Charlotte Scissorhände und...

...The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
Monday November 9, 7pm, The Paramount, Seattle

"Prince Achmed stands before the gates!"
Her friend Jean Renoir claimed that premiere German animator Lotte Reiniger was "... born with magic hands." From childhood, Reiniger possessed an unusual talent for fashioning detailed shapes with paper and scissors. As a young woman, she worked with Paul Wegener, Fritz Lang and legendary stage director Max Reinhardt. Animation was, as Reiniger described, "... still walking in its infant shoes." With a small group of dedicated artists and technicians, Reinger began producing short stop-action films in 1919, followed by three years devoted to her masterpiece, considered the oldest surviving animated feature, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926).

Reiniger's delicate and magical telling of The Arabian Nights was considered by the German theater establishment as wholly unworthy of exhibition. After nine months in Paris and a successful world tour, Berlin relented. Reiniger endured, and went on to delight audiences with her beautiful and unique art form for half a century.

When compared to the present state of commercial animation, which is virtually devoid of originality or any sense of organic craftsmanship, Reiniger's use of exquisitely detailed shadow puppets and stop-action animation is phenomenal and inspiring. It is important to note, while much of her work was produced as kinderkino, The Adventures of Prince Achmed may be too dark and intense for the pre-school set.

STG Presents!

Seattle Theatre Group returns to their long running, audience favorite Silent Movie Mondays with Adventure Stories to Silent Classics, November 2, 9 and 16. Live musical accompaniment for this series will be performed at the Paramount Theatre's original 1928 installation Publix 1, 4/20 Wurlitzer by the Paramount's extraordinary new house organist Jim Riggs.