I am gobsmacked by German artist Lotte Reiniger's gorgeous black papercuts that she used to make silhouette animated fantasy films and beautiful book illustrations (when money could not be found for the movie). Her work spans some 60 years (from 1919 to 1979); the early work developed in Germany, then later, after the war, she settled in London, where she continued her work on short animated films and illustrations. Among her prodigious body of work, she created the first feature-length animated film, The Adventures of Achmed (far ahead of Disney!), an animated version of Dr. Dolittle and the Talking Animals, and a series of short films from Grimm's fairy tales. In the '30s, while fleeing Nazi Germany, she made 12 films — including the lovely version of "Papageno" from Mozart's opera The Magic Flute.
Much of her work can still be found on the internet (oh, happy magpie that I am); there are beautiful examples of work done by contemporary film students in imitation of Reiniger's style as they learn the skill of silhouette animation.
Wow! such beautiful work!
The Kingdom of Witches is a modern version of the technique using the silhouettes of Jan Pienkowski
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T06OToVOsbk
you may well have put me onto this one for Halloween awhile back!
I’m a big fan of Lotte Reiniger’s work… there’s a DVD of her animations available too here 🙂
The Adventures of Achmed enchanted my then 4 yo son. (I still remember how captivated he was sitting on the sofa next to me watching Lotte’s magical, animated papercuts) Truly inspired work.
I recently purchased a print (of Pari Banu dressed up to marry the Emperor) from the British Film Institute. It was a little pricey getting it shipped to Saskatchewan, but it was my Mother’s Day present to myself, and well worth it. I only discovered The Adventures of Prince Achmed two or three months ago. I cannot believe I went so many years without knowing about Lotte Reiniger and all that she accomplished.