Catalogo Giornate del Cinema Muto 2012 - La Cineteca del Friuli

parte all’elaborazione creativa dei cortometraggi pubblicitari sviluppando idee e copioni insieme ai suoi artisti. La Werbekunst puntò su fi lm costruiti in modo tale da
poter cambiare nei cartelli iniziali o fi nali il nome di un’azienda, varando così un metodo di produzione molto più economico. Alla fi ne degli anni Venti Pinschewer aveva
ormai perduto la supremazia sul mercato pubblicitario tedesco, ma nel 1929 riuscì nell’impresa di produrre il primo fi lm di animazione sonoro tedesco, Die chinesische
Nachtigall (L’usignolo cinese), diretto da Rudi Klemm. Proiettato a Berlino nel marzo 1929, era stato commissionato dal Tonbild-Syndikat AG e pubblicizzava sia i dischi
Tri-Ergon che il sistema sonoro Tri-Ergon per pellicola.
Tutti i fi lm citati qui e nelle schede successive sono conservati – salvo diversa indicazione – presso il Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv e possono essere tutti concessi in prestito.
Ho fatto ricorso a parecchie fonti, ma desidero in particolare riconoscere il mio debito nei confronti della ricerca dello storico Jeanpaul Goergen, disponibile online sul
sito del DIAF – Deutsches Institut für Animationsfi lm (http://diaf.tyclipso.de), e dei contributi della mia collega Doris Hackbarth. – ANNETTE GROSCHKE
The use of animation in German fi lms got a boost with the propaganda fi lms made to support the war effort in World War I. The post-war period saw a proliferation
of animation artists, and in the 1920s the variety of animation techniques employed was in full bloom: hand-drawn, stop-motion, silhouettes, experiments with molten
wax… Avant-garde artists like Oskar Fischinger, Hans Richter, and Walter Ruttmann used animation techniques for ground-breaking abstract fi lms. Most animation
fi lms, however, were made for a rather base reason: to sell things, and for the artists to make a living. Yet the illustrators involved in making short animated commercials
(Werbefi lme) often succeeded in creating humorous, elegant small masterpieces which transcend their original purpose. These two programmes do not allow a
representative overview of silent German animation fi lms, but they do include a wide selection of animation and colouring techniques. We are showing works by popular
animation artists like Hans Fischerkoesen and Lotte Reiniger, and also introducing lesser-known animators.
The most important fi gure in Germany’s advertising landscape of the 1910s and 20s was the producer Julius Pinschewer (1883-1961), to whom the Giornate has already
paid tribute several times in the past. In 1910 Pinschewer’s patent for animated advertisements was published, and in January 19 1 he presented advertising fi lms that
he had fi nanced himself to a group of manufacturers of brand-name products. A year later Pinschewer founded his fi rst studio and had concluded contracts with about
500 movie theatres in Germany and Switzerland which screened his commercials.
Some of the earliest animated Pinschewer productions from 1912 used the stop-motion technique. Guido Seeber, who had applied this technique in his fi lm Die
geheimnisvolle Streichholzdose (The Mysterious Matchbox, 1910), helped to make the Pinschewer fi lm Der Nähkasten (The Sewing Box, 1912), in which buttons on a
shirt are magically replaced by Prym snap-fasteners, and he might also have been involved in the Pinschewer commercial Die Flasche (The Bottle, 1912; sometimes
referred to as Tanz der Flaschen/Dance of the Bottles), which features a ballet of Maggi seasoning bottles.
After the outbreak of World War I German newsreels showed satirical cartoons which promoted the war effort and ridiculed Germany’s enemies. Starting in 1917 the
Reichsbank commissioned several advertising fi lms for war bonds. Most of these were produced by Julius Pinschewer, and are either completely animated or contain
(stop-motion) animated sequences. A popular fi gure in German propaganda was John Bull, who appears in Das Säugetier (The Mammal, 1917) and two war bond fi lms,
John Bull (1917) and Ein Boxkampf mit John Bull (A Boxing Match with John Bull, 1918).
Universum-Film AG (Ufa), founded in December 1917 in Berlin, had an animation department which made animated sequences for fi ction fi lms and documentaries.
John Heartfi eld worked for Ufa from 1918 until 1919 and seems to have been responsible for the development of the animation department. He was fi red when he told
workers to go on strike to protest the assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, and was replaced by Svend Noldan. Harry Jaeger also worked for Ufa, and
was joined in the late 1920s by Wolfgang Kaskeline, Paul N. Peroff, and Hans Fischerkoesen.
In the summer of 1919 the Austrian Erwin Hanslik and Czech artist Berthold Bartosch instigated the founding of a German version of their Viennese Institut für
Kulturforschung (Institute for the Study of Culture), which had been started in 1915 with the aim of international understanding and reconciliation. The German version
of the Institut, founded in July 1919 with the same goals, set out to spread political ideas and cultural messages using various means, including animated fi lms. Led
by art historian Hans Cürlis, its charter members were the silhouette artists Richard Felgenauer, Toni Raboldt, and Lotte Reiniger, and the art historian (and Lotte
Reiniger’s husband-to-be) Carl Koch, as well as Berthold Bartosch. The fi rst fi lms of Raboldt and Reiniger, which premiered in December 1920 in Berlin, were produced
by the Institut für Kulturforschung. The Institut also made animation fi lms and animated sequences on behalf of the Department of Foreign Affairs, which dealt with the
consequences of the Treaty of Versailles and exuded a nationalistic bias.
In 1924 Das Kulturfi lmbuch, edited by Edgar Beyfuß and Alexander Kossowsky, was published. The fi rst fundamental work dealing with the German Kulturfi lm
(documentaries, educational, and instructional fi lms), this book contained chapters on animation fi lms by Lotte Reiniger, Hans Ewald Sr., Hanns Walter Kornblum, Hans
Cürlis, Julius Pinschewer, and Harry Jaeger. Jaeger wrote about the factory style of animation fi lmmaking in Germany at the time: “We have no venue of instruction at
which we may acquaint and familiarize young draughtsmen with the essence of the animated fi lm. Were such trained hands available, then the artist would only have to
deliver the main drawings and the draughtsmen could reproduce and photograph the intermediate motion drawings true to the original.” (Harry Jaeger, “Zeichenfi lme”
[“Animated Films”; literally, “drawn fi lms”], in Das Kulturfi lmbuch, Berlin, 1924, note, p. 202)
In 1926 the company Werbekunst Epoche Reklame GmbH (founded in 1896) became Pinschewer’s biggest rival. During World War I Pinschewer had expanded his
106
commercial network, which eventually grew to include around 1,000 cinemas in the late 1920s. Werbekunst obtained the monopoly on booking advertising fi lms at Ufa’s
theatres (in a trade magazine ad Werbekunst claimed that their monopoly comprised 1,600 theatres) and was allowed to use the technical departments of Ufa. Hans
Fischerkoesen moved from Pinschewer to Werbekunst, which also employed Wolfgang Kaskeline, Curt Schumann, and Werner Kruse.
Pinschewer was personally involved in the making of each animated advertising fi lm that left his studios. He not only acquired customers but also participated in the
creative process of creating the commercials, developing ideas and scripts together with the animation artists. Werbekunst championed short commercials constructed
in such a way that it was possible to exchange the title or end cards with another company’s name, a much more economical production method. By the end of the
1920s Pinschewer had lost his supremacy over the German advertising fi lm market, but in 1929 he had a coup, producing Germany’s fi rst animated sound fi lm, Die
chinesische Nachtigall (The Chinese Nightingale), directed by Rudi Klemm. Shown in Berlin in March 1929, it was commissioned by the company Tonbild-Syndikat AG,
and is a commercial for Tri-Ergon records as well as the Tri-Ergon fi lm sound system.
All the fi lms mentioned in this text and the programme notes are – unless otherwise indicated – preserved at the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv and are available for loan. I
used several information sources, but I would especially like to acknowledge my debt to the research of the historian Jeanpaul Goergen, available online at the website
of the Deutsches Institut für Animationsfi lm (DIAF), http://diaf.tyclipso.de, and the contributions of my colleague Doris Hackbarth. – ANNETTE GROSCHKE
Prog. 1: In sogno / In Dreams
MÜNCHNER BILDERBOGEN NR. 17: PIERRETTES SPIELZEUG
[Album di Monaco n. 17: Il giocattolo di Pierrette / Munich Album
No.17: Pierrette’s Toy] (Moeve-Film GmbH, DE 1921)
Regia/dir: Louis Seel; 35mm, 93 m., 4'04" (20-22 fps); fonte copia/print
source: Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Berlin.
Didascalie in tedesco / German intertitles.
Una mano umana disegna Pierrette, Pierrette disegna Pierrot – il suo
robot giocattolo. Questo film, realizzato non su commissione ma per
un programma di supporto, si avvale della tecnica del Rotoscope. Louis
Seel ha ricalcato, fotogramma per fotogramma, le riprese dal vero
di sua moglie Olivette Thomas, aggiungendovi invenzioni fantastiche
come un robot di sesso maschile. Il Rotoscope sembra essere stato
usato per la prima volta nel 1914 in un film di Max Fleischer che
in seguito sviluppò la tecnica per brevettarla nel 1917. Essa venne
utilizzata soprattutto nella serie Out of the Inkwell (1918-1928) con il
fratello minore di Max, Dave, in costume da pagliaccio quale modello
per il personaggio di Koko the Clown.
Louis Seel usò il Rotoscope per parecchi film della serie Münchner
Bilderbogen (Album di Monaco; letteralmente, “Manifesto illustrato
di Monaco”). Questa serie quindicinale durò dal 1921 al 1923, ma
purtroppo solo pochi episodi risultano sopravvissuti presso il
Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, il Filmarchiv Austria, l’EYE Film Instituut
Nederlands e il Filmmuseum di Monaco. Per maggiori informazioni
su Seel, si rimanda alla scheda per Louis Seel Filmbilderbogen: Amors
Tagebuch II - Ein zeichnerischer Scherz (1924).
A human hand draws Pierrette, Pierrette draws Pierrot – her toy boy
robot. Not made for any client, but produced as an entertainment
solely to be part of a supporting programme, the film uses the
rotoscoping technique. Louis Seel traced over live-action shots of his
wife Olivette Thomas frame by frame, combining them with fantastical
inventions like a male robot. The earliest use of rotoscoping seems to
have been in a film made in 1914 by Max Fleischer; he later developed
107
the technique and patented it in 1917. It was prominently used in the
series Out of the Inkwell (1918-1928), with Max’s younger brother
Dave in his Coney Island clown outfit as the live-film reference for the
character Koko the Clown.
Louis Seel used rotoscoping for several of his Münchner Bilderbogen
(Munich Album; literally, “Munich’s illustrated broadsheet”) films. This
fortnightly series ran from 1921 until 1923, but unfortunately only
a handful of episodes seem to have survived at the Bundesarchiv-
Filmarchiv, Filmarchiv Austria, EYE Film Institute Netherlands, and
Filmmuseum München. For more information on Louis Seel, see
the entry for Louis Seel Filmbilderbogen: Amors Tagebuch II - Ein
zeichnerischer Scherz (Amor’s Diary, 1924) later in this programme.
KHASANA, DAS TEMPELMÄDCHEN [Khasana, la ragazza del tempio
/ Khasana, the Temple Girl] (Werbefilm GmbH, Berlin, per/for Dr. M.
Albersheim, Frankfurt am Main, DE 1923)
Regia/dir: Toni Raboldt; prod: Julius Pinschewer; 35mm, 70 m., 3'03"
(20 fps), col. (imbibito/tinted); anim: silhouette; fonte copia/print
source: Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Berlin.
Didascalie in tedesco / German intertitles.
Didascalie in tedesco / German intertitles.
Si tratta di un film pubblicitario per il profumo Khasana. Toni Raboldt
e altri due artisti di silhouette – Richard Felgenauer e Lotte Reiniger –
facevano parte del gruppo originario dell’Institut für Kulturforschung.
Nel 1920 il padre fondatore dell’Institut, Hans Cürlis, produsse il
primo cortometraggio di Raboldt, Jorinde e Joringel, tratto dalla favola
dei fratelli Grimm (anch’esso viene proiettato nell’ambito di questo
programma, ed è reperibile presso la Deutsche Kinemathek). Nel
1922-23 ella collaborò con Lotte Reiniger nel film di quest’ultima
Aschenputtel (Cenerentola).
A commercial for the perfume Khasana. Toni Raboldt and two
other silhouette artists – Richard Felgenauer and Lotte Reiniger –
were part of the original team of the Institut für Kulturforschung.
The Institut’s founding father, Hans Cürlis, produced Raboldt’s first
ANIMAZIONE TEDESCA
GERMAN ANIMATION