Our Heavenly Bodies

1925 DocumentaryScience Fiction 88 minutes Directed by Hanns Walter Kornblum

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About Our Heavenly Bodies

The German Kulturfilm lays out what was then taught about the Earth, the solar system, gravitation, the stars, and galaxies. Documentary shots, historical documents, acted scenes, and animation sit in one reel of lessons. Staged journeys carry the viewer among the planets and out toward the stars. Tinting and toning mark the different passages.

Cast & crew

More about Our Heavenly Bodies

Hanns Walter Kornblum directed the animated passages. Johannes Meyer and Rudolf Biebrach directed the acted scenes. Kornblum and Ernst Krieger wrote the script. The Murnau Foundation dates the German premiere to 14 September 1925 and gives the length as 2,389 meters, 88 minutes. It counts 15 effects specialists and nine cameramen. Walter Reimann designed the sets. Ignatz Waghalter composed the score. Paul Bildt, Willy Kaiser-Heyl, Theodor Loos, Oskar Marion, Margarete Schlegel, and Margarete Schön appear.

Themes

  • A classroom of the solar system
  • A staged trip past the planets
  • Tinted lessons on gravity and the stars
  • solar system
  • Kulturfilm
  • animation
  • gravitation
  • Ufa
  • Hanns Walter Kornblum

Background

Released in 1925, the film is a Kulturfilm, the German theatrical form that sat between a lecture and a story picture.

Making

Kornblum, who made teaching films and fairy-tale films, built this one inside Ufa's Kultur department with Colonna-Film.

Reviews

The German Wikipedia entry says the film was a popular success at the time, set against Ufa's later Metropolis.

Look

Separate crews shot the nature and studio scenes and the animation. Friedrich Weinmann is credited on the live footage. The release prints were tinted and toned.

Technique

The Murnau Foundation credits 15 effects specialists and nine cameramen, mixing models, animation, and tinted live action for the planet journeys.

Music

Ignatz Waghalter wrote the original score. The 2009 edition Filmmuseum DVD uses music by Aljoscha and Sabrina Zimmermann.

Preservation

In 2008 the Munich Film Museum reconstructed the film from material at the National Audiovisual Institute in Helsinki and the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin. Rights sit with the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation.

Notes

  • English Wikipedia lists a 92-minute running time. The Murnau Foundation's meterage is 2,389 meters, timed at 88 minutes.
  • Friedrich Weinmann is among the nature and studio cameramen. Hermann Boehlen, Wera Cleve, and Bodo Kuntze are among the animation cameramen.
  • edition Filmmuseum issued a DVD on 26 June 2009, with a new score by Aljoscha and Sabrina Zimmermann, plus Kornblum's 1923 short The Einstein Theory of Relativity.

Scenes

  • A constructed voyage moves from planet to planet.
  • Tinted animation stands in for the mechanics of the sky.

Also available

  • Internet Archive (silent-our-heavenly-bodies)
  • edition Filmmuseum DVD (2009)