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13 August 2024 Bonn (Germany)
Internationale Stummfilmtage: Aschenputtel Cinderella
Mykyta Sierov (Oboe) & Elizabeth Jane Baldry (Harp) - Arkadenhof der Universität Bonn
Program Info: Lotte Reiniger was a pioneer of animated films who created one of the first full-length films of this genre, THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED (1926). Her fairy tale films are particularly popular, in which she brings the fantastic stories and characters to life using her unique paper cutting technique. On the occasion of her 125th birthday, we are showing Lotte Reiniger's CINDERELLA in the DFF's most recent restoration. It is based on a copy for distribution in Great Britain, where Reiniger settled after the Nazis came to power.
Lotte Reiniger was a pioneer of animated film who created one of the first feature-length films of this genre with THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED (1926). Particularly popular are her fairy tale films, in which she brings the fantastic stories and characters vividly to life using her trademark unique silhouette technique. To mark the 125th anniversary of her birth, we are showing Lotte Reiniger's CINDERELLA in the latest restoration from DFF. This restoration is based on a print for distribution in the United Kingdom, where Reiniger later settled after the National Socialists came to power in Germany.
The silhouette films pile up atrocity upon atrocity like a ballad - but we are like the ballads of the banquet singers, who make you laugh all the more the more brilliantly they know how to tell about the most horrific atrocities. Because the technique of the silhouette is stylization.
When [in Ludwig Berger's "Cinderella" feature film THE LOST SHOE (1923)] the evil stepmother plays with the knife to chop off her daughter's heel, when she then shudders and retreats behind the curtain, this process remains until the end awkward. Lotte Reiniger shows the tragedy itself. Because the silhouette here has the simplicity of a fairy tale, which does not take offense at the events but sees them as something natural.
Lotte Reiniger portrays the bloody process in her Cinderella film in a completely naturalistic way, but it still seems comical because the silhouette is stylized. There is not the fatal seriousness that realism sets behind it, but rather the free play of the fairy tale, in which even the scary is still cloaked in the shimmer of the cheerful. When the blood falls out of the evil stepsister's shoe in a thick lump, the situation is humorous, whereas in the naturalistic feature film every drop of blood has a horribly fatal effect and weakens the truth.
M. Hiller: The silhouette film, in: Der Kinematograph, No. 881, January 6, 1924
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