Arnold Fanck

Arnold Fanck (6 March 1889 – 28 September 1974) was a German film director and pioneer of the mountain film genre. He is best known for the extraordinary alpine footage he captured in such films as The Holy Mountain, The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929), Storm over Mont Blanc (1930), The White Ecstasy (1931), and S.O.S. Eisberg (1933). Fanck was also instrumental in launching the careers of several filmmakers during the Weimar years in Germany, including Leni Riefenstahl, Luis Trenker, and cinematographers Sepp Allgeier, Richard Angst, Hans Schneeberger, and Walter Riml.

Biography Arnold Fanck with his secretary and lover Elisabeth Kind 1933 in Greenland on set of the movie S.O.S. Eisberg. In 1934 both married in Berlin. Arnold Fanck was born on 6 March 1889 in Frankenthal, Germany.

In 1944 he made a documentary about the sculptor Arno Breker called Arno Breker – Harte Zeit, starke Kunst. After World War II, Fanck's main films made during the regime were proscribed by the Allied military governments. Fanck received no further job offers and went to work as a lumberjack.

After the screening of his film The Eternal Dream at the mountain film festival in Trento in 1957, Fanck was once again recognized for his artistic achievements. In order to survive his economic difficulties, however, he was forced to sell the rights to his films to a friend, until TV broadcasts improved his situation.

Fanck died on 28 September 1974 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, at the age of 85. He is buried in the Hauptfriedhof in Freiburg.

Filmography (1920, documentary) (1921) Das Wunder des Schneeschuhs, 2. Teil – Eine Fuchsjagd auf Skiern durchs Engadin (1922) Pömperlys Kampf mit dem Schneeschuh (co-director: Holger-Madsen, 1922) Mountain of Destiny (1924) (1924, short documentary) Die weiße Kunst (dir. Sepp Allgeier, 1925, documentary) The Holy Mountain (1926) The Great Leap (1927) Struggle for the Matterhorn (dir. Mario Bonnard and Nunzio Malasomma, 1928), co-wrote The White Stadium (1928, documentary) Milak, the Greenland Hunter (dir. Georg Asagaroff and , 1928) The White Hell of Pitz Palu (co-director: G. W. Pabst, 1929) Storm over Mont Blanc (1930) The White Ecstasy (1931) S.O.S. Eisberg (1933) North Pole, Ahoy (dir. Andrew Marton, 1934) Die Seehunde (1934, short) The Eternal Dream (1934) The Daughter of the Samurai (1937) Winterreise durch Südmandschurien (1938, short documentary) Kaiserbauten in Fernost (1938, short documentary) Hänschen Klein (1938, short) A German Robinson Crusoe (1940) Kampf um den Berg (1941, short) (1943, short documentary) (1944, short documentary) Atlantik-Wall (1944, short documentary)

Retrospective films In Eis und Schnee – Der Filmregisseur Arnold Fanck (1997) directed by Hans-Jürgen Panitz Zwischen weißem Rausch und Abgrund: Über Arnold Fanck, den Extremregisseur (1998) directed by Andreas Berg