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Walter Ruttmann

 
Director: Walter Ruttmann
  • Born: Dec 28, 1887 in Frankfurt, Germany
  • Died: 1941
  • Occupation: Director, Writer, Cinematographer
  • Active: '20s-'30s
  • Major Genres: Culture & Society, Avant-garde / Experimental
  • Career Highlights: Triumph of the Will, Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, Die Nibelungen: Siegfried
  • First Major Screen Credit: Opus 1 (1922)

Biography

Avant-garde German filmmaker Walter Ruttmann created the impressionistic "city symphony" movement when he released Berlin: Symphony of a City in 1927. A rhythmic, documentary-look at the city's industry and daily life, the film inspired a number of imitators. Before becoming an experimental filmmaker in the early '20s, Ruttman was a painter and an architect. In 1924, he helmed the dream sequence in Lang's Die Niebelungen, and two years later collaborated with Lotte Reiniger to create the first feature-length animated film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Following the success of Berlin, Ruttman made another city symphony film called World Melody in 1929. Ruttmann attempted a science fiction film, Steel, in 1933. In 1938, he helped edit Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia. During WWII, he made propaganda films for the Nazis. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
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Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German film director and along with Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling was an early German practitioner of experimental film.

Ruttmann was born in Frankfurt am Main; he studied architecture and painting and worked as a graphic designer. His film career began in the early 1920s. His first abstract short films, "Opus I" (1921) and "Opus II" (1923), were experiments with new forms of film expression, and the influence of these early abstract films is especially obvious in the work of Oskar Fischinger in the 1930s. Ruttmann and his colleagues of the avant garde movement enriched the language of film as a medium with new form techniques.

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 experimental film Melodie der Welt (1929), though he is best remembered for Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, 1927).

During the Nazi period he worked as an assistant to director Leni Riefenstahl on Triumph of the Will (1935). He died in Berlin.

Select Filmography

  • Lichtspiel: Opus I (1921)
  • Lichtspiel: Opus II (1923)
  • Lichtspiel: Opus III (1924)
  • Lichtspiel: Opus IV (1925)
  • Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (1927) in collaboration with Alberto Cavalcanti
  • Melodie der Welt (1929)
  • Wochenende (1930) [an experimental film with sound only, no image]
  • Acciaio (Stahl, 1933)
  • Altgermanische Bauernkultur (1934)
  • Schiff in Not (1936)
  • Mannesmann (1937)
  • Henkel, ein deutsches Werk in seiner Arbeit (1938)
  • Waffenkammern Deutschlands (1940)
  • Deutsche Panzer (1940)
  • Krebs (1941)

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