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-Karel Zeman
-Inspirace
-1949 Loutkovy Film
-inspired by a bet about the impossibility of animating glass figurines (accomplished by re-meltings to re-position)
-inspiration for visuals from Walt Disney's Fantasia "Waltz of the Flowers" sequence
-story of a glass artist imagining his creation's adventures in a water droplet |
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-Karel Zeman
-Vynalez Zkazy/The Fabulous World of Jules Verne
-1958 (Ceskoslovenský Státní Film)
–based on the Jules Verne novel Face au Drapeau/Facing the Flag (1896) -a combination of live-action with special effects stop motion
-use of miniature models in a fish tank for undersea scenes, forced perspective camera angles to enlarge objects; studio sets with lines to resemble 19th-century book engravings; actors also moved in stylized ways to resemble poses in illustrated novels; black and white photography to further reinforce this effect, story a composite of several Jules Verne novels including 20,000 Leagues under the Sea |
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-Hermina Tyrlova
-Ferda Mravenec/Ferda the Ant (1941, Bata Studios)
-based on Ondrej Sekora’s popular children’s book and comic strip character, the Czech (and to a lesser extent) European equivalent of Mickey Mouse (popular in the 1930s-1950s, revived 1980s and again in the 2010s)
-stories center on co-operation between Ferda and his friends to achieve a goal; the first story – Ferda the Ant – paralleled Sekora’s difficulties at the time (his and his wife’s imprisonment by the Nazis)
-first use of wire-frame puppets in Czech animation, similar to Jiri Trnka made her puppets herself, with knowledge from her father (a maker of wooden figurines) |
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-Jiri Trnka
-“Ruka/The Hand” (1965, Kratky Film, Prague)
–use of hand and wood puppet animation; wooden puppets fabricated by Trnka; regards puppets as similar to sculptures; therefore face does not change; lighting; body attitude; and motion convey emotion; personal film – an allegory from his script |
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-Bretislav Pojar
-“Balablok” (1972, National Film Board, Canada)
–use of cut paper animation with geometric characters (abstraction characteristic of NFB)(departure from the media – from puppet to cut paper and from the style
– from vaguely medieval or Renaissance style to abstract modern – and from the tone – from serious to humorous – of his Czech animations |
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-Jan Svankmajer
-“Dialog vecny/Eternal Conversation” “Moznosti Dialogue/Dimensions of Dialogue” (Kratky Film, 1983)
–among first films after his seven-year ban (due to disagreement of Communist censors with the content and aesthetics of his earlier animations)
-use of object animation to reference his concepts of animism (all objects effectively embody/contain a spirit) and of decay (the progressive disintegration of the individual objects in the heads into clay); the concept of the standardization resulting from dialogues (with each of the remaining heads identical)
-reference in the visual design to Czech Mannerist artist Arcimboldo |
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-Vlasta Pospisilova
-“Az opada listi z dubu/When the Leaves Fall from the Oak” segment (1991) for Fimfarum (2003)(Kratky Film)(Fimfarum – MAUR Film, Ceska Televize)
–basis in the Jan Werich young adult & adult fairy tales book Fimfarum
-popular in Czechoslovakia
-anti-substance abuse theme (here alcohol); deal-with-the devil story (with a happy ending, with the devil tricked by a contract with a specific clause
-the soul can be taken when the leaves fall from the oak – presumably the autumn – but oaks do not loose there leaves in Czechoslovakia)
-whimsical style for the figures & backgrounds |
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-Jiri Barta
-Krysar/The Pied Piper (1986, Kratky Film)
-basis in Victor Dyk’s Krysar (1911-1912), a re-telling of “The Pied Piper” legend with an emphasis on the love between the Piper & a young woman
-author Czech nationalist before WWI, in opposition to the Austro-Hungarian Empire its imposition of German culture & language on Czech writers & artists
-use of German Expressionist style and German Renaissance medium (wood) for puppets
-derivation of backgrounds & lighting with their skewed angles & dark shadows from German Expressionist films, especially The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari |
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-Vaclav Svankmajer
-“Svetlonos/The Torchbearer”(2005, Bionaut Films, FAMU)
-an allegorical story about a hero who re-starts the cycle of night and day by fighting his way through a maze (against living female statues) to assume a throne (and his death, his blood animates a heart)
-story intended to have similarities both to video games (with a constant conflict against obstacles to reach a goal) and also heroic myths (e.g. Hercules, Theseus)
-5 years of production in father’s studio (Athanor) and released to acclaim, with subsequent absence from animation |
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-Aurel Klimt
-Laika (2017, Studio Zvon) 6-year production with small (4-6 animator) staff in his studio, small budget 2,000,000 approximately from the Czech government
-2,000,000 for post-production from Kickstarter; re-imagining of the story of Laika, the first animal in space (launched by the Russians, acclaimed a hero, actually never returned to earth and survived only briefly in space (the true history only revealed after the collapse of Communism)
-here Laika and animal astronauts from other countries crash land on a planet with aliens and establish a peaceful co-existence with them
-this idyll is disturbed by the advent (through crash landing ) of a Russian cosmonaut and an American cowboy astronaut
-both attempt to establish control over the land and to exploit its resources
-the aliens and the earth animals eventually vanquish both; due to its criticism of Russian and American imperialism it did not gain an international audience
-however, its message is more applicable to the Eastern & Western European countries formerly in the U.S. or Soviet blocks |
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