City Symphony Phenomenon

Steven Jacobs is an art historian who specializes in the relation between film and the visual arts. His publications include The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock; Framing Pictures: Film and the Visual Arts; and The Dark Galleries: A Museum Guide to Painted Portraits in Film Noir. He teaches at Ghent University and the University of Antwerp.Anthony Kinik’s work spans documentary, experimental, avant-garde, and industrial practices, and his principal focus in recent years has been on the cinematic depiction of the urban environment, including the city symphonies cycle of the interwar period and Montreal as a “cinematic city” in the 1960s. He is an Assistant Professor of Film Studies with the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film at Brock University in St. Catherines, Ontario.Eva Hielscher is a film scholar, curator, and moving image archivist. She holds an MA degree in “Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image” from the University of Amsterdam and has worked as a PhD researcher at Ghent University.

• Part I:Introduction: The City Symphony Phenomenon 1920-1940Steven Jacobs, Anthony Kinik, and Eva HielscherPart II:1. László MoholyNagy and the City (Symphony)Malte Hagener2. Productive City: Ruttmann’s Düsseldorf: Kleiner Film einer großen StadtMichael Cowan3. Minor Paris City SymphoniesChrista Blümlinger4. Kaufman and Kopalin’s MoscowMalcolm Turvey 5. A Parisian in Manhattan: Florey’s Skyscraper SymphonyMerrill Schleier6. D’Errico’s StramilanoJohn David Rhodes7. Belgian Variations on the City Symphony ThemeSteven Jacobs8. Koelinga’s De Steeg: Palimpsest and Parallax HistoriographyIvo Blom9. Schuitema’s De Maasbruggen: City and Film as a ProcessFloris Paalman10. Von Barsy and Von Maydell’s The City that Never Rests: A Port City SymphonyEva Hielscher11. Hauser’s Weltstadt in Flegeljahren: An Americanist City SymphonyEva Hielscher12. Oneway Street: Conrad’s Halsted StreetTom Gunning13. Leyda’s A Bronx Morning JanChristopher Horak14. Kemeny and Lustig’s Sao Paolo, a Symphonia da MetropoleCristina Menguello15. Sparling’s Canadian City SymphoniesAnthony Kinik16. Steiner and Van Dyke’s The CityAnthony KinikPart III:17. A Survey of City Symphonies 19201940Eva Hielscher, Steven Jacobs, and Anthony Kinik

"The City Symphony Phenomenon: Cinema, Art, and Urban Modernity Between the Wars, a product of scholarly sleuthing and obsession, is a fascinating and valuable achievement."- Charles Musser, Yale University, USA"With the publication of The City Symphony Phenomenon: Cinema, Art, and Urban Modernity Between the Wars, editors Steven Jacobs, Eva Hielscher, and Anthony Kinik have created an invaluable contribution to the understanding of this compelling form of international film modernism."- S. Topiary Landberg, UCSC, USA