Lotte Eisner on AllMovie

In 1927, Lotte Eisner became Germany's first renowned film critic. Her first book, The Haunted Screen, about German Expressionist cinema, came out in 1952. She has also published books about F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. Prior to that, she had studied archeology, art history, and had then become a film critic dealing with famed directors such as Fritz Lang, G.W. Pabst, and Sergei Eisenstein. She fled Germany in 1933 and moved to Paris where she became a contributor for several journals, but also spent a few months in a concentration camp. In 1945, she became chief curator of the Cinematheque Francais, headed by her long-time friend Henri Langlois. There the two saved thousands of films and arranged retrospective programs, festivals, exhibitions, and collections. She also published essays in Revue du cinema. She worked there until 1975.