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Absolut Panushka, Jan-Apr 1997.
Absolute Animation
He was drafted into World War I, but was gassed by mistake when poisonous fumes meant for the enemy blew back in his face. The snafu led to his release from service on permanant disability (and ill health that would follow him the rest of his life). Ruttmann became dissatisfied with his abstract canvas painting, and decided cinema was the art form of the future anyway, so in 1919 he mastered the technology of filmmaking and began animating an abstract film. He painted on glass (with one new shot each time a new brush stroke was added), and also used geometric shapes cut from paper (which could be moved in a second layer of glass in front of or behind the painted image). The images were shot on black-and-white film, but planned for color using three methods common at that time: tinting, toning, and hand-tinting. Because of this coloration method, Ruttmann had to print each scene separately, and splice each print together from one hundred little pieces of film. He finished the film, which runs about 14 minutes, in 1920 and commissioned a musical score from Max Butting, a composer who had been his chum at the Munich conservatory. Butting's score is for a string quintet, and Ruttmann himself played the cello part at all of the performances. Ruttmann named the film Lichtspiel, Opus Nr. 1, using the word "Light-Play," the common German expression for "movies," along with the kind of classical musical terminology that suggested the beginning of a series -- which indeed it was, for Ruttmann would make three more Opus films, which he preferred to call "Absolute" films. Moritz, William. "History of Experimental Animation." Website. Absolut Panushka, curated by Christine Panushka. (Jan-Apr 1997). |
