After his internationally acclaimed 1927 Berlin film, Ruttmann (1887–1941) started working for the Ufa-Werbefilm AG, Ufa’s advertising section in 1935. In the mid-1930s, he also made three city films, of which Kleiner Film einer großen Stadt … der Stadt Düsseldorf am Rhein was the first. An Ufa Ton- Kulturfilm, the film shows a day in the life of Düsseldorf, which starts with the celebrations of carnival, then focusing on famous inhabitants, various urban areas, the river Rhine, monuments, impressive buildings, local industries and labor, and ending with neon lights and the nocturnal childrens’ St. Martin’s Day procession.
Apart from the temporal structure of the course of a single day, Ruttmann adds the cycle of one year as a second structuring layer. While most carnival celebrations take place in February, the official Düsseldorf carnival season begins on 11 November, when children traditionally honor St. Martin. Moreover, in the middle of the film, Ruttmann presents a scene of the annual July fair organized by the St. Sebastianus Schützenverein, adding to the temporal structure of a year.
The film further includes a number of typical city symphony motifs, such as a train journey towards the city, a tram ride, shop windows, sidewalk cafés, and strollers on the Königsallee as well as a sequence of artisans’ labor, factory buildings, moving machine parts, and sparking steel works. Moreover, Ruttmann juxtaposes old and new buildings by depicting historical houses in the city center and in Kaiserswerth (the oldest part of the city), together with the neoclassical Ratinger Tor to modern architecture of industrial constructions, such as the newly finished central station and the Rheinhalle. These urban elements are further combined with idyllic parks with trees, flowers, statues, and fountains. The river Rhine is presented both as transportation route for ships, including the Düsseldorf harbor, and as recreation area for swimming, rowing, and other water sports.
In this commissioned work for the municipality, Ruttmann combines touristic and promotional views on Düsseldorf with his earlier symphonic approach. While the editing is much slower than in Berlin, Ruttmann uses extensively a panning and travelling camera.
Nonetheless, the Nazi influence becomes noticeable in this film, which presents, among others, writer and poet Karl Immermann, composer Robert Schumann, and painter Peter von Cornelius as famous inhabitants of Düsseldorf, while neglecting the city’s most famous son, Jewish poet Heinrich Heine. In addition, Ruttmann prominently depicts the memorial for Leo Albert Schlageter, a member of the German Freikorps and political activist, who was executed by the occupying French authorities in Düsseldorf in 1923 and was mythologized by the Nazis as a national hero and “the first soldier of the Third Reich.”
Eva Hielscher
further reading
Birdsall, Carolyn, “Resounding City Films: Vertov, Ruttmann, and Early Experiments with Documentary Sound Aesthetics,” in Holly Rogers (ed.), Music and Sound in Documentary Film (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015), 20–40.
Uricchio, William, “Ruttmann nach 1933,” in Jeanpaul Goergen (ed.), Walther Ruttmann: Eine Dokumentation (Berlin: Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek, 1990), 59–65.
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