We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
AVANT-GARDE FILM IN GERMANY
Pioneers Robert J. Flaherty and Hans Richter: 'Here facts, abstract forms, symbols, comic effects, etc., were used to interpret the facts. Inflation set the pattern for Richter's later essay-films (semi-documentaries to express ideas).' It was my first contact with the film-industry. Up to this date I had to earn money as newspaper and magazine editor and illustrator in order to make films. From now on I earned enough with film-making to produce here and there a small film for myself.
In 1927—28 I got a little film Vormittagsspuk ('Ghosts before Breakfast*) done. It was produced for the International Music Festival at Baden-Baden with a score by Paul Hindemith. As it was before the era of the sound-film it was conducted from a rolling score, an invention of a Mr. Blum, in front of the conductor's nose. It did not sound synchronous at all, but it was. The little film (about a reel) was filmed in my artist's studio in Berlin with the Hindemiths and the Darius Milhauds as actors. It was the very rhythmical story of the rebellion of some objects (hats, neckties, coffee cups, etc.) against their daily routine. It might represent a personal view of mine that things are also people, because such a theme pops up here and there in some of my films, even in documentaries. (Why not?) The style of the film shows, in my opinion, more of my dadaistic past than other films I have made. Tobis later bought the film and recorded Hindemith's score on the early two-inch sound film, but somehow it never was released and 'got lost' under the Nazis.
Because Inflation had been a success, other companies contacted me to make 'Introductions' for their films, or, as the head of Maxim Film (Emelka) put it, 'a flower in the buttonhole' to pep up a poor film. I made Rennsymphonie (Racetrack Symphony) (one reel) for the feature Ariadne in Hoppegarten. The fragments I still have look today rather over-edited, but at that time it helped to build up a specialized reputation for me. I also made dozens of little films for publicity companies (Epoche, Koelner Illustrierte Zeitung, etc.) In each of them I was obstinately trying out some new problems. Zweigroschenzauber (Twopence Magic) was composed exclusively of related movements of diverse objects, one movement going over into the other, telling the 'story' of the contents of an illustrated magazine. It translated the poetry of 'Filmstudy' into the commercial film.
226