Review of City Symphonies: Sound and the Composition of Urban Modernity, 1913-1931
Even before one has opened Daniel P. Schwartz’s new cultural history City Symphonies: Sound and the Composition of Urban Modernity, 1913–1931, a couple of things stand out which set this particular study apart from others in the field. First of all, there is the claim on the book’s back cover that r...
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University College Cork
2025-02-01
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| Series: | Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media |
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| Online Access: | https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue28/HTML/ReviewKinik.html |
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| description | Even before one has opened Daniel P. Schwartz’s new cultural history City Symphonies: Sound and the Composition of Urban Modernity, 1913–1931, a couple of things stand out which set this particular study apart from others in the field. First of all, there is the claim on the book’s back cover that reads, “[c]inema scholars categorize city symphony films of the 1920s and early 1930s as a subgenre of the silent film”, when in fact many film historians recognise that the genre’s heyday lasted quite a bit longer than the early 1930s, and that these films played a minor but notable part in the transition from silent to sound film. The most famous of these films were silent films—such as Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt, 1927), Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek S Kino-Apparatom, 1929), and Jean Vigo’s À propos de Nice (1930)—but a significant number of these modernist treatments of urban modernity were sound films, especially after 1931. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e471c386fbc146f38a3d11e032fdba6b |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2009-4078 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
| publisher | University College Cork |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media |
| spelling | doaj-art-e471c386fbc146f38a3d11e032fdba6b2025-08-20T02:45:05ZengUniversity College CorkAlphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media2009-40782025-02-012897102https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.28.07Review of City Symphonies: Sound and the Composition of Urban Modernity, 1913-1931Anthony Kinik0https://orcid.org/0009-0005-1344-588XBrock UniversityEven before one has opened Daniel P. Schwartz’s new cultural history City Symphonies: Sound and the Composition of Urban Modernity, 1913–1931, a couple of things stand out which set this particular study apart from others in the field. First of all, there is the claim on the book’s back cover that reads, “[c]inema scholars categorize city symphony films of the 1920s and early 1930s as a subgenre of the silent film”, when in fact many film historians recognise that the genre’s heyday lasted quite a bit longer than the early 1930s, and that these films played a minor but notable part in the transition from silent to sound film. The most famous of these films were silent films—such as Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt, 1927), Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek S Kino-Apparatom, 1929), and Jean Vigo’s À propos de Nice (1930)—but a significant number of these modernist treatments of urban modernity were sound films, especially after 1931.https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue28/HTML/ReviewKinik.htmlcity symphoniessoundcompositionurban modernity |
| spellingShingle | Anthony Kinik Review of City Symphonies: Sound and the Composition of Urban Modernity, 1913-1931 Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media city symphonies sound composition urban modernity |
| title | Review of City Symphonies: Sound and the Composition of Urban Modernity, 1913-1931 |
| title_full | Review of City Symphonies: Sound and the Composition of Urban Modernity, 1913-1931 |
| title_fullStr | Review of City Symphonies: Sound and the Composition of Urban Modernity, 1913-1931 |
| title_full_unstemmed | Review of City Symphonies: Sound and the Composition of Urban Modernity, 1913-1931 |
| title_short | Review of City Symphonies: Sound and the Composition of Urban Modernity, 1913-1931 |
| title_sort | review of city symphonies sound and the composition of urban modernity 1913 1931 |
| topic | city symphonies sound composition urban modernity |
| url | https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue28/HTML/ReviewKinik.html |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT anthonykinik reviewofcitysymphoniessoundandthecompositionofurbanmodernity19131931 |