Walter Ruttmann

Person

Walter Ruttmann

Directing December 28, 1887

Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany

Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German film director and along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger was an early German practitioner of…

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Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) 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 avant-garde art and music. His early abstractions played at the 1929 Baden-Baden 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.

Filmography

Movies and shows, newest first

  1. 1940
    German Tanks

    Movie Director

  2. 1940
    German Armaments

    Movie Director

  3. 1939
    Behind the Numbers

    Movie Writer

  4. 1938
    Mannesmann

    Movie Director

  5. 1937
  6. 1935
  7. 1935
    Triumph of the Will

    Movie Screenplay

  8. 1935
    Metall des Himmels

    Movie Director

  9. 1934
    Altgermanische Bauernkultur

    Movie Director

  10. 1933
    Blood and Soil

    Movie Director

  11. 1933
    Steel

    Movie Director

  12. 1932
    Ceux du viking

    Movie Editor

  13. 1931
    In the Night

    Movie Director

  14. 1931
    Feind im Blut

    Movie Director

  15. 1931
    The End of the World

    Movie Art Direction

  16. 1930
    Weekend

    Movie Director

More credits
  1. 1929
    Melody of the World

    Movie Director

  2. 1928
    The White Stadium

    Movie Editor

  3. 1927
    Where the Rhine...

    Movie Director

  4. 1927
  5. 1927
    Metropolis

    Movie Director of Photography

  6. 1927
    Hoppla, wir leben

    Movie Director

  7. 1926
    The Climb

    Movie Director

  8. 1926
    Game of Waves

    Movie Director

  9. 1925
    The Rediscovered Paradise

    Movie Director

  10. 1925
    Opus IV

    Movie Director

  11. 1924
    Opus III

    Movie Director

  12. 1924
    Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

    Movie Director of Photography

  13. 1921
    Lightplay Opus II

    Movie Director

  14. 1921
    Light-Play Opus I

    Movie Director