Prince Achmed BYO Remix
I’ve got one! But you’re going to have to be quick.
Right now, press play on the soundtrack here:
While that’s playing, drag the sound down to zero on this clip—from Prince Achmed, made (impossibly) in 1927 and thought to be the first one of the first animated films:
Hit play on the Prince Achmed clip when the music hits 0:22.
Matt: best genre ever.
Prince Achmed via the always-great Jillian Tamaki.
Update: Lots more on Lotte Reiniger, the director of Prince Achmed, here and here, thanks to Britta. You must click those links, scroll down and look at the stills. They just sent me spinning into a beauty-induced fugue state; I think I saved every single one into my Dropbox.
Pretty! A really nice Metafilter post about Price Achmed from a couple weeks ago: Early Animated Films, Lost and Found.
Oh my god. Dangerous link. I think I just opened six tabs.
Hmm. This modern take on the aesthetic is interesting. I like it—there are some really nice moments—but it’s missing something that Reiniger’s animation has. Something about the weirdness of the figures, maybe? I think it’s too easy to do swooping (simulated) camera motion now—what works about Prince Achmed is that the camera is locked down, so it’s more like a little stage play.
Not animated, but also modern: art by Kara Walker. See an Art:21 interview with her and this moving projection.
Yeah, the modern take doesn’t have the constraints that Reiniger made such good use of.
(I snuck my own essay about Prince Achmed into those Metafilter comments, if you scroll down to “trying to look a little closer at the film as a good example of Western Orientalism…”)
I also have a 700 mb copy of the movie (with subtitles), in case anybody wants it! I don’t know the best way to transfer such a file, but we can figure something out.
Thanks, tried it, that was fun.
This is an exemplar of the genre. Loved it.
Finally got somewhere I could turn the sound on, but this still exceeded a day’s worth of expectations. So lovely.