Czechoslovakian Animation

5/21/2018 Czechoslovakian Animation

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The Czechoslovak Animated FilmAuthor(s): Harriet R. PoltSource: Film Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Spring, 1964), pp. 31-40Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1210908

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Images produced by Risdonwith his electronic system.extraordinaryimages can be seen elsewhere.However, he thinks of the experiences as the-atrical in the large sense-indeed some of hispieces are "performed":varied and structuredin the playing. Understandably, perhaps, hedoes not seem anxious to can them for ordi-nary distribution.After Allures, or an evening of Risdon'selectronic images, one comes away feeling

that action-painting, pop art, and the othcliches with which painters have been cocerning themselves, are quaint artifacts of aage before we were born-pleasant in thehomey way, like a kerosene lamp, but no loger relevant. What Antonioni is to the dramic narrative film, these weird, unsettling imges are to the abstract film. Their influenwill spread far through the animated films the future.

HARRIET.POThe Czechoslovak Animated FilmDuring the summer of 1963, Miss Polt, who was borin Czechoslovakia, paid an extended visit to Czechoslovak animationstudios; this formed the basis of the following

study of a notable national tradition in the genreCzechoslovak animated films have won numerous fes-tival prizes and have long been recognized, especiallyin Europe, as among the world's outstanding exam-ples of this neglected form of the film art. The filmsmade during the last several years point to furtherdevelopment and will be discussed at some length

later in this article. It is helpful first, however,give a few definitions and a brief summary of Czecanimated films from 1945 until the late 'fifties.

In the United States, the word "animation" is trditionally used to refer only to drawn animation anis virtually synonymous with "cartoon." In Europ


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32the terminology is different and a word of explana-tion is in order. The French term cindma d'animationincludes not only drawn animation,but also puppetand object animation, as well as the animation ofphotographs(here called photo-animation)and paint-ings, and various other techniques of film-makingsuch as painting designs directly on the film (as inNorman McLaren'swork). The tetm, in other words,covers everything that is not live action.1 In Germanand in Czech, the term "animation"in our sensedoes not exist at all. Instead, all of the categories offilms incuded in the French term cindma d'animationare covered by the words trick film. In this article weshall therefore consider not only drawn animation butalso puppet, silhouette, painting, and photo-anima-tion.The Czechs were making cartoons as early as the'20's; however the real development of the industrydid not begin until just after World War II. At thistime the "Trick Brothers" studio, whose symbol,three little men in striped jerseys, was to mark theopening of many noteworthy cartoons,was developedby a small group of animatorswho had been makingadvertising cartoons during the war. Jiri Trnka wasput in charge of the studio. In the first two years ofthe Trick Brothersperiod, before he went over to thePuppet Film Studio, Trnka made a number of car-toons- GrandfatherPlants a Beet, The Animals andthe Brigands, The Gift, and Springheeled Jack. Ofthese cartoons, The Gift is particularly significantforthe modernity and stylization of its design-the fig-ures' legs ending not in feet but in points, the wav-ing hair of the artist-as well as for the subtlety ofits story line. The Gift has as its characterspeopleinstead of animals (for a change), and its situationis, while fantastic, not grotesque. It is, according toJ.-P. Coursodon,"somewhat the Citizen Kane of ani-mation."2SpringheeledJack (1946) was one of thefirst cartoons to use a backgroundconsisting of actualphotographs(scenes of Prague streets, in this case),against which the rounded, ghostlike figure of thehero and those of angular goose-steppingSS-men areparticularly ffective.Other important early cartoons were Atom at theCrossroadsby Cenek Duba, The Angel's Coat di-rected by Eduard Hofman and written by Jiri Brdec-

aLI. . .. . . ....

Brdecka's How MAN LEARNEDTO FLY.ka, Dirigible and Love with script and direction byBrdecka;and The MillionaireWho Stole the Sun, byZdenekMilerin an unusual"sketched" tyle.The early '50's, a time of political oppressionandartistic sterility in Czechoslovakia,produced few car-toons of value; the next productive period beganaround 1957 with such films as Zdenek Miler's Howthe Mole Got His Trousers;and Moontale, especiallynoteworthy for its clever use of collage materials-spangles, cut-outs, etc. Jiri Brdecka produced twogood pictures also: Before Man Learned to Fly, ahalf-comic, half-serious film using old newsreels andanimated engravings;and Attention with designs byZdenek Seydl. Brdecka collaborated with BretislavPojar on Bomb-Mania,for which Trnka did the de-signing. The Creation of the World by Eduard Hof-man is a full-lengthcomic version of Genesis (thoughacclaimed at Venice, the film was damned by theVatican). In Frantisek Vystrcil's A Place in the Sunwe find a line-drawingcartoon, somewhat reminiscentof early UPA style, satirizing two men's greed for alittle spot of sunshine.Perhaps better known are the Czech puppet filmsof the period 1945-1960. The Czechoslovak puppetfilm derives from a long tradition of puppet theater,reaching back as far as the 18th century. Jiri Trnka,best-knownof the puppet-film-makers,imself workedwith the famous Czech puppeteer Josef Skupa beforethe war. In explanationof the Czech interest in pup-pets, Trnkahas said: "The Czech artists have alwayslooked for the world's reality not in size but ratherin depth, not on the high mountains, but in the

1Another French term is the film image-par-image-implying he technique of frame-by-frame xposure.Thiswould leave out a film of hand puppets in action,for example,and also McLaren'sworks drawndirectlyon filmwithout usual frameboundariesor separateexposures,as well as the new electronictechniques.2J.-P. Coursodon, "Jiri Trnka: Cindaste par Excellence," Cinima 60, no. 44, 1960, p. 100.


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ANIMATIONwoods, the rivers, in the songs of birds and of younggirls, in the sorrows and joys of children-it is in theseplaces also that we find reality. Perhaps it is for thisreason that we love puppets, because in this smallestof worlds we attempt to express everything aboutlife, about beauty and about love . . ."3 Robert Bena-youn puts it less poetically: "Among the Czechs, styli-zation is not a moralizing postulate, but rather amatter of natural selection. Czechoslovakia is thecradle of European marionettes."4Three big names stand out in the Czech puppetfilm from 1945 to the present. First there is Trnka.Not less important is Karel Zeman, and coming intohis own somewhat later is Bretislav Pojar.Trnka's first puppet film, made in 1947, was TheCzech Year (Spalicek), a full-length film consistingof six episodes illustrating old customs, sayings, andfolksongs of the Czechoslovak people. The film has ascope and a maturity no animator had previouslyattempted. The puppets are highly stylized, withround heads and huge eyes. Their movements approx-imate, without trying to imitate, those of "real"people and achieve for the film a lyrical rhythmquite new to animation. The music for The CzechYear, composed, as in many of Trnka's later films, byVaclav Trojan, is one of the most appealing parts ofthe film. Unfortunately the existing prints, like thoseof many Czech films of this period, are badly faded:they were made in Agfacolor, which in time hasbecome dull and brownish.

Trnka produced at least one film every year be-tween 1947 and 1950, of which, for lack of space, Ishall mention only two. The Song of the Prairie wasa parody of a Western, with excellent music by JanRychlik-and with one puppet exactly resemblingTrnka himself, of which Trnka said, "This is mycontribution to Socialist Realism." In Baiaia, a full-lenth romantic fairy-tale, the puppets assume muchmore personality than those of The Czech Year.Trnka followed with Old Czech Legends in 1953,again with music by Trojan. In this film, the puppetstake on a statuesque quality entirely divorced fromthe caricaturistic type common to most animatedfilms. Several episodes from the modern Czech classic

The Good Soldier Schweik appeared in 1954-1955.Here, for the first time, Trnka let his puppets speak:in previous films he hid relied solely on music or ona spoken commentary. In 1959, with A MidsummerNight's Dream, Trnka returned to the spoken commentary. In this highly decorative version of theShakespeare play (with music again by Trojan),Trnka uses puppets of all sorts, from the simplistic,round-headed, bulb-nosed figures of the artisans (sim-ilar to the puppets of The Czech Year) to the dignified, life-like figure of Theseus. Speech is indeed nonecessary: the movements of the puppets take theplace of speech, and the commentary is fully adequate to inform us of what is going on.Karel Zeman's career is more varied than that oTrnka. His Christmas Dream in 1946 was the firs

IN

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The big three of Czechoslovakanimationtop, Trnkaand Poiar; bottom, Zeman

SQuoted in Paris-Prague, no. 11-12, December, 1961,pp. 12-13.4Robert Benayoun, Le Dessin Anime apres WaltDisney, p. 15. What Benayoun seems to mean is thatstylization is a competitive tradition with the Czech-oslovaks, rather than a purposefully assumed mannerof saying or showing something.


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34 ANIMATpuppet film to be made at the newly establishedpuppet film studio. This film was followed by a seriesfeaturing Mr. Prokouk, a mustachioed little man, thepersonification of middle-class mediocrity. In 1947came Inspiration, a tour de force in which Zemananimated glass figurines. Though this film's fancyseems a bit dated now, one can't help admiring itstechnical virtuosity: for each frame, each figurinehad to be heated and re-shaped. The last of Zeman'smore important conventional puppet films was TheTreasure of Bird Island, a dramatization of a Persianfairy-tale. Here, Zeman innovated by combining pup-pets with drawn animation.With A Journey into Prehistoric Times in 1955,Zeman began the series of fantastic half-live, half-animated films for which he is best known here.Combining puppets, large mock-ups, and photographswith live action, Zeman achieved results of a muchhigher artistic value than those of the average sci-ence-fiction or monster film. The startling quality ofZeman's films is due not to their plaster monsters butto their technique-the image is that of the story-book illustration come to life. Zeman perfected hismethod in The Diabolical Invention (sometimescalled An Invention of Destruction or The DeadlyInvention). In this film, based on a story by JulesVerne, Zeman was inspired by the drawings of Gus-taveorM, which he animated into the film, againcombining them with live-action, of course, puppets,and various ingenious trick techniques. The striatedeffect of the animated engravings is carried out inthe costumes of the actors, thus eliminating the senseof "real" characters in "fake" settings. Reinold E.Thiel refers to the "alienation techniques" (Verfrem-dungseffeckte) with which Zeman presents contempo-rary prollems in antique guise (The Diabolical In-vention deals with a terribly powerful explosivewhich falls into the hands of pirates).5 BaronMunchhausen, made in 1959, made use of the sametechniques but with the added complication of color.Shot in black and white, the film was later colored inthe laboratory, not in a realistic but rather in animpressionistic way, the mood of each scene being setby one predominating color.Bretislav Pojar, youngest of the big three, workedfor many years with Trnka before going on his ownas a director of puppet films. From 1945 to 1947 heworked in Trnka's studio as an animator. For thenext ten years he continued to collaborate withTrnka, though he began directing himself (Hanseland Gretel) as early as 1951. Pojar animated indi-

vidual puppets in such Trnka films as The CzYear, The Emperor's Nightingale, Bajaja, Old CzLegends, and others.

Though Polar's career as a director began in 19it was 1954 before he made his next film, A DToo Much, the story of a motorcyclist whose overdulgence brings him to an unhappy end. Then caa series of pictures with Spejbl and Hurvinek, trational puppet figures beloved by Czech theater auences. Polar's first major film, which won himGrand Prize at the Annecy animation festival, wThe Lion and the Song (1959). In this picture,hungry lion devours a wandering harlequin and accordion and goes through the desert with mucoming from his insides until his death; after whanother wanderer picks up the accordion fromlion's skeleton and continues along in the desert. Tpuppets for this film, like the puppets and designsmany other films by Pojar and Trnka, were madeZdenek Seydl. The lion, though comic at times, mages to be ferocious also-one of the few figuresanimation that does.

Of the remaining directors of puppet films-abou12 in all-the most important is Hermina Tyrlowho made her first film, Ferdinand the Ant, in 194Since then she has made many children's puppfilms, which we will not deal with in the presearticle. Others worthy of mention are Jan KarpStanislav Latal, and Josef Kluge, a disciplePojar's.

Before discussing new films and current projectsspecific directors, it would be helpful to give a geral view of the animation industry in Czechoslvakia. The average yearly output is 8 drawn andpuppet films. These are produced in several studin Prague and Gottwaldov-Kresleny Film stud(animation) and Loutkovy Film (puppets) wbranches headed by Trnka and by Pojar, allPrague, and the studios in the city of GottwaldovMoravia, where Zeman and Tyrlova work.

The setup of the animation studios is somewhdifferent from that common in the United States,that a group of 20 to 40 people works for all tdirectors; that is to say, no one director has his owpersonal group of animators.Czech animation artists are required to completefive-year course at the Prague School of Fine ArSince the schools and colleges in Czechoslovakia aresponsible not only for the education but also fthe future employment of their students, they admonly as many students as will foreseeably be ableget jobs upon graduation. Admission to the animatioReinold E. Thiel, Puppe und Zeichenfilm, p. 21.


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ANIMATIONschool is by examination, and places in the depart-ment are hotly competed for, only about 20 studentsbeing admitted per year. Of these, 5 to 15 may beexpected to finish the course, and these graduatesareguaranteed employment in one of the studios. Thus,unlike their Hollywood counterparts,Czech animatorsnever find themselves unemployed. Guaranteed em-ployment, however, has built-in drawbacks:since thestudios have to be kept busy at all times, they aresometimes forced to occupy themselveswith mediocrefilmsjust in orderto keep their crewsworking.One director who has made his reputation fairlyrecently is VladimirLehky. Lehky likes to use a verysimple style of drawing, imitating in at least two ofhis films (Three Men Fishing and ZuzankaLearns toWrite) the style and coloring of children's drawings.In The Parasite (1961) he uses a somewhat moresophisticatedbut equally simple form of stick-figures.Here, Lehky innovates in projectingthe story of eachof his two main characters on a different screen, inthe manner of Polyecran, a multiple-screen experi-mental cinema developed in Czechoslovakia someyears ago. (The Parasite, like certain other cartoons,has what might be considered a didactic party-lineplot: it can without much strainingbe interpretedtodepict the downfall of capitalism.Not a new artist, but one who has come into newprominence at this past year's Annecy festival, isVaclav Bedrich, who showed two films made in thepast year, Forty Grandfathersand The Last Shot.The latter is a satire of the ever-popularclassicalWestern; the former, more original in style andrather more charming, is based on a fairy-tale of anold man who, to his wife's great distress, is suddenlymultiplied nto 40 old men.Zdenek Miler's The Red Stain, also shown at An-ecy, repeats the sketching technique of his earlierThe MillionaireWho Stole the Sun. Miler's films arerich in atmosphere,and his style, at least in his lasttwo films, is unmistakeable.He uses few in-betweens-that is, the movements of characters, growth ofplants, etc., are large and abruptrather than gradual.The static, pictorial quality of the individual draw-ings is thus emphasized rather than the motion fromone to the next. Black and white with shades of grayare the main colors; but red is used for the flowerswhich grow up from the blood of the man killedprotesting military build-up. (Like The Millionaire,The Red Stain is a film with a "message.") In TheRichest Sparrow, made in 1961, Miler tells a chil-dren'sfable teaching the dangersof greed.The Grand Prize at Annecy in 1963 went to Jiri

Lehky's THE PARASITBrdecka for his film Gallina Vogelbirdae (which alsshowed in the San Francisco Festival this yearBrdecka started out just before the war as a newpaper cartoonist but turned to animation in 1946writing the scenarios for SpringheeledJack, The Angel's Coat, Dirigible and Love, and Bomb-Mania,awell as for a few live-action films, and directinBefore Man Learned to Fly, all before 1960. Sincthen he has made Man Under Water, again a sericomic "history,"using a combinationof pure animtion and animated engravings; The TelevisioFan, a children's film; Attention , a film relating thhistory of weapons and armamentswith an impliewarning against war; Reason and Emotion, a rathlong, ballet-like fantasy showing the struggle aneventual reconciliation between man's rational anhis emotional tendencies; and Gallina. In all ththree last-mentionedfilms, the artistic direction is bZdenek Seydl, who has also worked with Pojar anHofman. Seydl's figures are always highly elaboraand baroque; it is impossible to miss his touch, anthe touch can sometimes be too heavy. Reason anEmotion, for example, suffers from Seydl's figure othe harlequin (representing Emotion), which seemto me overly formalized and stiff: the "emotionwhich he represents consists too much of prancin

Brdecka's GALLINA VOGELBIRDAE

bz?'T.`7


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36: ANIMATImovements and rococo decor. Although the film wonthe first prize for short films at Mar de Plata in1962, it has not been very popular.In Gallina on the other hand, the touch of Seydlis less evident. The film concerns a little boy who, tohis teacher's distress, draws a cubistic version of theclass drawing assignment, a chicken. (This figure ofthe hen is the only part of the film that Seydl de-signed.) Our hero's hen, however, comes alive andbecomes a rarity for ornithologists, while the conven-tionally drawn chicken of the teacher's pet, the hero'srival, remains statically on its piece of paper. Theideological aspect of the film-its defense of individ-ualism and modernism-certainly played a part inthe film's winning the Annecy prize.At present, Brdecka, a vigorous, stocky man ofaround 40, is working on several projects, includingco-directing (with Oldrich Lipsky) a live action par-ody of a Western. Entitled Lemonade Joe, the filmwill be in part a musical. In the musical number,Brdecka will insert animated backgrounds using acollage technique in nineteenth century "western"style. "Just filming a singer singing is static," saysBrdecka. "The animation will give more movement tothe film." Lemonade Joe is being filmed in black andwhite but will be colored in the laboratory-as wasZeman's Baron Munchhausen-in a stylized manner,with experiments in color juxtaposition.Brdecka has not given up animation, and is cur-rently at work on two cartoons, one a short filmabout harmful methods of dieting and the necessityof consulting a doctor before embarking on a diet,the other a lyrical piece based on medieval songs.This film will be called Love and will have twoparts: the first, now in production, represents thehappy side of love and is based on a Czech song.The second part, showing the tragic side of love, willbe based on the French ballad, Le Roi Renaud.Brdecka confesses that he is a little tired of conven-tional animation. In Love he is using paintings in-stead-by a different painter for each half of thefilm. The paintings will not be, strictly speaking,animated; the movement will be in the photographyand in the editing rather than in what is beingphotographed.In the area of the puppet film, we find the OldMaster, Jiri Trnka, currently doing book illustrationsinstead, for which he is almost as famous as for hisfilms. Since Midsummer Night's Dream, Trnka hasmade only two films, both of them short-Obsessionin 1961, and Cybernetic Grandmother in 1962. Be-cause of the difficulty of sustaining interest in longer

animated films, Trnka has decided to limit himself tofilms of a maximum length of 45 minutes. Trnkalimits himself also to subjects in which he is able toexploit his already developed, techniques and give hiskind of puppets new opportunities for showing whatthey can do. One can observe a steady developmentin the films of Trnka; but it is not a developmentthrough experimentation: it is more like a straightpath leading from The Czech Year to CyberneticGrandmother, a development based on the expressivepossibilities of the three-dimensional puppet. Whenhe has no new ideas for this medium, Trnka prefers towork in other media and give puppets a rest.His last two films, while dealing with modern sub-ject-matter, retain his unmistakeable touch. Obsessionis a little film about a man who, from infancy, isinfatuated with speed. Repeated sojourns in the hos-pital do not dissuade him from trying to outdistanceeverything else on the road; and finally even his soulgoes speeding into the 'other world.

Cybernetic Grandmother is a more original film. Ina rather long prologue, a little girl and her oldpeasant grandmother, both very appealing puppets,travel together and finally take their leave as thelittle girl steps into a bubble and is transported toanother planet. There a second grandmother awaitsher, but this one-the cybernetic grandmother-is amachine on wheels. She tries, by coaxing, wheedling,and scolding, to win the little girl's affection; but thelittle girl ends up back on earth with the familiarityof human emotions.

The film suffers from a superfluity of talk, but itshighly effective backgrounds, depicting a world ofthe future both tempting and terrifying, and its mod-ern musical accompaniment, as well as the charm ofThe Theseus puppet from Trnka's A MIDSUMMERNIGHT'S DREAM

AL.1


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ANIMATIONthe puppets themselves, make it one of the mostinteresting of Trnka's films. It is a satire of modernlife, of hyperorganization, above all of the dehumani-zation of human relations. Trnka's approach is al-ways, conservative, his theme always the value of thetraditional ways of life, of old customs, of humanaffection. As Andre Martin writes in Cahiers du Cin-ema: "(Trnka's) cartoons, his books and his puppetfilms do not attempt to overwhelm the attention ofthe spectators. They never try to surprise, irritate,force, dazzle, or impose an emotion, but on the con-trary to comfort and relax the spirit."6 A characteris-tic of Trnka's films, as opposed to Pojar's, is theslowness of their movement, the statuesque quality ofthe puppets and the "staticness" of their action. Theclimactic scenes are always static. In explanation ofthis, Trnka has stated: ". . the very nature of car-toon [i.e., drawn] figures calls for continual motion:it is not possible to bring them into a state of contem-plation. All this, of course, limits the creative possibili-ties of cartoons . . ."7 Still the question persists, espe-cially among those accustomed only to Hollywoodstyles of animation (both UPA and Disney), what isthe use of making puppet films? Why, after all, exertso much effort in making imitations of people imitatethe actions of people? The answer, of course, is thatthe puppets are not meant to imitate people, nor aretheir actions made to imitate literally those of liveactors. As in drawn animation, the movement of pup-pets is stylized movement, which can be exaggeratedor curtailed to heighten or suppress various essentials(or non-essentials) of action. Nor are the plots of pup-pet films those used in live-action films (note, for in-stance, the embarrassment which usually accompaniesproductions of Midsummer Night's Dream). Trnkahas said: ".... Puppet films stand on their own feetonly when they are outside the scope of live-actionfilms-when the stylization of the scenery, the artifi-cially heroic look of the human actors, and the lyri-cal content of the theme might easily produce aneffect both unconvincing and ludicrous or even pain-ful."8

The advantages which puppet animation has overdrawn animation, and the reasons for which Trnka

p.MW

Zeman's DIABOLICAL INVENTION.

seems to have abandoned the latter altogether, arseveral. First, puppet animation goes through fewerhands than drawn animation: there are never dozenof artists carrying through dozens of processes athere are in a drawing studio. The director thus hamuch more direct control. Second, drawn animationseems to lend itself primarily to caricature, whilepuppet animation is capable of either caricature olyricism. And third, the three-dimensionality of puppets enables the director to use depth and light anto give his films a greater sense of physical spacthan that possible in drawn films.9Karel Zeman, like Trnka, is the perfector ofmethod, and is constantly in search of new themethrough which to exploit it. Zeman's method iscombination of live action, animation, and puppetsHe composes some scenes of three separate elements-puppets, photographed backgrounds, and livaction. These are combined directly by the cameramuch as the backgrounds and figures of normal anmation are combined in the process of being photographed. For his interiors, Zeman often uses smaldrawn scenes which are placed near the camera so ato appear large. A small area or corner of the scenwill be cut away, and through this the actual scenand the live actors will be photographed.At the studios in Gottwaldov, Zeman is currentlyat work on a new film, provisionally entitled ThTwo Musketeers. Zeman calls it a "pseudo-historical"film. Its action takes place during the Thirty YearsWar and its theme is antimilitaristic and antiheroicThe hero, a young man in search of home, love, anfamily, finds himself suddenly forced to be a soldierin the middle of war he yearns for love.The Two Musketeers is also being shot in blackand white and will be colored later in the lab. Unlike the other films, however, the new film is no

6Andrb Martin, "Pour qui sont ces Trnka?", Cahiersdu Cinima, Volume XVIII, no. 105, March 1960 p.26.7In the Czech periodical Film, Vol. VIII, no. 6, asquoted in John Halas and Roger Manvell, The Tech-nique of Film Animation, pp. 264 and 273.slbid. 9Martin, op. cit., pp. 27-28.


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38using drawings but rather photographs-photographs,however, of drawings. The inspiration comes fromthe engravings of an artist called Merian who livedduring the time of the Thirty Years' War, wanderingfrom place to place and making engravings of battlescenes. Greatly enlarged photographs of these draw-ings, as well as of old maps, are being used for thebackgrounds of the film; yet the perspectives, Zemanpoints out, will be those of drawing, not of photogra-phy.Another innovation in the current Zeman film isthat no actual puppets are being used. Instead,Zeman is animating reduced-size photographs, whichhe prefers because of their more "real" quality.While I was in Gottwaldov last summer, Zemanwas just shooting an exterior on the hill above thestudio. The camera was set on a platform, on whichZeman, his cameraman, and a couple of assistants,all in shirt-sleeves or shirtless, worked. A script-girlin a bikini sat below the platform. Dozens of chil-dren provided an audience, dividing their interestbetween the action and the few spare horses aroundthe set. Erected on a rather flimsy scaffolding in frontof the camera was an enlarged photograph of adrawing of a castle, with two wing-like projections(representing the sides of a road leading to the cas-tle) coming out of its gates. The space between theseprojections was cut away, and in the grassy space leftfree, the actors on their horses and in their carriagesgalloped from a tent-studded distance towards thecamera. The resulting scene will thus portray charac-ters emerging from the castle gates and gallopingdown the road towards the cinema audience. Thisscene was shot several times, the actors bearing upwell in the heat under their heavy costumes. Noactual animation work was being done at the time,since the summer months are usually saved for exter-ior shots.

I was able to visit Bretislav Pojar's studio justbefore it closed down for vacations. Prague wassteaming hot, and the staff were appropriatelydressed in bathing suits. Pojar himself is a husky,young forty; the rest of the entourage are perhapseven younger. The staff includes, among others,Milena Novotna, who makes the puppets' costumesout of bits of fabric, leather, and whatever elsecomes to hand, often having to make a new costumewhen the original one gets dirty in the process ofanimation; Mr. and Mrs. Prochazka, who both doanimation; Vladimir Malik, Josef Kluge; and twocats, whose function is to keep the mice down. (Dur-ing the filming of The Lion and the Song, mice

IN-

Poiar's ATTENTIONcaused a problem by getting into the grain that wasbeing used to represent the desert. Since that time,cats have been part of the staff.) The studio itselfcontains the comfortable clutter of work in progress.Nonobjective paintings hang on the walls, and afriendly, relaxed atmosphere prevails.

While I was there, the group was in the process ofmaking a short commercial, and the backgrounds forThe Ideal, a puppet film about a sort of CzechBabbitt and his changing ideals from childhood tomaturity. Pojar has been very busy since his successwith The Lion and the Song in 1959: in the same yearhe made How to Furnish an Apartment, in the nextyear three films, Midnight Adventure and the first twofilms in a series of three short films about cats: ACat's Word and The Artist and the Kittens. In 1961came the third in the series, School for Cats. Thesethree films are combined forms with the mime Ladis-lay Fialka playing a live role, that of a kindly paint-er who adopts the mischievous kittens, which arerepresented by paper cut-outs. An amusing interplayis created between the artist and his paintings-

Poiar's ROMANCE.

Mil..... tip00010 . ...........A qf1f,

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ANIMATIONlargely done on a glass plate-and the messes thekittens make of the paintings. Polar's last three filmshave been straight puppet films: Billiards and TheOrator in 1962, and Romance in 1963.

As previously mentioned, Pojar began his work inpuppet films with Trnka. Later, when he began todirect on his own, he had his puppets designed byZdenek Seydl. But Seydl's own personality and stylewere so strong that Pojar's own ideas were sub-merged. In his recent films, therefore, Pojar has beendesigning his own puppets, allowing himself greatfreedom to experiment with various materials andtechniques.The standard type of puppet, which Pojar, likeTrnka and other directors, has used in many of hisfilms, is based on a wood body with ball-hingedjoints. This body is covered with a rubber material,over which the clothes are put on. Often one puppetwill have various heads to represent different facialexpressions; or if only a slight change in expression isneeded, the face will simply be repainted. Thesepuppets are filmed standing erect on their bases, towhich their feet are screwed.A different type of puppet, invented by JanDudeska but developed by Pojar in his last severalfilms, is the relief puppet. These puppets are flat inback and are laid on their backgrounds (instead ofbeing stood up against them) or on glass. To keepthe figures stable, lead weights are used as backing.The bodies are made of cork or plastic sponge.Heads as well as props, such as dishes, food, or smallpieces of furniture, are made of an artificial sub-stance called Modurit, a white clay-like materialwhich is easily sculpted and then cooked for hard-ness. Unfortunately the Modurit lasts only about twomonths after cooking. Limbs are made of rubber-covered wire. Both heads and limbs are removable,being stuck to the main body piece with brads orpins. This movability makes the puppets highly flexi-ble and expressive. In Pojar's finished films one no-tices the stylization of his method-for instance in theparticularly effective opening of Romance, in whichdisembodied feet, arms, and legs appear, gradually"finding" each other to compose a person-but neveris one aware of the fact that the puppets are notfully three-dimensional.The process of animating puppets, both at Pojar'sstudio and at the others, is a painstaking one. Sincetwenty-four frames go to make up each second offinished film, a good day's work might be nine sec-onds of film. For each frame, every puppet in thescene, as well as any moving bit of prop or back-

ground, has to be separately and minutely moved.in the rushes it becomes clear that some movementnot right, the whole sequence has to be done ofrom the beginning. In drawn animation, the procof re-shooting is facilitated by the use of animatsheets, which are an index to the positions offigures at certain given points in the film. Pupanimation-especially when conventional puppetsused-being three-dimensional obviously makesuse of such two-dimensional indices impossible.Where is the Czechoslovak school heading?can observe certain clear tendencies, of whichmajor one is the trend towards mixed forms. Tmost notable exception in this trend is Jiri Trnbut both Zeman and Pojar, as well as some oflesser-known directors, are turning more and moremixtures-animation and live action, drawn animtion combined with puppets, and so forth. Pojseries of cat films is a good example. Experimentatiin general, as in Lehky's multi-screened The Parasis more in evidence than it is in the typical Howood cartoon.

As to themes and subjects, it is harder to generize. A number of films, such as Miler's The RStain and Brdecka's Attention have as their subjthe dangers of war-but then so do recent cartofrom the United States, from Yugoslavia, and frWest Germany. Much in evidence are didactic filboth for children and for adults-films stressingvalue of cooperation, the evil of greed, and so forPeriodically the government issues directives to fimakers urging them to use more topical or politimaterial. Yet one finds in Czechoslovakia as mafilms as anywhere else of a purely entertainingpurely artistic nature. Certainly most of Zeman'sfilms, as well as most of Polar's and manyBrdecka's, are totally lacking in party or politiovertones. 10

Perhaps indeed this helps account for the fact tCzech animation directors find themselves in a ption as thankless as animators in the United Staand elsewhere. Aside from Trnka, who was recennamed a National Artist, the highest honorany Czech artist, the directors of animation filmsrelatively unknown to the Czech public. Some yeago, a number of theaters presented, with goodsults, programs consisting solely of cartoons. But some reason these programs were discontinued, anow, as before and as elsewhere in the world,cartoons are shown only as "appetizers" to the mfeature, and receive little if any notice on billboaror in newspaper reviews.


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MOONTALE.

Yet Czech animation has "got something," a some.thing which has won it a good deal of acclaim.Perhaps a large part of it is Czech humor, whichdiffers markedly from American and British humor.Czech humor is often satirical; but when it is notsatirical, it tends to be whimsical, even a bit senti-mental. In Trnka's early puppet films, for example,we readily observe a kind of sentimentality, blendedwith a national pride which is more fond than fierce(Czech nationalism of course predates the Commu-nist regime). His favorite figures, such as the oldpeasant grandmother in Cybernetic Grandmother, areall warm, simple, and earthy.Sadism and cruelty are noticeably lacking in Czechhumor. In Pojar's Cat's Word, the cat-mouse chaseremains gentle: a cat may chase a mouse, but it isall a game, with neither figure showing any hostilitytowards the other. In the hands of Hollywood, thechase would have developed into the typical slam-

bang ruckus familiar to audiences brought up"Tom and Jerry" cartoons.Pojar's films are a typical example of the comb

tion of satire and sentiment. Which brings up a vdifference between the Czech method of animatproduction and the Hollywood method. Pojar hasleast collaborated on, if not completely written, alhis own screen-plays. In his last films he hasdesigned his own puppets, as previously mentionThis degree of creative autonomy is hardly ever case in American production, except in the filmsindependents such as John Hubley (who works of New York). The scenario of the typical Hollywocartoon is determined by a group of producersstudio executives and is generally out of the handsthe director, to say nothing of the head animator.Cechoslovakia the relative autonomy of the diregives the films of each individual director a mmore personal and distinguishable quality.To return, however, to Czech humor: an emore basic quality is optimism-which we mightpect, but do not often find, in American counterpaThe ending of Vystrcil's Place in the Sun surprme by showing that both men had learned the lesof cooperation and were content to share their ldisc of sunshine. I would have expected, as inAmerican film, that the ending would have come bround to the beginning, the two men again battfutilely.Or is the optimism politically conditioned? Idifficult to say. One clear fact is that, whateverresponsible-the Czech artistic temperament, theganization of the industry, or other factors-Czechslovakia has been and is producing some of the minteresting animated films of tne present time.

10George Karnet states in an article on the Czech film industry (East Europe, Vol. 12, no. 5, May, 19p. 8) that the Czech film people work under a code "so strict and hairsplitting that their efforts are pretined to failure." In a later article (East Europe, Vol. 12, no. 9, September, 1963, p. 4) Karnet athat rigid Party measures applied to films in 1959 brought the Czech cinema "close to an artistic stastill"; but that in 1962 V. Koucky, the Party official in charge of movie policy, was moved to anotherand the grip was thus relaxed. I haven't seen enough Czech feature films to judge the veracity of Karnconclusions (though on the few I have seen, I differ with him both as to artistic merit and political contenbut I can hardly find his conclusions applicable to the majority of the animated films I have seen. Trnka's fifor example, are apolitical in every respect. Thiel mentions (Puppe und Zeichenfilm, p. 18) that presswas put on Trnka at one time to be more "conscious of contemporary themes," in answer to which Trmade the Schweik film. In response to later pressures, Thiel says, Trnka simply stopped producing, with effect that pressure was finally abandoned. The film following this letup, Midsummer Night's Dream, istainly anything but socialistic in conception: the puppets of the nobles have the most "character" and dignwhile the peasants are, as in Shakespeare, represented as likeable buffoons though the peasants have fun, while the nobles are bored.

Czechoslovakian Animation

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