Felix’s Fact File: Animation Pioneers (4) - Lotte Reiniger (1899-1981)

German animator Lotte Reiniger, born in 1899, initially yearned to be an actress, and so studied theatre in Berlin, under the guidance of Max Reinhardt. Reiniger had a penchant for making free-hand paper silhouettes – an original technique which eventually gained the attention of director Paul Wegener, who invited her to make silhouettes for the intertitles for some of his films. Wegener introduced Reiniger to a newly established studio – the Berliner Institut für Kulturforschung, for whom she produced her first film, Das Ornament des verliebten Herzens in 1919.

Reiniger most often derived inspiration from fairy-tales for her animations, creating Aschenputtel (based on Cinderella) and Dornrӧschen (Sleeping Beauty) in 1922. In 1923 she began working with her husband, film director Karl Koch, on a feature-length production comprised entirely of silhouetted animation. The film was called Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed) and is regarded as her most famous work. Following this accomplishment, Reiniger never pursued a feature-length production again, resorting instead to focusing her attention on shorts and sequences for external productions. In addition, she also invested some of her time in book illustrations and commercials.

Aschenputtel (1922)

 Overall, Reiniger made almost sixty films, although only two-thirds of this vast collection have been recovered. Her techniques in fact developed beyond Prince Achmed, in that they evolved into something more delicate and graceful, as demonstrated by her work in the 1930s, such as in Harlekin (1931) and Der Kleine Schornsteinfeger (The Little Chimney Sweep, 1934). In December 1935, Reiniger and Koch moved to England, where they produced The King’s Breakfast (1936) for John Grierson, as well as other films, and a shadow-play sequence to Renoir’s La Marseillaise in 1937. During the war years, Reiniger’s only film was Die Goldene Ganz (1944). Sadly many of her prints were destroyed, though some were able to be subsequently reconstructed.

In the post-war period, they became British citizens and set up Primrose Productions, which led to the creation of a number of films for American television, adapted from fairy-tales. The Gallant Little Tailor (1954) was awarded the Silver Dolphin at the Venice Festival. After Koch’s death in 1963, Reiniger disappeared for a few years, but was invited back to Germany in 1969 following a resurgence in the popularity of her films. Her work was finally recognised around this time, resulting in her being awarded the Filmband in Gold in 1972, and the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit) in 1979, on her 80^th birthday. She performed a number of lectures in North America, and briefly returned to filmmaking, producing two final films for Canada. Her very last film was entitled Die Vier Jahreszeiten (The Four Seasons, 1980), which was made for the Filmmuseum before she passed away in 1981.

Sources:

Beck, J. Animation Art: From Pencil to Pixel, the Illustrated History of Cartoon, Anime and CGI. (2004) London: Flame Tree Publishing.

Screen Online: Reiniger, Lotte (1899-1981) www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/528134

Image Obtained From:

Cinderella (Aschenputtel) – Lotte Reiniger (1922) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kku75vGDD_0