I first encountered Lotte Reiniger’s silhouettes in 2010 during a trip to the UK when I visited the British Film Institute Southbank. In the gift shop I was charmed by a postcard set featuring silhouette designs on bright neon backgrounds. The designs are so delicate. It’s hard to believe someone cut them from paper.
I’d never seen the movie Prince Achmed, and years later I found out the director was Lotte Reiniger. The rest of the world discovered who Reiniger was in 2016 when she was featured in a google doodle.
Who is Lotte Reiniger?
She is a German filmmaker and a pioneer in early animation. She directed the first animated feature film, Prince Achmed, released in 1926 in Germany and first shown in 1931 in the US. That’s years before Disney’s Snow White, which came out in 1938.
Reiniger used a combination of shadow-puppets and a stop-motion technique to create dozens of short animated film in addition to Prince Achmed. Most of her animations are based on fairy tales or folk tales from around the world, rather than original stories, but she felt very strongly about retelling these old stories and sharing them with new generations. As a child she had a talent for papercutting and a love of the theater that helped her develop as an artist. Her unique art style caught the attention of German filmmaker, Carl Wegner, who insisted her silhouettes needed movement. He was instrumental in getting her established as a filmmaker. (1)
A whimsical style permeates Lotte Reingier’s animations. Her shadow figures dance across bright backgrounds. They bend and turn with fanciful and stunning lifelike motions.
She animates by hand. After creating her puppets, she connects them at the joints, so they can be manipulated frame by frame.
Then she arranges her silhouettes on a light board, while the backgrounds and any special effects appear on light boards beneath it. The camera is mounted above, and this gives the pictures a 3D appearance. It is a similar style to how Walt Disney made his movies. (2)
What I love about Reiniger’s designs is how stylish they are. They aren’t blocky, or clumsy. You can see the fingers and toes. The the net has weight to it. Papageno’s mohawk and skirt actually look feathery and birdlike, despite the fact those pieces don’t move.
You can watch the film for yourself on YouTube here. It’s about ten minutes long. There aren’t many official ways to see her animations.
I haven’t experimented much with papercutting, but I’m certainly interested. Mostly I’m drawn to bright colors. So, Reiniger’s bright neon backgrounds contrasting with the silhouette just sings to me. If I ever do create an animation I’ll probably imitate her. I made a few paper collages years ago. I’ll share them with you. My favorites are the ones that tell a story. One largest one I couldn’t even stay within the paper.
Sources:
- Kenneth Clouse Collection, Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive, University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. uschefnerarchive.com/project/lotte-reiniger-recording/.
- Schönfeld, Christiane. “Lotte Reiniger and the Art of Animation”. Practicing Modernity: Female Creativity in the Weimar Republic, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. 2006. 169-85.
- Palmer, Jessica. The Art of Papercutting. Search Press. Great Britain. 2015.