L'Idee

Athens based collective MiniMaximum improVision redesigned the soundtrack for L'Idee, a masterpiece from the 1930s,  on 28.3. 2013 at Goethe-Institut.

Berthold Bartosch (December 29, 1893 – November 13, 1968) was a film-maker, born in the Bohemia region of Austria-Hungary

In 1930 Bartosch moved to Paris and created the 30 minute film entitled L'idee (The Idea) to which he is most remembered for. The film is described as the first serious, poetic, tragic work in animation. The film's characters and backdrops were composed of several layers of different types of paper from semi-transparent to thick cardboard. Special effects like halos, smoke and fog were made with lather spread on glass plates and lit from behind. Bartosch based the film on a wordless novel of woodcuts by Frans Masereel, The Idea (1920).

L'idee, when released in 1933, featured a score by composer Arthur Honegger, including an ondes Martenot, which is believed to be the very first use of an electronic musical instrument in film history. The following year, Franz Waxman's score for Liliom (1934) used a theremin. -- [ source ]

L'idée is often mistaken for being the first movie to use the Ondes Martenot musical instrument. In fact, it is the second. L'idée was made in 1932 but the soundtrack was added in 1934, a few months after the release of the movie Liliom. Liliom had a score composed by Franz Waxman which used the Theremin. Therefore, L'idée is the oldest movie to use the Ondes Martenot, but not the first one. --[ source ]