Melody of the World

Melodie der Welt

Germany

1929

49 Min

Black and White

1.33:1

German

Currently 4.6/5 Stars.
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DP Reimar Kuntze, Adolf Jansen, Paul Holzki, Karl Brodmerkel

CAST Ivan Koval-Samborsky, Renée Stobrawa, Grace Chiang, O. Idris, Heinrich Mutzenbecher, Ivor Montagu, George Bernard Shaw

ED Walter Ruttmann, Erna Hölzel

A sailor and his girl pack up all their belongings, enjoying the safety of the mainland for the last time, for they are to take ship. They go down to the harbor for the farewell. The rhythm of the ship’s engines lets them forget their daily cares. For they are now embarking on a voyage into the strange wide world. Despite their numerous new and exciting encounters, man remains always at the center. It is he who is confronted with war, death and destruction, but also with love, dance and grand festivities. It is the melody of the world which, despite the sailor’s daily life and work, ensures a great experience.

A documentary film by Walter Ruttmann, “Melody of the World” was in its time promoted as the first full-length German sound film. —filmportal.de

Director

Walter Ruttmann

Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German film director and along with Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling was an early German practitioner of experimental film.

Ruttmann was born in Frankfurt am Main; he studied architecture and painting and worked as a graphic designer. His film career began in the early 1920s. His first abstract short films, “Opus I” (1921) and “Opus II” (1923), were experiments with new forms of film expression, and the influence of these early abstract films can be seen in the early work of Oskar Fischinger. Ruttmann and his colleagues of the avant garde movement enriched the language of film as a medium with new form techniques.

Ruttmann was a prominent exponent of both avant-garde art and music. His early abstractions played at the 1929 Baden-Baden Festival to international acclaim despite their being almost eight years old. Together with Erwin Piscator, he worked on the experimental film Melodie der Welt (1929), though he is best… read more