Out of the Shadows
How Lotte Reiniger Made the First Animated Fairytale Movie
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Out of the Shadows is an innovative picture book biography about an unsung hero of early animation.
Lotte Reiniger (1899–1981) was a German film director and animator best known for The Adventures of Prince Achmed, which was released in 1926 and is the oldest surviving animated movie. (It came out a full 11 years before Disney’s Snow White!) As a little kid, Reiniger loved reading fairy tales and fell in love with puppetry. At school, she learned about Scherenschnitte, or papercuts, which helped her create her signature style of silhouettes. She grew up to make more than 40 films throughout her long career, most of which were fairy tales that used her stop-film animation technique of hand-cut silhouettes. Reiniger is now seen as the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation and the inventor of an early form of the multiplane camera.
With art inspired by Reiniger’s cut-paper style and a text that uses a fairy-tale motif that mimics her movies, author-illustrator Fiona Robinson’s Out of the Shadows is a sweeping tribute to one of most important figures of animation, whose influence still resonates today.
“Every spread offers an exceptional visual experience, regularly amplifying aspects of the narrative.”—Horn Book Magazine (Starred Review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Robinson (The Bluest of Blues) serves up a thorough, absorbing biography of Lotte Reiniger (1899–1981), an animation pioneer virtually unknown in North America, paying homage by illustrating partially with the meticulous cut-paper technique used by the animator herself. Berlin-born Reiniger is "a modern girl who loved traditional tales" as well as a specific new technology: silent film. Combining two concepts—flat, rod-style "Chinese puppets" received as a gift, and the art of Scherenschnitte—she begins creating moving figures that she stages in her own fairy tale dramas. An alliance with an actor leads to collaboration and finally to her own films—including the first feature-length, stop-motion animated movie. Robinson's intricate illustrations use a variety of visual techniques, including cut-paper silhouettes and replicas of silent film "intertitles." Dense text details aspects of film technology, especially the assembly that makes stop-motion possible, but elides age-appropriate explanations of what back matter contextualizes as "orientalism" in Reiniger's work. Reiniger's determination inspires in this visually arresting picture book, as does the reminder that animation started with very simple tools. Back matter includes an author's note. Ages 6–9.
