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8/2/2019 Animator Profile: Lotte Reiniger
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/animator-profile-lotte-reiniger 1/4
Animation Theatre: Lotte Reiniger
2nd
June 1899- 19th
June 1981
Fig. 1 Lotte Reiniger
Lotte Reiniger was a revolutionary figure in the world of animation in that she brought the
art of shadow puppetry further in storytelling through filmmaking. Reiniger was a German silhouette
animator and film director who is highly regarded as strongly embodying the art stylisation of the
Avant Garde because of how independent and different her works were as a film direction.
It was as a child that Reiniger became intrigued by the Chinese art of shadow puppetry and
not much later on that film and cinema became a major love of hers. She was especially influenced
by Paul Wegener who after much work noticed her and enlisted Reiniger to produced title cards for
his films, suitably highly elaborate silhouette formations. It was the success of Wegener and
Reiniger’s work on ‘The Pied Piper of Hamlin’ that kicked off Reiniger’s career of animation.
Reiniger’s most well-known piece of work is probably her 1926, ‘ The Adventures of Prince
Achmed ’ which is mistakenly forgotten to be the first animated feature length film beating Walt
Disney to it more than a decade earlier. It is hard to remember that every single element of this
feature is formed of delicate paper cut outs that were all done by hand alone because the action onscreen unfolds so smoothly and realistically, not looking like hand craft that we do not stop to
question and think about how it came about. This alone just shows how talented Reiniger was with
the craft of paper cutting especially when she is the main worker behind each of her works
something teacher William Mortiz has praised her for. ‘ Lotte Reiniger herself is the prime genius
behind all of her films. She had an astonishing facility with cutting- holding the scissors still in her
right hand, and manipulating the paper at lightning speed with her left hand so that the cut
always went in the right direction.’ (Mortiz: 1996)
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Fig. 2 The Adventures of Prince Achmed
The art of the fairy-tale is another prominent feature of Reiniger’s work; it isn’t just that the
fairy-tale genre was where her talents were at work storytelling wise. It is also the style and
experience of her labour that brings across the fairy-tale vibe. When we think of fairy-tales wenormally associate them with elegance, decorative feature, delicacy and fantasy but also simplicity.
Reiniger’s work is highly denotative of these qualities; let’s take her 1922 ‘Cinderella’ for instance.
Yes the story is all fairy-tale but Reiniger’s technique further evokes this genre and theme, the
silhouettes of these characters are highly elegant just look at the prince with his long slim legs, the
silhouettes also act to stop unnecessary detail detracting from the story and animation. Reiniger has
defined each character through highly contrasting cut outs, the tall slim prince, the puffy dress of
Cinderella and the narrow but pointier cuttings of the ugly sisters and this is all we need to
effectively understand the film, simple yet expressive character design. It is however, the talent of
Reiniger which takes this simplicity but also makes it delicate and decorative. We are presented with
blocks of black broken up by miniature cuts to simulate more characteristics such as Cinderella’s
princess like dress and the distasteful clothing of the sisters, she then goes on to move these figures
through stop motion and the delicacy and dreamlike nature of the fairy-tale is fully conjured. ‘ The
delicacy and fantasy of fairy-tales suited her intricate, imaginative technique, and they made up
the bulk of her output.’ (Kemp: Unknown)
Fig. 3 Cinderella
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There is no doubt that Lotte Reiniger is a highly important and evocative figure in the world
of film direction. She has taken a historically effective storytelling technique of shadow puppetry and
blown us all away with imaginative and purely magical visuals that merge with the storylines and
giving her this extremely effective technique. Her cuttings are not just cuttings but become alive
with performance, something animators after her seem to have left untouched with regards to
silhouette animation, perhaps they just cannot seem to understand how she came to do it; it does
seem like there is some magical secret involved. ‘ Even though her work reduces images to their
very basics, there’ s incredible grace, complexity and variety to the “ performances” of the paper
actors. It ’ s impossible to see exactly how she accomplished it ’ (O’ Neill: 2008) Contemporary
animators however, do seem to regard her as important inspiration just look at Framestore’s ‘The
Tale of the Three Brothers’ adaptation for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. A computer
generated visualisation of shadow puppetry inspiration it wouldn’t be unusual if they had thought of
Lotte Reiniger when it came to producing it. A fairy-tale from J.K. Rowling’s ‘The Tales of Beedle the
Bard’ in her final Potter book, which other animation direction would have been as fitting to show
this tale…
Fig. 4 Framestore’s Reiniger inspired work.
Bibliography
Kemp, Philip, (Unknown) screenonline.org.uk http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/528134/
(Accessed 21/03/2012)
Mortiz, William, (1996) awn.com http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.3/articles/moritz1.3.html
(Accessed 21/03/2012)
O’Neill, Phelim, (2008) Lotte Reiniger- The Fairy Tale Films
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/nov/29/lotte-reiniger-fairy-tale-films (Accessed 21/03/2012)
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1. Lotte Reiniger. [Online image].On blogspot.com
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_C0gen0mKFz0/S3CugdLz9sI/AAAAAAAAAxA/qDQZRArmh9k/s400/achme
dreiniger.jpg (Accessed 21/03/2012)
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Fig. 2. The Adventures of Prince Achmed. [Online image].On mmas.unca.edu
http://mmas.unca.edu:16080/~lhan/class/01-reiniger.jpg (Accessed 21/03/2012)
Fig. 3. Cinderella. [Online image].On imagehost.org
https://reader009.{domain}/reader009/html5/0504/5aec15d01dbd0/5aec15d54d119.png (Accessed 21/03/2012)
Fig. 4. Framestore’s Reiniger inspired work. [Online image].On awn.com
http://www.awn.com/files/imagepicker/35/3brothers01_brothers.jpg (Accessed 21/03/2012)