Week-end

The text and the sound excerpt below document the book by Philippe Langlois, Les cloches d'Atlantis, musique électroacoustique et cinéma, archéologie et histoire d'un art sonore, éditions mf, Paris, first quarter 2012.

Wochenende -Week-End – is a film without images made in 1930 from the recordings of his first sound film Melodie der Welt, edited onto the optical soundtrack of a 35mm film strip. This film, thus purely sound, also broadcast on Berlin radio, is addressed to the detractors of sound cinema and constitutes a sort of programme music. All the originality of the piece boils down to this narrative intention, since a genuine story does indeed unfold, implying the possibility of telling a story from an exclusively sound material. Ruttmann thus seeks to prove that sound is capable of conveying as much meaning as the image, if not more, if one adds what the visual imagination can contribute, and thereby demonstrates that thanks to sound cinema exists with renewed force, in an entirely new expressive dimension.

“ Week-end is called a “ film without images ”, […] This unfortunate title has distorted the spirit of the work; images are not lacking, Ruttmann had no need of them for what he wanted to do, he quite simply used sound as image had been used until then, and he succeeded perfectly ; he created something that does not yet have a name, which is a new music, a music made with means belonging properly to cinema, and it is for this reason that it could be said that Week-End was a film ” .
Jean Bouissounousse, “ La revue du cinéma ” January 1931 issue.

Week-End is released on the Metamkine label in the Cinema for the Ear collection

MKCD010 1994