Date of Birth: 2 June 1899 Birthplace: Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany Date of Death: 19 June 1981 Occupation: Film Director, Silhouette Animator
Biography, by Elisabeth-Christine Muelsch: Reiniger has always been known among puppeteers and animation film buffs (1). More recently though her work has been promoted to a larger audience, in part also because there is now an increased interest in early women filmmakers. We have found her referenced in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010), which included the short animation Tale of the Three Brothers, and in Ocelot’s film Les Contes de la nuit [Tales of the Night] (2011), the European channel Arte showed a biographical documentary on her in 2012 (2), and in June 2018, the short Lotte that Silhouette Girl, screened at the Mendocino Film festival. Lotte Reiniger was born into a bourgeois family in Berlin in 1899. Lotte had both a knack for cutting silhouette and a love for film (especially those of Georges Méliès and Paul Wegener). Her mother supported her interests in dance, puppetry, and theater. At a young age, Lotte was thus able to attend theater shows and lectures given by director Paul Wegener. Wegener got her a small stage acting job, but also noticed her remarkable skill in cutting very detailed silhouettes. He hired her to make the title cards for his film Rübezahls Hochzeit [The Wedding of Rübezahl, 1916]. At that time, she was only 17. During the war years she continued to make silhouette title cards for Wegener and for director Rochus Gliese. Immediately after the war, thanks to the intercession of Wegener (3), she became one of the founding members of the Institut für Kulturforschung [Institute for Cultural Research] in Berlin, whose mission was the dissemination of political and cultural messages via animation film. The institute wanted to illustrate that all cultures are on par. It was here that she produced her first animation film, a short DasOrnament des verliebten Herzens [The Ornament of the Loving Heart, 1919]. Silhouettes appeal in a particular way to the imagination of the viewer: between the text (given on the title cards) and the silhouette images, which only “hint” there is enough room for the viewer’s imagination, appealing to his/her emotions. Reiniger saw (silhouette) film as medium apt to provoke a viewer’s emotional response (4). Her most well-known animation film, the first full-length animation film ever made, Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed [The Adventures of Prince Achmed. 1926], is marked by subtle humor, strong female characters and the display of female desire. Creating this animation film was a time consuming process. It took more than three years to finish it. Other artists from the Institut for Kulturforschung [The Institute for Cultural Research] such as the future documentary filmmaker Ruttmann, the musician Wolfgang Zeller, and Reiniger’s husband Carl Koch collaborated on it. For her animation films, Reiniger created and used a multi-plane camera-- many years before Walt Disney. The film premiered in Paris, and led to future collaborations between Reiniger, Koch, and Renoir (5). In the mid-1930s, she moved to London, from there to Paris and Rome. In 1943, she returned to Berlin, where, in the immediate postwar years, she worked for the Berliner Schattenbühne. Medical care and food was scarce in Germany and as her husband’s health was deteriorating, she gladly accepted the invitation of her British friends. Lotte Reiniger and Carl Koch relocated to London. Lotte first worked for the Crown Film Unit of the Central Office of Information, and then in 1952, began a most fruitful collaboration with Primrose Productions. Here she created numerous fairy-tale silhouette films. In 1955, at the Biennale in Venice, her film Das tapfere Schneiderlein [The Brave Little Tailor] was recognized as the best short. After the death of her husband, she spent more time in Germany, ultimately retiring in Dettenhausen near Tübingen, where she died in 1981.
1) Each year, since 2010, the German state of Baden-Württemberg awards the Lotte Reiniger Förderpreis to the best animation film produced by a recent film school graduate. 2) For her 117th birthday in 2016, Google made her a google doodle. 3) Julia Benner, “Lotte Reiniger,” Fachlexikon . Kinder-und Jugendmedien.de. Wissenschaftliches Internetportal für Kindermedien und Jugendmedien. Universität Bremen. 28.6. 2018 4) This strategy further proved successful in the silhouette advertisement films she made, e.g., the advertisement for Nivea crème Das Geheimnis der Marquise (1920) evokes erotic tensions. 5) Carl Koch worked as an uncredited cameraman on Renoir’s La Grande Illusion, and Gliese, Reiniger and Koch produced a film Die Jagd nach dem Glück,(1930) in which Renoir and his first wife Catherine Hessling acted. Reiniger produced a silhouette sequence for Renoir’s film La Marseillaise, titled, Le Pont cassé. https://lotte-reiniger-film.mewi-projekte.de/renoir.html
For further information on their collaboration see also: Lotte Reiniger, Carl Koch, Jean Renoir – die gemeinsamen Filme, Essay Collection on the Occasion of the Exhibition in the Stadtmuseum Tübingen. Coproduction of CICIM and the City of Tübingen, Munich: Institut Français de Munich/CICIM, 1994.