Content area
Full Text
REDISCOVERY
Paper, scissors
Lotte Reiniger The Fairy Tate Films
Lotte Reiniger; UK/Germany 1922-61; BFI/ Region 2; Certificate PG; 197 minutes; Aspect Ratio 1.33:1; Features: 'Friday Night Hijack' extract, documentary, notes
One of animation's earliest pioneers, Lotte Reiniger created her own distinctive stop-motion silhouette style, writes Andrew Osmond
In silhouette, hands wield nail scissors and snip swiftly at a piece of card, defining a young woman's outline. So begins Cinderella: A Fairy Film in Shadow Show, created by German animator Lotte Reiniger in 1922 (the same year, incidentally, that Walt Disney animated his first version of the story).
Hollywood cartoon characters typically spring from inkwells and artist's pens. Reiniger's silhouette films are closer to stop-motion, where one feels movement as a tactile process one can imagine moving Reiniger's paper figures on screen, as one can imagine handling the Plasticine cast of Aardman's animations. There's a physicality to the filigreed outlines of her characters, their frilly...