Abstract:
This essay brings to light the relationship between live-action films, photo-films, and animation films. It concentrates primarily on the specific qualities and especially on the different media-related potentials of reflection of these respective kinds of film. One focal point is on Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette films. Here, the flat figures on the one hand and the seemingly spherical backgrounds on the other put the two- and three-dimensional characteristics of the film picture into a relation of tension with each other. Chris Marker’s photo-film "La Jetée", which is made up of separate filmed photographs, marks a second center of attention. As opposed to Reiniger’s work, this technique generates a downright unfilmic effect. As such, it is acknowledged here as a particularly multi-layered and revealing form of basic cinematographic research, because it stimulates a fundamental debate on the medium’s illusion of liveliness.