a bit too difficult of a task to produce such a film. Thus, we concluded with an outsider’s suggestion of filming a documentary of the development and creation of a fictional movie without ever filming the final product. This would allow all of our ideas and experiences to be documented and to give the audience a picture of what we had hoped to produce.
Bertolt Brecht displays an interesting technique in his film “Kuhle Wampe or: Who Owns the World?” to portray an aspect of a city in his film. At the beginning of the movie a boy that fails to find work for the day comes home for dinner only to be scolded by his father. He then proceeds to commit suicide. Throughout the remainder of the movie you seek to understand the driving force behind the suicide since the character was not properly introduced. Not much is known about him, his past, or his surroundings at the time of his suicide. You are driven to study the social and economic dimensions of Berlin that the rest of the characters face throughout the duration of the story in order to develop a sense of who this boy was a where he came from. By penetrating these dimensions, Brecht allows the viewer to imagine how this boy experienced Berlin, and indirectly allows the viewer to be introduced to him. As this is achieved, the viewer may recall the strong scene just before the boy’s suicide in which he places down his watch and appears to attempt to create a connection with the viewer by looking into the camera, as if searching for empathy.
What effect do we want our characters to have? Should they draw in the viewers so that they experience Berlin vicariously through them? Or should they simply reveal our memories of Berlin? It is interesting how Brecht only focuses on a rather narrow aspect of Berlin as well. Maybe we should attempt the same, given the short amount of time, in order to increase our ability to create a more complete film. Regardless, it has been three weeks now. We need to begin filming.