Journal of Film Preservation N° 60/61 - FIAF

Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed
Restoration by the Deutsches
Filmmuseum, Frankfurt
Thomas Worschech, Michael Schurig
Charlotte (Lotte) Reiniger, born 2 June 1899 in Berlin-
Charlottenburg, is regarded as the creator and artistic designer of the
silhouette film and with more than forty silhouette films she leaves a
unique body of work behind. She made her first own
silhouette film Das Ornament des verliebten Herzens at the
Institut für Kulturforschung in Berlin in 1919. After 1930 a
multitude of silhouette films followed, including sound films
such as Carmen (1933) inspired by Bizet and Papageno
(1935) inspired by motifs from Die Zauberflöte by Mozart.
Lotte Reiniger’s last silhouette films were shot in Canada –
The Rose and the Ring (1979) – and in Düsseldorf – Düsselchen
und die vier Jahreszeiten (1980). In 1980 she moved to
Dettenhausen near Tübingen, where she died on the 19 June
1981. With the presentation of the Filmband in Gold in 1972
and the Bundesverdienstkreuz in 1980, the work of Lotte
Reiniger received in Germany the recognition it deserved.
The Deutsches Filmmuseum, which holds the largest
collection of Lotte Reiniger films, is honouring this unique
artist who would have celebrated her centenary last year by
restoring her best-known film, Die Abenteuer des Prinzen
Achmed.
Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed is one of the first fulllength
animation films in the history of film. With a lot of
imagination and poetic mise-en-scène, the silhouette film recounts
the conflict between good and evil according to the stories of the
Thousand and One Nights. Possibly the most well known element is
found in the fairy tale of Aladdin and His Magic Lamp, the motif of
which is included in the story line. In the years 1923-1926 approximately
250,000 frame-by-frame stills were produced with an
animation table – some 96,000 frames were eventually used for the
film.
Lotte Reiniger’s husband, Carl Koch, was responsible for the shooting
and the camera work. He worked on all her films until his death in
1963. Lotte Reiniger cut the pre-drawn figures out of black
photographic cardboard with a pair of scissors and joined the
separate parts with thread in order to animate them. For the
background she used transparent layers of sandwich paper. Equally
47 Journal of Film Preservation / 60/61 / 2000
Lotte Reiniger, Die Abenteuer des Prinzen
Achmed (Berlin, 1923-1926)