ABSTRACT
Shadow puppetry was quite successful during the Tang and Song dynasties. In Germany, at the end of the Silk Road, the art of the shadow play moved from stage straight to the moving picture screen. Lotte Reiniger created the most wonderful silhouette films like the feature-length The Adventures of Prince Achmed, which premiered in Berlin and Paris in 1926. Lotte adored actors and dancers, particularly ballet dancers, and she spent many hours watching them in their performances. As with cartoon drawings, silhouette films are photographed frame by frame, but instead of using drawings, silhouette marionettes are used. These marionettes are cut out of black cardboard and thin lead, every limb being cut separately and joined with wire hinges. Lotte's interest in silhouette films matched perfectly with the fascination with shadows that she shared with Expressionist filmmakers like Fritz Lang, Robert Wiene, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, and Albin Grau, who had designed both Nosferatu and Warning Shadows.
