8/2/2019 Animator Profile: Lotte Reiniger

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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)