The Adventures of Prince Achmed

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The Adventures of Prince Achmed
PrinzenAchmedTitle.png
Title card
Directed by
Written byLotte Reiniger
Cinematography Carl Koch
Music by Wolfgang Zeller
Distributed by
Release date
  • 23 September 1926 (1926-09-23)(Germany)
Running time
  • 65 minutes
  • (at 24 frames/s)
CountryGermany (Weimar Republic)
Languages
Box office$100K [1]

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (known as Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed in German) is a 1926 German animated fairytale film by Lotte Reiniger. It is the oldest surviving animated feature film.[ citation needed ] (Two earlier ones had been made in Argentina by Quirino Cristiani, but they are considered to be lost. [2] ) The Adventures of Prince Achmed features a silhouette animation technique Reiniger had invented that involved manipulated cutouts made from cardboard and thin sheets of lead under a camera. [3] The technique she used for the camera is similar to Wayang shadow puppets, though hers were animated frame by frame, not manipulated in live action. The original prints featured color tinting. Reiniger also used the first form of a multiplane camera in making the film, [4] one of the most important devices in pre digital animation. [5]

Contents

Several famous avant-garde animators worked on this film with Lotte Reiniger, among them Walter Ruttmann, Berthold Bartosch, and Carl Koch. [6] [7]

The story is based on elements from the One Thousand and One Nights written by Hanna Diyab, including "Aladdin," "The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Perī-Bānū", and "The Ebony Horse."

Plot

An African sorcerer conjures up a flying horse, which he shows to the Caliph. When the sorcerer refuses to sell it for any amount of gold, the Caliph offers any treasure he has. The sorcerer chooses Dinarsade, the Caliph's daughter, to her great distress. Prince Achmed, Dinarsade's brother, objects, but the sorcerer persuades him to try out the horse. The prince does not know how to control the horse, so it carries the prince away, higher and higher into the sky. The Caliph has the sorcerer imprisoned.

Pari Banu (center) with her attendants, preparing to bathe. Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (screenshot).jpg
Pari Banu (center) with her attendants, preparing to bathe.

When Achmed discovers how to make the horse descend, he finds himself in a strange foreign land, a magical island called Wak Wak. He is greeted by a bevy of attractive maidens. When they begin fighting for his attention, he flies away to a lake. There, he watches as Pari Banu, the beautiful ruler of the land of Wak Wak, arrives with her attendants to bathe. When they spot him, they all fly away, except for Pari Banu, for Achmed has her magical flying feather costume. She flees on foot, but he captures her. He gains her trust when he returns her feathers. They fall in love. She warns him, however, that the demons of Wak Wak will try to kill him.

The sorcerer frees himself from his chains. Transforming himself into a bat, he seeks out Achmed. The prince chases the sorcerer (who has turned into a kangaroo) and falls into a pit. While Achmed fights a giant snake, the sorcerer takes Pari Banu to China and sells her to the Emperor. The sorcerer returns and pins Achmed under a boulder on top of a mountain. However, the Witch of the Flaming Mountain notices him and rescues Achmed. The sorcerer is her arch-enemy, so she helps Achmed rescue Pari Banu from the Emperor. Then, the demons of Wak Wak find the couple and, despite Achmed's fierce resistance, carry Pari Banu off. Achmed forces a captive demon to fly him to Wak Wak. However, the gates of Wak Wak are locked.

He then slays a monster who is attacking a boy named Aladdin. Aladdin tells of how he, a poor tailor, was recruited by the sorcerer to retrieve a magic lamp from a cave. When Aladdin returned to the cave entrance, the sorcerer demanded the lamp before letting him out. Aladdin refused, so the sorcerer sealed him in. Aladdin accidentally released one of the genies of the lamp and ordered it to take him home. He then courted and married Dinarsade. One night, Dinarsade, Aladdin's magnificent palace, and the lamp disappeared. Blamed by the Caliph, Aladdin fled to avoid being executed. A storm at sea cast him ashore at Wak Wak. When he tried to pluck fruit from a "tree", it turned into a monster and grabbed him, but Achmed killed it.

Achmed realizes the sorcerer had been responsible for Aladdin's fate, and is further enraged. He also reveals to Aladdin that his palace and the lamp were stolen by the sorcerer because of his obsession for Dinarsade. Then, the witch arrives. Since only the lamp can open the gates, she agrees to attack the sorcerer to get it. They engage in a magical duel, each transforming into various creatures. After a while, they resume their human forms and fling fireballs at each other. Finally, the witch slays the sorcerer.

With the lamp, they are able to enter Wak Wak, just in time to save Pari Banu from being thrown to her death. A fierce battle erupts. A demon steals the lamp, but the witch gets it back. She summons creatures from the lamp who defeat the demons. One hydra-like creature seizes Pari Banu. When Achmed cuts off one of its heads, two more grow back immediately, but the witch stops this regeneration, allowing Achmed to kill it and rescue Pari Banu. A flying palace then settles to the ground. Inside, Achmed, Pari Banu, Aladdin, and the Caliph find Dinarsade. The two couples bid goodbye to the witch and fly home to the palace.

Production

Reiniger required several years, from 1923 to 1926, to make this film. [7] Each frame had to be painstakingly filmed, and 24 frames were needed per second. [7] The reason why an adaptation of Arabian Nights was chosen was based on the idea that the action should show events that would only be possible with animation. In addition to herself, her small team consisted of her husband Carl Koch, Walter Ruttmann, Berthold Bartosch, Alexander Kardan and Walter Turck. A Berlin banker named Louis Hagen financed the movie, and offered the team to use the attic of the garage in his vegetable garden as their studio. Oskar Fischinger made a wax-slicing machine for them which was used to visualize magic in several scenes. Another tool was an early version of the multiplane camera. Stars were made by holding a cardboard with small holes in front of a strong light, superimposed pieces of semitransparent tissue paper was used to make waves, and silver paper for moonlit water. For other movable backgrounds, which sometimes included the use of two negatives, they made different layers covered with substances like sand, paint and soap. For the latter, Bartosch would later say about the production of Prince Achmed: “During my years of work I have learned many things. Soap, it is quite extraordinary, with soap one can do everything.” [8] [9]

Censorship

Reiniger was one of the first filmmakers in the 20th century to attempt a portrayal of the queer experience with a pair of openly gay lovers in this film: the Emperor of China and a male character named Ping Pong. Although this was censored in the version of the film that was distributed to theaters, Ping Pong is presented as the Emperor's favourite or darling (Des Kaisers Liebling) even in the censored version. Reiniger herself was outspoken on her motivation to destigmatize homosexual realities in the world of film. "I knew lots of homosexual men and women from the film and theater world in Berlin, and saw how they suffered from stigmatization. [...] I suspect that when the Emperor kisses Ping Pong, that must have been the first happy kiss between two men in the cinema and I wanted it to happen quite calmly in the middle of Prince A[c]hmed so children — some who would be homosexual and some who would not — could see it as a natural occurrence, and not be shocked [n]or ashamed." [10]

Restoration

While the original film featured color tinting, prints available just before the restoration had all been in black and white. Working from surviving nitrate prints, German and British archivists restored [11] the film during 1998 and 1999, including reinstating the original tinted image by using the Desmet method.

Availability

The film is screened on the Turner Classic Movies channel. It was also once available to stream through the subscription-based FilmStruck. Filmstruck's follow-up service, Criterion Channel, a service from the Criterion Collection, began streaming it in Region 1 after the service shuttered in November 2018. English-market DVDs are available, distributed by Milestone Films and available in NTSC R1 (from Image) and PAL R2 (from the BFI). [12] Both versions of the DVD are identical. They feature both an English-subtitled version (the intertitles are in German) and an English voice-over.

The English-subtitled film is available via Fandor and LiveTree.

Legacy

An homage to this film can be spotted in Disney's Aladdin (1992); a character named Prince Achmed has a minor role in the film. The art style also served as inspiration for the Steven Universe episode "The Answer". [13]

Score

The original score was composed by German composer Wolfgang Zeller in direct collaboration with the animation of the film. Reiniger created photograms for the orchestras, which were common in better theatres of the time, to follow along the action. [14]

Contemporary scorings

Reception

The film made $100,156 [1] during a 2007 re-issue.

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References

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  3. Lenburg, Jeff (2009). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons (3rd ed.). New York: Checkmark Books. p. 157. ISBN   978-0-8160-6600-1.
  4. "The life of Lotte Reiniger". Drawn to be Wild. BFI. Archived from the original on 3 March 2001. (an extract from Pilling, Jayne, ed. (1992). Women and Animation: a Compendium. BFI. ISBN   0-85170-377-1.)
  5. https://nofilmschool.com/disney-multiplane-camera
  6. Reiniger, Lotte (1970). Shadow Theatres, Shadow Films . London: BT Batsford. ISBN   978-0-7134-2286-3.
  7. 1 2 3 "Lotte Reiniger's Introduction to The Adventures of Prince Achmed" (PDF). Milestone Films. 2001. pp. 9–11. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 November 2009. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
  8. Milestone Film and the British Film Institute present
  9. Before Walt Disney, there was Lotte Reiniger – the story of the world’s first animated feature
  10. Acadia, Lilith (3 April 2021). "'Lover of Shadows': Lotte Reiniger's Innovation, Orientalism, and Progressivism". Oxford German Studies. 50 (2): 150–168. doi:10.1080/00787191.2021.1927377. ISSN   0078-7191. S2CID   235663272.
  11. "Restaurierungsbericht Achmed" (PDF). Deutsches Filmmuseum (in German). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 October 2011.
  12. "Adventures of Prince Achmed". Milestone Films. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  13. Jusino, Teresa (30 November 2015). "Some of Comics' Biggest Names Shout-Out Their Favorite Female Creators". The Mary Sue . Retrieved 31 January 2016.
  14. Reiniger, Lotte (1970). "The Adventures of Prince Achmed, or What May Happen to Somebody Making a Full Length Cartoon in 1926". The Silent Picture. 8: 2–4.
  15. Zuckerman, Alicia (1 October 2006). "Smooth operation". New York . Archived from the original on 3 October 2016.
  16. Van Siclen, Bill (28 January 2007). "A magical pairing of animated movie and live music". The Providence Journal . Archived from the original on 29 June 2011.
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  20. "Hidden Door review: The Adventures of Prince Achmed, Leith Theatre". 29 May 2017.
  21. Film scores
  22. "RBC – The Adventures of Prince Achmed". BCU . Retrieved 15 May 2019.