Walter Ruttmann’s abstract cinema

ruttmann1.jpg

Histories of abstract cinema often begin with Oskar Fischinger, a filmmaker and animator who was certainly a pioneer of the form. But these four silent shorts by Walter Ruttmann (1887–1941), Lichtspiel: Opus I, II, III & IV (1921–25) predate Fischinger’s work, and also prefigure Fischinger’s own animations of swooping shapes, blooming circles and stabbing triangles. Ruttmann’s abstractions are very sophisticated considering they’re such early examples of this type of experimental cinema. Some of the sequences in Opus IV resemble the kinds of graphics seen during title sequences in TV programmes of the 1960s.

ruttmann2.jpg

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The abstract cinema archive

Discover more from { feuilleton }

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading