Walter Ruttmann

Walther Ruttmann was born in 1887 in Frankfurt and died in 1941 in Berlin. He studied Architecture and Painting and worked as a graphic designer. His film career began in the early 1920s. His first abstract short films, 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 form techniques. Together with Erwin Piscator, he worked on the experimental film Melodie der Welt (1929). His other films include: Opus III (1925), Opus IV (1925), Weekend (1930), Acciaio (Stahl, 1933), Altgermanische Bauernkultur (1934), Schiff in Not (1936), Mannesmann (1937), Henkel, ein deutsches Werk in seiner Arbeit (1938), Waffenkammern Deutschlands (1940), Deutsche Panzer (1940), Krebs (1941), and many more.

(biography from Berlin: the city as body, the city as metaphor)