Edeltraud Engelhardt

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Edeltraud Engelhardt (1996)

Edeltraud Engelhardt (born May 26, 1917 in Halle ; † May 7, 1999 ) was a German silhouette artist and director . Between 1972 and 1985 she made five animation short films using silhouette technology . She wrote the scripts for all of her films, directed, handcrafted all the pictures herself, regulated the lighting, made the recordings and recorded the film music. Engelhardt's films are based on fairy tales and other fantastic materials. Nevertheless, they are not to be understood exclusively as children's films, but are also aimed at adults due to their socially critical and satirical undertones.

Life

Edeltraud Engelhardt grew up in Anhalt . At the age of four she began to make paper cuttings based on the example of her fairy tale book.

She attended the “Boarding School for the Promotion of Gifted Children” founded by her father Heinrich Johannes Engelhardt in Köthen . After graduating from high school, she wanted to begin artistic training, but at her father's request, she studied chemistry at the University of Jena . After graduating, she became an assistant at the University of Jena, where she met her husband. They had their first son in 1944. In 1945 the US Army forced the family to move to the Swabian Alb . They later moved to Frankfurt am Main , where their second son was born in 1950.

During this time Engelhardt rediscovered her hobby of paper cutting. Through a school project run by her younger son, she met Paul Sauerländer, who was then the owner of the Frankfurt Chaplin Archive . He was enthusiastic about her paper cuttings and encouraged her to turn them into animated films .

Cinematic work

Edeltraud Engelhardt dwarf nose 1.tif
Edeltraud Engelhardt dwarf nose 3.tif
Paper cutouts from the movie Dwarf Nose

Engelhardt set up an animation studio at home and began working on her first film, Perpetuum Mobile . It was shot in normal 8 format . In 1972 she finished the film and showed it at film festivals.

In the following years Engelhardt professionalized their equipment. Inspired by Lotte Reiniger's films , she turned to fairy tale films . She filmed the fairy tales Vom Fischer und seine Frau by Philipp Otto Runge and Der Zwerg Nase by Wilhelm Hauff . Unlike Lotte Reiniger, Edeltraud Engelhardt did not work on translucent paper, but directly on an illuminated glass plate. When she wanted to give the film Von dem Fischer und siner Fru to a film rental company, it turned out that it could not be transferred into a suitable format without loss. So she recorded the entire film one more time as a 16mm film .

Engelhardt drew movements according to physical calculations, so that their figures appear unusually realistic for silhouette animation. Since she used a static camera, she had to simulate different shots by cutting out the same figures several times at different sizes. The 27-minute film dwarf nose consists of around 32,000 images. The backdrop for dwarf nose is the city of Frankfurt in the early 19th century, i.e. at the time of the fairy tale creator Wilhelm Hauff.

During the shooting for Edeltraud Engelhardt's World of Shadows

Engelhardt's films are designed in the style of silent films . They have subtitles , but no dialogues. Engelhardt played the music himself on the harpsichord . She used music by Giovanni Benedetto Platti , François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau , among others . The director Rainer Kaufmann , then still a film student, helped her with the sound recordings.

In 1997 the Frankfurt-based photographer and filmmaker Heiko Arendt shot a documentary about her and her film art together with Edeltraud Engelhardt, the premiere of which she was able to experience. She died a year later. Her most ambitious project, the feature film Münchhausen , remained unfinished.

Edeltraud Engelhardt's cinematic estate is stored in the film archive of the German Film Institute in Wiesbaden . Thanks to private donations and the support of her family, all of her films have been digitized. The digital versions were shown for the first time in 2015 at the 22nd International Animated Film Festival in Stuttgart . All of her films, including the surviving fragments of the unfinished film Münchhausen, are now available on DVD.

Filmography

As an animator and director

  • 1972: perpetual motion machine
  • 1973: apples
  • 1975: The festival
  • 1977: From the fisherman and his Fru
  • 1985: dwarf nose

documentary

  • 1998: Edeltraud Engelhardt's World of Shadows (Director: Heiko Arendt)

Books

literature

  • Georg Fenek: Moving shadows. Edeltraud Engelhardt's silhouette films. Stadtland, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-925773-00-2 .

Web links

Commons : Edeltraud Engelhardt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Films about Edeltraud Engelhardt

Films by Edeltraud Engelhardt

personal data
SURNAME Engelhardt, Edeltraud
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German silhouette artist and director
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Halle (Saale)
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 1999