Braindead Shithead

Sunday, September 10, 2006

 

The neuroses of puppets


Jiří Trnka - The Hands

I found this delightful short film over at the wonderful little sharity blog Prog Not Frog. I could waste your time inadequately describing it, but I'll let nahavanda do that instead.

"Jiří Trnka (24 February 1912 Plzeň - 30 December 1969 Prague) was Czech puppet maker, illustrator, motion-picture animator and film director, renowned for his puppet animations.

He graduated from Prague School of Arts and Crafts. He created a puppet theater in 1936. This group was dissolved when World War II began, and he instead designed stage sets and illustrated books for children throughout the war. After the war ended, Trnka established an animation unit at the Prague film studio. Trnka soon became internationally recognized as the world's greatest puppet animator in the traditional Czech method, and he won several film festival awards. One animator called him "the Walt Disney of the East". He won an award at the Cannes Festival in 1946, just one year after he began working in film. His films were mostly made for an adult audience. Beginning in 1948, the communist Czech government began to subsidize his work, although this did not seem to affect the message or style of his work. He also created animated cartoons. He wrote the scripts for most of his own films. He died of heart trouble in 1969."

Anyway, this 40+ year old film seems a bit dated in this age of ultra-realistic CGI so it might be hard to appreciate the technical achievement represented. Hopefully you don't let that get in the way of enjoying it though. This is truly a lost treasure.


Comments:
How delightfully odd! I certainly appreciate Pixar, and the care and craft with which they make their films, but there is something wonderful about "small scale" stuff like this. I particularly enjoy the lack of dialogue. That's one of the primary reasons I enjoyed "The Triplettes of Belleville" so much. So for me, this has aged very well.
 
I agree with JR, Pixar can do wonderful things, but I also love Tim Burton's stop animation work. I watched all the special features on "Team America", and I'll admit, I liked those better than the actual movie.
Really wonderful little movie, TNG!
 
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