Lotte H. Eisner

Lotte H. Eisner (5 March, 1896 - 25 November, 1983) was a French-German film critic, historian, writer and poet.

Born as Lotte Henriette Eisner in Berlin on March 5, 1896 in the family of a Jewish merchant. After studies in Berlin and Munich, from 1927, she worked as a theater and film critic for German newspapers writing among others for "Film-Kurier", a daily film newspaper published in Berlin.

In 1933 she fled from Germany to France to avoid anti-Jewish persecution by the Nazis. During World War II she had to hide, but finally got caught and was interned in the French concentration camp at the town of Gurs in Aquitaine, France. She managed to survive the war, and after the Liberation she returned to Paris. She worked closely with Henri Langlois, the founder of the French Cinematheque, where she worked as a Chief Archivist from 1945 until her retirement in 1975.

Lotte H. Eisner continued to write for the monthly "Cahiers du Cinéma" and "La Revue du Cinéma". She is the author of "The Haunted Screen", a book on German Expressionist cinema (ISBN 0-520-02479-6).

In 1974, learning that Eisner was seriously ill and on the verge of death, the German film director Werner Herzog walked from Munich to Paris to visit her, in the faith that she would be well again when he arrived. His journey is recounted in Herzog's book [http://www.free-association.org "Of Walking in Ice"] .

She awarded membership in the French Legion of Honor in 1982.

Lotte H. Eisner died in 1983 Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris, on November 25, 1983.

External links

* An essay by Lotte H. Eisner about Louise Brooks and the film "Pandora's Box" (1929), directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst: http://www.freewebs.com/everybreeze/Eisner.html]