Because I had a lot of left over material from research for my last post on Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) and can’t stop stressing how great and important Lotte Reiniger is. Being the first feature animation is sure to make Achmed become a source for many of its successors.
By deduction I imagine it was a very early film produced in the Western world using ‘Arabia’ or Orientalism as its only visual and narrative theme. It was adapted from two stories of the ‘Middle Eastern’ fairytale collection Arabic One Thousand and One Nights, one of which is the now very familiar story of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, made popular by its circulation in book form and by Disney’s adaptation in 1992. There is actually a ‘Prince Achmed’ in at the very beginning of the film, and I’d like to think the name is a reference to Reiniger’s Achmed, even if it isn’t confirmed.
The harem is a common Orientalist theme, and I think we were all not expecting that scene with Achmed and the servant/entertainer girls entertaining each other in a room. It is worth mentioning that European countries never had an equivalent of the systematic Hays Code that banned ‘immoral’ content. But it seems that Reiniger just has a penchant for racy or sexual more-than-undertones, as also seen from her later short film Papageno (1935). In the handout interview Reiniger admits as much when asked directly about that Achmed scene. What a lady.
Though I have not surveyed a list of the earliest films (including live action), Achmed might be the earliest feature with a wizard or magic duel sequence, and is most definitely the earliest example of a duel that shows the characters shapeshifting. According to the TVTropes page on ‘Shapeshifter Showdowns’ as it is titled, this is a theme that has existed in human myths and folklore even before the printing press was invented. I was reminded of the Disney film Sword in the Stone (1963) which also involves a witch and a wizard/sorcerer throwing down in magical animal transformer style. Something about turning into different creatures, especially because of our associations with certain animals being good/evil or more or less powerful than other animals, is very entertaining to watch. At least it was the case for child-me, who still re-emerges when to relive watching this sequence.
It’s noteworthy that the animation technique for changing between animals in Achmed makes more use of morphing, perhaps because of the limitations that come with cutout/silhouette. In Sword in the Stone, and also in another Disney example of a shapeshifting sequence, The Emperor’s New Groove, there is more use of special effects like sparks and jump cuts to show a character has changed animal. Arguably it makes for more interesting pacing and varied rhythm, and as we saw in today’s class (Class 6), synchrony with music was established early on as a Disney trademark method. In the promised future post on Michel Ocelot, I could talk about how this lively rhythm/music accompaniment was brought back to silhouette morphing in Princes et Princesses, but it will be for another day.
Claudia Lau
ANIM223 - HISTORY OF ANIMATION - FALL 2019 