Berthold Bartosch

Berthold Bartosch (December 29th 1893 - November 13rd 1968), wire of shoe-maker, was born in Bohemia (maintaining the Czech Republic).

It made its studies with Vienna and was in the same school of arts as Adolf Hitler and in the same class!. It moved with Berlin in 1920, and collaborated with Lotte Reiniger for its animations out of cut out paper and silhouettes in following films:

the ornament of the affectionate heart
the battle of Skagerrak
adventures of prince Achmed (1923-1926)
Dr. Dolittle (1928)

In 1929, Bartosch settles in Paris and finds a shelter under the roof of the Théâtre of the Old man-Dovecote in Paris, thanks to the support of Jean Tedesco (directing of the theater of November 1924 to 1934); and it also had as friends Jean Renoir and the critic art Wilhelm Uhde. It built in a tiny room the smallest studio of animation of the world and carried out a 30 minute old film the Idea . It is its first great work in cartoon film, with an atmosphere of a flexibility and a great poetry. the Idea was shown in December 1931 with the cinema " Raspail" studio; in Paris. The characters and the decorations of film are composed of several layers of various types of paper going of semi-transparent to the thick paperboard. The special effects comprise halations, smoke and fog and were made with soap foam spread out over ices posed the ones on the others with a space enters and enlightened by the section with weak electric bulbs of 30 Watts. The light was made iridescent in the soap by giving marvellous effects. Bartosch used a camera of 35 mm Parvo K, actuated by a pump (counterpart of a pump with Bicyclette but built with high degree of accuracy). It made to 18 overprintings for an image! It helped forever by anybody, not even by his wife. The film the Idea asked for three years of work Bartosch.

The film was based on a book with engravings on wood of Frans Masereel, the music of the film the Idea was composed by the French type-setter Arthur Honegger, with a contribution of the Ondes Martenot; it is thought that it is the very first use of an electronic instrument in the history of film.

In 1948, Bartosch spent one year while working for UNESCO, under the direction of George Dunning, a stimulating realizer working with London close to Soho-Public garden and known for its realization of the cartoon of the Beatles in 1968, the yellow Submarine ( Yellow Submarine ). Right before the Second world war, Bartosch started to carry out a second cartoon film of 900 meters on the cosmos. The Nazis destroyed the negative one without Bartosch being able to see only one image. When Bartosch was in Vienna, it had made microfilms anti-nazis intended for the use of the Germans of the time of Hitler. The blow of the destruction of second film of Bartosch was too hard, even for its iron will. He never complained some, but, according to Alexandre Alexeïeff, the remainder of its life he hoped to remake his life of artist that the war had broken.

(Partial Source: discussion with B. Bartosch in its housing in the Theater of the Old man-Dovecote in Paris in 1966; and a homage of Alexandre Alexeïeff)

External bonds

Theater of the Old man-Dovecote
the Theater of the Lime and Burbot Reiniger

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