GALATHEA: DAS LEBENDE MARMORBILD (1935)
Article 5218 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-31-2016
Directed by Lotte Reiniger
No cast
Country: Germany
What it is: Animated legend

A sculptor falls in love with one of his creations, and wishes the statue would come to life. When she does, the sculptor is overjoyed… until she discovers that his creation has a will of her own.

This is another example of Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette animation. One interesting touch here is in the scene where the statue comes to life. In the short, the backgrounds are fully rendered and only the animate characters are silhouettes, but when the statue comes to life, it turns into a silhouette at that point, and, from the looks of it, spends almost the entire short naked (in silhouette). This causes a sensation when she escapes from the sculptor’s studio and begins wandering around town, much to the delight of the male residents and the contempt of the female residents, who force the sculptor to find a way to control his creation. The short is both bittersweet (the sculptor’s lover is scorned by him after he creates the statue) and comic, and it pretty much ends the way you’d expect it to end. Still, it’s a delightful short, and is a good example of Reiniger’s skill in silhouette animation.