Alexander Hackenschmied

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexander Hackenschmied (* 17th December 1907 in Linz , Austria-Hungary as Alexander Siegfried Georg Šmahel ; † 26. July 2004 , New York City ) was an avant-garde - photographer and film director in Czechoslovakia and in 1939 in the US.

life and work

Alexander Hackenschmied began to support the avant-garde movement in the early 1930s and organized one of the first projects of avant-garde films in Prague, such as films by Man Ray . He published texts on film and photography, a. a. in the magazine Pestrý týden , made a few short films, including Walk into the Blue (Bezúčelná procházka) , and was employed as a cameraman , editor and consultant for a number of feature and documentary films. From 1935 he worked for the Bata company in Zlín , where he had the opportunity to accompany Jan Antonín Baťa on his journey around the world . It is said that Hackenschmied left after two weeks to shoot his own material in Sri Lanka and India . Elmar Klos later used this for three documentaries: Chudí lidé (Poor People) , Řeka života a smrti (The River of Life) and Vzpomínka na ráj (Memory of Paradise) .

In 1938 Hackenschmied was cameraman for a documentary by American director Herbert Kline about the political situation in the Czech-German border region. Hackenschmied emigrated to the USA in early 1939 , where the film was completed. After receiving American citizenship in 1942, he went by the name of Alexander Hammid.

In 1943 he shot the experimental film Meshes of the Afternoon with his then wife Maya Deren , with which he could inscribe himself into the history of cinematography. Hammid later worked as a cameraman and editor on other Deren films. Documentaries from this period include The Forgotten Village (1941), The Valley of the Tennessee (1944) and A Better Tomorrow (1945). He shot the 22-minute short film The Private Life of a Cat (1944) entirely in an apartment on New York's Morton Street, where he was then living with Maya Deren.

In 1944 a film was made with the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini , Hymn of the Nations , which was produced by the United States Office of War Information . This film was nominated for an Oscar for best documentary short in 1945 , as was the documentary Library of Congress a year later . In 1951, Hammid was assistant director under the direction of Gian Carlo Menotti for the film adaptation of Menotti's opera Das Medium .

In 1961, Hammid began working with director Francis Thompson's production company , co- directing and editing a number of films, including short documentaries and films for the masses such as the IMAX film To Fly! . While working with Francis Thompson, Inc., Hammid has made other IMAX films.

The large-scale film To Be Alive! won in 1966 finally the Oscar in the category "Best Short Documentary" after being on the New York World's Fair in 1964 had been shown. Other films from this period include We Are Young (shown at Expo 67 ) and US (shown at Hemisfair in San Antonio , 1969).

Hammid's photographic work is also noteworthy, which is shaped by his experience as a cameraman and formally can be counted among the more recent Czech photography (representatives are also Jiří Lehovec , Ladislav Emil Berka and Eugen Wiškovský ).

Works

  • Book: Michael Omasta (ed.): Tribute to Sasha (Vienna: SYNEMA, 2002)
  • Documentary: Aimless Walk: Alexander Hammid (1996, 48 min.) Director: Martina Kudláček

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hackenschmied, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smahel, Alexander Siegfried Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech-American avant-garde photographer and film director
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Linz , Upper Austria
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 2004
Place of death New York City