Revolution in our heads… October (1928), London Symphony Orchestra, Barbican

October is a remarkable film and tonight we heard its equally outstanding score for the first time in over eight decades. Rarely can music have played such an integral part in a film’s narrative force with Edmund Meisel’s reconstructed original score carrying so much interpretive sentiment for the visuals and propelling Eisenstein’s polyrhythmic editing forward with forceful themes and – spoilers! – the beat of irresistible change.

100 years on from the events themselves and 90 from the filming there’s a lot of hindsight that could be applied to both revolution and film. An IMDB user asked (genuinely) whether the audience of the twenties would have cheered the film less profoundly had they known about Stalin’s ensuing murderous  totalitarianism - Dekulakisation had only just begun when October was filmed and the first five-year plan started in its year of release. The whole idea of a revolution is now regarded by many as a bad idea given how it all turned out… but, the future only judges... it doesn't make revolutions, that is the past and, especially, the present.

Maybe I feel a little protective of the Russian revolutionary spirit after all those hours spent trying to understand the thing and then communicating conclusions that might impress some of the leading – and, as it turned out, patient - historians in the country. That study has left its mark, especially the need to contextualise without the rush to judgement... I hope! October 1917 may have been the beginning of full Bolshevik rule in Russia but it was also the final end of a regime that had routinely left the poor to starve and which had sent thousands of its people into war armed with pics and sickles to fight against the might of the Prussian military machine. Two wrongs don’t make a right nor do three or four but it happened and we need to understand why. Unfashionably, all this involves the study of detail…

In this context, October (Октябрь) provides invaluable contemporary documentation of how the new government wanted its achievements to be recognised ten years after the fact.

Tonight’s screening was of a restored version of the film featuring also a reconstruction of the Edmund Meisel’s lost original score by Bernard Thewes which was played with magnificent force by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by the energetic Frank Strobe. Meisel’s music had been written for the shorter export version of the film, re-titled October: Ten Days That Shook the World, and so Thewes had to expend and flex the score in sympathy. Not an easy task given the excellence with which the original matched the narrative… but he achieved the perfect meld of action and emotion. The score featured repeated themes – foot-stomping musical dialectic - but also interpretive sounds matching bells ringing, sirens and guns: these were almost like a visual click-track and the band was always on time.

Vasili Nikandrov is Ulanov!

Scoring alongside Eisenstein’s swift cutting and "intellectual montage" is not easy and yet Meisel works so well on and around these moments; sometimes juxtaposing and at others signalling the broader point. Poor old Aleksandr Kerensky, the liberal heading up the provisional government between February and October 1917, is shown no mercy being heavy-handedly, and hilariously, compared first to a mechanical peacock and then to Napoleon. The victors not only write history they also get to set it to music.

The same approach is used for organised religion, the reactionary forces of army and government, the Cossacks, the Bourgeoisie and all the main factors eroding the gains made in February ’17 and thereby necessitating the eventual full Bolshevik revolution on 25^th October 2017. At the start of the film a statue in memory of Tsar Alexander II is torn down and half-way through is begins to re-assemble itself… funny, hammer and sickle over-the-head obvious but that’s the business of propaganda-show nyet

Kerenski under pressure...

Grigori Aleksandrov is co-writer and co-director but the style seems to fit with that used by Eisenstein in Strike (1925) and Battleship Potemkin (1925). There is the same approach to casting, with the players mostly amateur and cast for looks, none more so than Vasili Nikandrov who looks like Vladimir Lenin and the direction is enough to make sure that he acts like him too. There are some ace faces playing Cossacks and the middle classes who turn on a loyal Bolshevik and beat him to death with their parasols… I also liked a scene in which the Cossacks dance balletically on a Persian rug whilst ordinary soldiers jig in a pool of mud: it’s a joyous improvisation which captures the directors’ ability to keep the rough edges even when his editing leaves him in perfect control of the visual end-product.

There’s a magnificent sequence when the authorities call for all the bridges around the centre of Moscow to be lifted so as to isolate the proletariat and prevent their access. It follows on from a riot and as the bridges lift a dead horse goes with one and another gently lifts the flowing locks of an unconscious woman… lives without consequence to an uncaring, conflicted, interim government which – the film says – still wore some of the Tsar’s clothes.

The revoilution was not filmed and so this recreation remains our "view" of the storming of the Winter Palace...

Certainly, the film is propagandist and "un-historical" but it is historic in of itself and this combined restoration of sound and vision cements its position in the cannon. Some compare it with Triumph of the Will but, firstly, whilst Eisenstein and this film are far more worthy and influential, the Soviet experiment was not pre-destined to turn into authoritarianism and mass-slaughter (seriously) whereas, the National Socialists’ had a clear agenda. Any viewing of both films shows the huge difference between the party forcing a single, rigid aesthetic and the other celebrating people power and the chance to build a fairer society for all the people.

“For Bread, For Peace, For the Brotherhood”.

At the end the packed main auditorium at the Barbican exploded with thunderous ovation for the orchestra, conductor, music and film. As so often, tonight was a mix of concert-goers and the cinephiles… no doubt there were differing interpretations of the film but I swear as I left the were the unmistakable vibrations of revolution in the air… When I wake up tomorrow the means of production make well have been seized… such as they remain.

The LSO take a bow.

My bust of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, a present from Moscow in 1981, overlooks tonight's programme.

Fascinating rhythm… Berlin: Symphony of a City (1927), Barbican with Stephen Horne and Martin Pyne

On seeing this film, Dziga Vertov was distraught: he’d just been trumped by the Germans and it was a further two years before he was able to release his own “city symphony” Man with a Movie Camera (actually a tale of three cities… Moscow, Kiev and Odessa).

Berlin was being shown as part of the Barbican’s City Visions season of films exploring metropolises which includes modern films as well as the above silent symphonies and others covering Sao Paolo and Paris. For anyone attracted to early-morning urban roaming through hung-over streets and who loves watching the rhythms of the expanding city day, they are essential viewing.

Early morning street scenes

It might seem odd that “city symphonies” were a sub-genre of “silent” film and yet whilst they obviously featured rhythmic cutting, machine movement and the foot-falling beats of pounded pavements, they always came with musical accompaniment. In Berlin’s case the original score was composed by Edmund Meisel who worked very closely with the film’s director to ensure sympathy of pace and tone producing an insistent, dynamic score that rises and falls with the pace of the film.

But these most rhythmic of visuals are a gift for live musicians and tonight though we were treated to swinging syncopation from Stephen Horne on piano, accordion and flute along with Martin Pine on drums and vibraphone. They looked like they had a ball matching their complex improvisation and I can’t recall so much audience foot-tapping in the Barbican cinema: the joint was positively jumping.

Film historian, Ian Christie, introduced and pointed out that most silent film would have been accompanied by piano and drums but Messrs Horne and Pyne played like a band, skilfully switching instruments throughout and matching the narrative flow with suitable energy and pace from loco-motion to cabaret culture. This was “lean-forward” silent media with an urban-edge that peeled away the years: for 65 minutes we were all Berliners (at least the 1927 variety...).

Christie explained the unusual genesis of the film with a collaboration of between Carl Mayer, writer of Caligari and regular Murnau collaborator , (Sunrise: a Song of Two Humans was released in New York on 23rd September, the same day Berlin's symphony premiered in Germany) and cameraman Karl Freund amongst who’s many achievements was the invention of the three camera set up for the I Love Lucy Show!

Freund was equally inventive on this film, setting up hidden cameras in order to record people going about their daily lives unnoticed - something almost unknown at the time. They wanted to create a true story of Berlin as naturally and unconsciously as possible, a few dramatic interludes aside. Mayer and Freund's efforts would generate a huge amount of film and they chose avant-garde director Walter Ruttmann to make sense of it all and to create the tightly-focused finished product.

Ruttmann’s skill bought order whilst retaining the anarchic feel of a society operating at full capacity, careering forwards, all caution aside. But Berlin is not just about the hardware... A man helps a woman into a taxi and the next image shows a hotel sign, two men fight and yet are held back by the crowd and the arrival of a policeman, a woman looks down in terror as she jumps from a bridge into the river Spree and a crowd gathers trying to get the best view... Berlin’s story is made up of the sum total of its human components….

This society is also, clearly, not equal… There are clever juxtapositions of images throughout: workers trudge to work, cattle head towards the slaughterhouse and soldiers march in line, a woman begs for food inter-cut with a shot of a jewelers then a well heeled shoe stubs out a cigarette on the floor and a tramp picks it up… Weimar Germany was economically broken and, as Christie pointed out, even UFA was propped up with American money by this stage.

Early start

The film is split into five segments dealing with distinct sections of a single day, all of which took over a year to film… bit of a challenge to tell the tale but here’s a taster.

The opening shifts from shots of tranquil waters to abstract animations which prefigure the on-coming disorder. A train rushes through the dawn countryside and we see lines, tracks and snatches of the suburbs as it heads into Berlin. Its arrival is followed by stunning overhead shots of a tranquil metropolis at five AM... the time of the day when you can admire the architecture and the atmosphere on their own: how will people fill the space?

Doors begin to open and a steam engine leaves its shed, men begin the walk to work gradually being joined by others as two becomes three and more arrive. Commuters gather in increasing numbers on foot, in carriages and on trams: do they have full conception of the part they play in the overall process of the city?

Machines start turning and the rhythms pick up. We see a factory making light bulbs – automation and no people – the concerns of the day: crunched by the wheels of industry.

Shops pull up their blinds, old men pull out market stalls and children gather for school: it is eight o’clock. Throughout it all the city is in constant motion every action punctuated by the mechanics of locomotion. Technology is everywhere - typewriters and turbines, electronic relays, telephonics…

A woman and man talk on the street as the camera shows two animated showroom dummies of each sex: just going through the motions? The two men argue but its just one chaotic action amongst many. A lone old woman climbs the steps of a church oblivious to the street clatter, as worn down as the fallen horse shown seconds later. A man agitates in the street, a bride goes to her wedding, a hearse travels slowly against the flow of traffic as people push on past each other always in a rush. A policeman directs traffic… figures of authority maintain the semblance of order.

Conflict and courtship

Twelve o’clock and lunchtime, fine dining is juxtaposed with animals eating at Berlin Zoo – restaurants with street eating. Children play on graffiti covered streets. A street vendor sells newspapers and words leap out from the pages… Geld, Geld, GELD! Then the woman jumps… the crowds gawp but no one seems to help: this city is de-humanised and not everyone can keep up with the pace.

End of the line?

Five PM and workers' playtime – the city enjoys sports from soccer to tennis and swimming. Catwalk models advertise clothes whilst café bars begin to open and the evening dances begin.

Eight PM and its show-time, crowds pour into cinemas and we see the feet of Charlie Chaplin at the bottom of a movie screen – the most famous feet in the World... Dancers get made up and ready for the show and the theatres are full of the thuds of dancing feet… Naughty, bawdy, gaudy, sporty Friedrichstrasse…

And, as the band plays on, we see Berliners enjoying their night’s freedom in bars, clubs and cafes: whatever their day has been everything is alright now. Fireworks explode and it’s time for home or for some and for other a cheap hotel. It's been a hard day's night and no mistake...

Part of the interest in watching old films is always in seeing the background streets and getting a taste of the times. Berlin does not disappoint in this respect and succeeds in creating a story for its city as we’ll as a symphony but, you can’t help wondering what happened to these ordinary people and their everyday streets over the course of the next 18 years…

No safety net...

The performance of Stephen Horne and Martin Pyne showed once again the key role music plays in silent film screenings. Watching the Edition Filmmuseum DVD with Meisel’s original score there’s an altogether more muscular, dramatically-detached feel but it doesn’t connect you in the same way as watching two musicians take on Ruttman’s rhythms for the whole distance, without a safety net and with just their wits and instruments to help them.

Next week's city break see us travelling to Brazil in 1929 via the Barbican with Sao Paulo, A Metropolitan Symphony and live piano accompaniment from Clélia Iruzun.