Scissors, a few sheets of black cardboard, carbon paper, wire, lead, a camera, light bulbs and a piece of glass were all
Charlotte Reiniger (1899-1981) needed to produce her
animated films with silhouettes. The recipe is complete with one more basic ingredient
"Patience, a great deal of patience", was what the
muse of Germany's avant-guard in the 20s never tired of repeating.
The exhibition
'Scissor art by Lotte Reiniger', in the
Oidor Chapel during the
ALCINE festival, is a tribute to the German director, and acclaims her contribution to a style that was a
forerunner of modern animated film. She was a pioneer in the use of silhouettes and Chinese shadows and worked together with her husband,
Carl Koch.
She collaborated with well-known artists such as
Bertolt Brecht and
Paul Wegener, who she considered her mentor. On his recommendation she got a place at
Berlin's Cultural Innovation Institute where she came into contact with experimental animated cinema. It was there that she shot her first film with silhouettes in 1919 (
'The Ornament of the Heart in Love') and met Koch, who she would collaborate with in the rest of her work.
When the Nazi party came to power, her development was cut short. Reiniger and Koch decided to
emigrate, moving from one country to another from 1933 to 1939. They had to return and live through the
Second World War in Berlin. And from 1949 they set up shop in London and founded
Primrose Records.
Goethe Institut
The exhibit is on loan from the
Goethe Institut. It includes originals of her most important films, the outstanding
'The Aventures of Prince Achmed' filmed in 1926 and considered the oldest remaining animated feature film. Other important works of hers were
'Don Quixote' (1932) and, towards the end of her career,
'Aucassin and Nicolette' (1976).
The exhibition of her work and the
biographical portrait show Reiniger to be
way ahead of her time. Technically she was ahead of Walt Disney and was able to create her own style without regard to fashion and trends. A life spent cutting out silhouettes in black paper, because as Jean Renoir remarked,
"Lotte Reiniger was born with magical hands".
