{{Short description|1929 film by Robert Florey}} {{citation style|date=November 2023}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2023}} {{Infobox film | director = [[Robert Florey]] | released = {{film date|1929}} | runtime = 9 minutes | country = United States | language = Silent | budget = | gross = }}
'''''Skyscraper Symphony''''' (1929) is an [[avant-garde]] [[silent film|silent]] [[short film]] by French-American filmmaker [[Robert Florey]].<ref>{{cite web|title=National Film Preservation Foundation: Skyscraper Symphony (1929)|url=https://www.filmpreservation.org/dvds-and-books/clips/skyscaper-symphony-1929|access-date=2023-11-16|website=www.filmpreservation.org}}</ref> The film was shot in the early morning hours in [[New York City]]. It captured [[skyscraper]]s which, by the late 1920s had become a global trademark of the city and became a representation of the ever-developing technologies in America, as well as the rapid growth of capitalism. Florey's focus on the booming metropolitan in the post-[[World War I]] era has solidified this film as a "[[city symphony]]," and he draws upon his own experience as a tourist in America to capture the excitement and uncertainty of being in New York City.
==Synopsis== [[File:Skyscraper Symphony (1929).webm|thumb|thumbtime=1:00|''Skyscraper Symphony'' (1929)]] The film consists of a sequence of low-angle shots of skyscrapers in Manhattan. The beginning and end of the film's shots are primarily static, with one shot fading slowly into the next. The middle portion of the film has abrupt and rapid cuts between shots, with the camera capturing the buildings in shaky, canted movements.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Murphy|first=Amy|date=2016-12-01|title=Review: Masterworks of American Avant-Garde Experimental Film 1920–1970, produced by David Shepard and curated by Bruce Posner|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2016.75.4.515|journal=Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians|volume=75|issue=4|pages=515–518|doi=10.1525/jsah.2016.75.4.515|issn=0037-9808|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
==Reception== Musicologist Hannah Lewis has compared the "striking angles, zooms, panning, and unsteady camera angles" which "disorient" viewers of ''Skyscraper Symphony'' to techniques used by montage theorists.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lewis|first=Hannah|date=Spring 2017|title='Love Me Tonight' (1932) and the Development of the Integrated Film Musical|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26779482|journal=The Musical Quarterly|volume=100|issue=1|pages=3–32|jstor=26779482}}</ref>
==References== <!--Inline citations added to your article will automatically display here. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:REFB for instructions on how to add citations.--> {{reflist}}
==Bibliography== {{refbegin}} *{{cite book|last=Jacobs|first=Steven|title=The city symphony phenomenon: cinema, art, and urban modernity between the wars|last2=Kinik|first2=Anthony|last3=Hielscher|first3=Eva|date=2019|publisher=Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group|isbn=978-1-138-66527-9|series=AFI film readers|location=New York [New York]}} {{refend}}
==External links== *{{Internet Archive film|skyscraper-symphony_1929|Skyscraper Symphony}} *{{IMDb title}}
{{Robert Florey}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Skyscraper Symphony}} [[Category:1929 films]] [[Category:1929 short films]] [[Category:1929 American films]] [[Category:1920s avant-garde and experimental films]] [[Category:American avant-garde and experimental films]] [[Category:American black-and-white films]] [[Category:American silent short films]] [[Category:Articles containing video clips]] [[Category:City symphony]] [[Category:Films about architecture]] [[Category:Films directed by Robert Florey]] [[Category:Films set in New York City]] [[Category:Surviving American silent films]]