Walter Ruttmann

Walter Ruttmann was a German film director and along with Hans Richter Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger was an early German practitioner of experimental film Ruttmann was born in Frankfurt am Main His film career began in the early 1920s His first abstract short films Lichtspiel Opus I 1921 and Opus II 1923 were experiments with new forms of film expression Ruttmann and his colleagues of the avant garde movement enriched the language of film as a medium with new formal techniques Ruttmann was a prominent exponent of both avantgarde art and music His early abstractions played at the 1929 BadenBaden Festival to international acclaim despite their being almost eight years old Ruttmann licensed a Wax Slicing machine from Oskar Fischinger to create special effects for Lotte Reiniger Together with Erwin Piscator he worked on the film Melody of the World 1929 though he is best remembered for Berlin Die Sinfonie der Großstadt Berlin Symphony of a Great City 1927 During the Nazi period he worked as an assistant to director Leni Riefenstahl on Triumph of the Will 1935 He died in Berlin of wounds sustained when he was working on the front line as a war photographer