Walter Ruttmann
{{short description|German film director and cinematographer}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Walter Ruttmann
| image = Walter Ruttman bij opname der Berlijn-Film, 1928.jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Walter Ruttman at recording Berlin-Movie, 1928
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1887|12|28|df=y}}
| birth_place = Frankfurt am Main, German Empire
| notable_works = Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1941|7|15|1887|12|28|df=y}}
| death_place = Berlin, Nazi Germany
| spouse =
| occupation = Film director
| years_active = 1921–1941
}}
Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker, along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger. He is best known for directing the semi-documentary 'city symphony' silent film, with orchestral score by Edmund Meisel, in 1927, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis. His audio montage Wochenende (Weekend) (1930) is considered a major contribution in the development of sound collages and audio plays.
Biography
Ruttmann was born in Frankfurt am Main, the son of a wealthy mercantilist.{{cite web |last1=Betancourt |first1=Michael |title=Walther Ruttmann's Lichtspiel Films |url=https://www.cinegraphic.net/article.php/20110220082757118 |website=Cinegraphic |access-date=20 August 2021 |quote=from: An Excerpt from 'The History of Motion Graphics'}}
He graduated high school in 1905 and began architectural studies in Zürich in 1907. In 1909 Ruttmann began painting in Munich, where he befriended Paul Klee and Lyonel Feininger, and he would later paint in Marburg.{{cn|date=August 2021}}
Ruttmann was conscripted into the army in 1913, first serving in Darmstadt, and shortly after the outbreak of World War I he was sent to the Eastern Front, where he served as an artillery lieutenant and a gas defense officer. After spending 1917 in a hospital for post traumatic stress disorder, he began making films. Ruttmann had the financial means to work independently of the major German studios of the time. He founded Ruttmann-Film S.R.O. in Munich and patented an animation table, in June 1920.
His first productions were the first fully animated German cartoons and abstract animated films. Lichtspiel: Opus I, produced between 1919 and 1921, premiered on 27 April 1921 at the Berlin Marmorhaus, and released for German theatrical distribution in 1922, is the "oldest fully abstract motion picture known to survive, using only animated geometric forms, arranged and shown without reference to any representational imagery".
File:Lichtspiel Opus I (1921).webm
File:Lichtspiel Opus II (1922).webm
Opus I and Opus II, were experiments with new forms of film expression, and the influence of these early abstract films can be seen in some of the early work of Oskar Fischinger. Ruttmann and his colleagues of the avant garde movement enriched the language of film as a medium with new formal techniques.
In 1926 he worked with Julius Pinschewer on Der Aufsteig, an experimental film advertising the GeSoLei trade fair in Düsseldorf.{{cn|date=August 2021}}
In 1926, Ruttmann licensed a Wax Slicing machine from Oskar Fischinger to create special effects for The Adventures of Prince Achmed, an animated fairy tale film, for Lotte Reiniger, making the moving backgrounds and magic scenes.
{{cite book |title=Shadow Theatres, Shadow Films |first=Lotte |last=Reiniger |year=1970 |location=London |publisher=BT Batsford |isbn=978-0-7134-2286-3 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/shadowtheatressh0000rein }}
{{cite web |url=http://www.milestonefilms.com/pdf/AchmedPK.pdf |title=Lotte Reiniger's Introduction to The Adventures of Prince Achmed |website=Milestone Films |pages=9–11 |date=2001 |access-date=25 September 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091122140333/http://www.milestonefilms.com/pdf/AchmedPK.pdf |archive-date=22 November 2009 }}
Ruttmann was a prominent exponent of both avant-garde art and music. His early abstractions played at the 1929 Baden-Baden Festival to international acclaim despite their being almost eight years old. Together with Erwin Piscator, he worked on the film Melody of the World (1929), though he is best remembered for Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis, 1927).
Weekend (Wochenende), commissioned in 1928 by Berlin Radio Hour, and presented on 13 June 1930, is a pioneering work of musique concrète, a montage of sound clips, recorded using film optical sound track from the Tri-Ergon process.{{cite web |title=Weekend - Walter Ruttmann |url=http://sfsound.org/tape/ruttmann.html |website=sfSound |access-date=20 August 2021}}{{cite web |last1=Born |first1=Erik |title=Walter Ruttmann, Wochenende (1930) |url=https://erikborn.com/2015/01/30/walter-ruttmann-wochenende-1930/ |website=Erik Born |access-date=20 August 2021 |language=en |date=30 January 2015 |quote=Assistant Professor,... in the Department of German Studies at Cornell University}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/weekend/|title = Media Art Net | Ruttmann, Walter: Weekend|date = 23 October 2021}} Ruttmann recorded the streets sounds of Berlin with a camera, but without images, this was before magnetic tape. Hans Richter called it “a symphony of sound, speech-fragments, and silence woven into a poem.”{{cite web |last1=Remes |first1=Justin |title=Ten Masterpieces of Experimental Cinema |url=https://www.cupblog.org/2020/04/05/ten-masterpieces-of-experimental-cinema/ |website=Columbia University Press Blog |publisher=Columbia University Press |access-date=20 August 2021 |date=5 April 2020}}
A pacifist, he traveled to Moscow in 1928 and 1929. During the Nazi period he was replaced by Leni Riefenstahl as director of the documentary which eventually became Triumph of the Will (1935), supposedly because Ruttmann's editing style was considered too "Marxist" and Soviet influenced. He died in Berlin 15 July 1941 due to an embolism after leg amputation.{{Cite book|url=https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb12466357m|title = Ruttmann}}
Culture and Media
Segments from Ruttmann's experimental films Lichtspiel: Opus II (1923) and Lichtspiel: Opus IV (1925) are used in the credits of the German neo-noir television series Babylon Berlin.{{Cite web |title=The Truth About Babylon Berlin |last=Vallen |first=Mark |work=Art For A Change |date=2018-04-03 |access-date=2020-03-22 |url= http://art-for-a-change.com/blog/2018/04/the-truth-about-babylon-berlin.html }}
Select filmography
File:Lichtspiel opus III (1924).webm
File:Lichsspiel opus IV (1925).webm
- Lichtspiel: Opus I (1920){{cite web |last1=Ruttmann |first1=Walter |title=LICHTSPIEL: OPUS I, 11'43'', Colour, Drawing, 1921 |url=https://www.puntoyrayafestival.com/en/tv/films/lichtspiel_opus-i/ |website=Punto y Raya Festival |access-date=20 August 2021}}
{{cite web |title=Lichtspiel Opus I |url=https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cdLrro |website=Centre Pompidou |access-date=20 August 2021 |language=en-EN}}
{{cite journal |last1=Moser |first1=Jeffrey |title=Lichtspiel Opus I (1921) |url=http://researchrepository.wvu.edu/structuralist_db/1207 |journal=Fixation Database of Film and Animation |publisher=West Virginia University |access-date=20 August 2021 |date=1 January 1921}}
{{cite web |title=Berlin, die Sinfonie der Großstadt & Melodie der Welt Edition Filmmuseum 39 |url=https://www.edition-filmmuseum.com/product_info.php/language/en/info/p70_Berlin--die-Sinfonie-der-Gro-stadt---Melodie-der-Welt.html |website=Edition Filmmuseum Shop |publisher=Munich Film Archive, German Federal Archives, Goethe-Institut |access-date=20 August 2021 |quote=Lichtspiel Opus 1 1920, 11'; Opus 2 1922, 3'; Opus 3 1924, 3'; Opus 4 1925, 4'; Berlin, die Sinfonie der Großstadt 1927, 65'; Melodie der Welt 1929, 48' (EDITION FILMMUSEUM is a joint project of film archives and cultural institutions in the german-speaking part of Europe. Its ambition is to publish film works of artistic, cultural and historical value in DVD editions that both utilise the possibilities of digital media and meet the quality demands of the archival profession.)}}
{{cite web |title=Lichtspiel Opus 1 |url=https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/library/films/lichtspiel-opus-i-walter-ruttmann/13121 |website=Close-Up Film Centre |access-date=20 August 2021}}
{{cite journal |last1=Moser |first1=Jeffrey |title=Lichtspiel Opus II (1921) |url=https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/structuralist_db/1208/ |journal=Fixation Database of Film and Animation |publisher=West Virginia University |access-date=20 August 2021 |date=1 January 1921}}
{{cite web |title=Opus 2 (1921/1922) |url=https://www.filmportal.de/film/lichtspiel-opus-2_e9813dffb12a45969ae9e886b1a77759 |website=filmportal.de |publisher=Deutsches Filminstitut}}
{{cite web |title=Opus 2 |url=https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/library/films/opus-ii-walter-ruttmann/13122 |website=Close-Up Film Centre |access-date=20 August 2021}}
- Lichtspiel: Opus III (1924, with Lore Leudesdorff)Heinz Steike in Film als Film 1910 bis Heute, Kölnischer Kunstverein, 1977
{{cite journal |last1=Moser |first1=Jeffrey |title=Lichtspiel Opus III (1924) |url=http://researchrepository.wvu.edu/structuralist_db/1212 |journal=Fixation Database of Film and Animation |publisher=West Virginia University |access-date=20 August 2021 |date=1 January 1924}}
{{cite web |title=Opus 3 |url=https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/library/films/opus-iii-walter-ruttmann/13125 |website=Close-Up Film Centre |access-date=20 August 2021}}
- Lichtspiel: Opus IV (1925, with Lore Leudesdorff)
{{cite web |title=Opus 4 |url=https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/library/films/opus-iv-walter-ruttmann/13126 |website=Close-Up Film Centre |access-date=20 August 2021}}
- Das wiedergefundene Paradies (1925)
- Der Aufstieg (1926)
- Spiel der Wellen (1926)
- Dort wo der Rhein... (1927)
- Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (1927)
- Melody of the World (Melodie der Welt) (1929)
- Wochenende (1930) [an experimental film with sound only, no image]
- Feind im Blut (1931)
- In der Nacht (1931)
- Steel (1933)
- Blut und Boden - Grundlagen zum neuen Reich
- Altgermanische Bauernkultur (1934)
- Metall des Himmels (1935)
- Schiff in Not (1936)
- Mannesmann (1937)
- Henkel, ein deutsches Werk in seiner Arbeit (1938)
- Waffenkammern Deutschlands (1940)
- Deutsche Panzer (1940)
- Krebs (1941)
{{clear}}
Further reading
- Cowan, Michael. Walter Ruttmann and the Cinema of Multiplicity: Avant-garde-Advertising-Modernity. Amsterdam, NL: Amsterdam University Press, 2014. {{ISBN|9789089645852}}
- Dombrug, Adrianus van. Walter Ruttmann in het beginsel. Purmerend, NL: J. Muusses, 1956.
- Goergen, Jeanpaul. Walter Ruttmann: Eine Dokumentation. Berlin: Freunde der deutschen Kinemathek, 1989. {{ISBN|9783927876002}}
- Rogers, Holly and Jeremy Barham The Music and Sound of Experimental Film. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. {{ISBN|9780190469900}}
- Quaresima, Leonard, editor. Walter Ruttmann: Cinema, pittura, ars acustica. Calliano (Trento), Italy: Manfrini, 1994. {{ISBN|9788870245035}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|id=0752193}}
- {{cite web |title=Walther Ruttmann |url=https://archive.org/details/movies?sin=&and[]=Walther+Ruttmann&and[]=creator%3A%22walther%20ruttmann%22&and[]=creator%3A%22walther%20ruttman%22&and[]=creator%3A%22walther%20ruthmann%22&and[]=creator%3A%22waltter%20ruttmann%22 |website=Download & Streaming : Moving Image Archive |publisher=Internet Archive |language=en}}
- {{cite web |title=Walther Ruttmann |url=https://www.filmportal.de/person/walther-ruttmann_073d7d0d1c4b4c538b0b3db7ec60e44e |website=filmportal.de |access-date=20 August 2021 |language=de}}
- [https://www.getty.edu/vow/ULANFullDisplay?find=&role=&nation=&prev_page=1&subjectid=500112601 Walter Ruttmann] Union List of Artist Names
{{Walter Ruttmann}}
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Category:German experimental filmmakers
Category:German cinematographers
Category:German film directors
Category:Film people from Frankfurt
Category:Sound collage artists