{animation} – Page 50 – { feuilleton }

More Golems

Golem by Jiri Barta.

There are always more golems. Among recent reading I’ve been catching up with the works of Michael Chabon, and have just finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), a novel concerned with several things that obsessed me when I was 13, namely Harry Houdini, conjuring tricks and the Empire State Building. Chabon even acknowledges JC Cannell’s The Secrets of Houdini, a book I re-read many times trying in vain to learn some of Houdini’s card tricks. What didn’t obsess me at that age happens to be the main subject of the novel: superhero comics. Chabon does a good job of communicating the enthusiasm that powered the early days of the American comics industry, however, and I can appreciate the enthusiasm that history generates for him even if I don’t quite share it. Lurking at the back of his story is the mute and symbolic figure of Rabbi Loew’s Golem of Prague, mention of which prompted me to see whether Czech animator Jiří Barta had managed to complete his film of the Golem story, a project which has been stalled since the 1990s. He hasn’t, unfortunately, but there is a trailer which I hadn’t seen before, a sight that makes the prospect even more tantalising. Someone give this man some money to finish his film.

Emet (2009).

Elsewhere, there’s Emet by Bonsaininja Studio, Milan, a short steampunk take on the Golem creation story. Great use of CGI and digital animation but I’d still prefer to see Barta’s version. Meanwhile, the whole of Paul Wegener’s The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920) is now on YouTube. If you’ve never seen Wegener stomping around medieval Prague with his shopping basket then here’s your chance.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Hodgson versus Houdini
• Das Haus zur letzten Latern
• Hugo Steiner-Prag’s Golem
• Barta’s Golem

The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello

This animated short by Anthony Lucas isn’t exactly obscure but I’ve only just noticed that the distributor has the whole film available for viewing on YouTube. The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello blends silhouetted characters and decor with elaborate steam-powered machinery in a manner that looks like the kind of thing Lotte Reiniger might have produced if she’d exchanged her fairy tales for Jules Verne. Impossible to watch Lucas’s film now without thinking “steampunk” but Jasper Morello was made in 2005 and so pre-dates the ongoing explosion of interest in Victoriana, dirigibles and coal-powered contraptions. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on two new steampunk projects which is what brought this to mind. More about those projects later.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Three Fragments of a Lost Tale
• Brothers Quay scarcities
• Achilles by Barry JC Purves
• The Torchbearer by Václav Švankmajer

Tomorrow Never Knows

Episode 38 of The Beatles (1967).

The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine was released on Blu-ray earlier this month. The quality is as good as you’d expect, it looks and sounds fantastic with the songs really benefitting from their remixes and high-definition audio. The film atoned for Al Brodax and George Dunning’s earlier role as producers of the lamentable The Beatles animated TV series which ran for 39 episodes from 1965 to 1967. The series as a whole may be cheap and nasty but the penultimate number is notable for being the only one featuring two of John Lennon’s songs inspired by his acid trips: Tomorrow Never Knows and She Said, She Said. These tiny eruptions of psychedelic culture into children’s film and television have always fascinated me, and this is one example I’d missed until now. No wonder it had to end, the Fab Four were getting far too weird. Okay kids, sing along now: “I know what it’s like to be dead…”

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Dukes declare it’s 25 O’Clock!
• Yellow Submarine comic books
• A splendid time is guaranteed for all
• Heinz Edelmann
• Please Mr. Postman
• All you need is…

Animating Piranesi

Piranesi Carceri d’Invenzione (2010).

When Peacay at BibliOdyssey linked to this short film by Grégoire Dupond I thought it might be one I hadn’t seen before but it turns out I have, and I mentioned the exhibition it was produced for in 2010. No matter, it’s worth drawing attention to again since Monsieur Dupond makes an impressive job of sending a virtual camera through the vast spaces of Piranesi’s Carceri d’invenzione, joining several of the etchings into a series of contiguous chambers.

The Sound of the Carceri (1998).

Dupond’s film uses Bach’s Cello Suite #2 as a musical accompaniment. As noted earlier that choice probably came from Yo-Yo Ma’s Inspired by Bach (1998) in which Bach’s six solo cello suites are performed in different settings. Suite #2 was The Sound of the Carceri directed by François Girard which places the cellist inside a CGI rending of one of Piranesi’s Careri etchings. YouTube has a copy here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Carceri, thermae and candelabra
• La Tour by Schuiten & Peeters
• Set in Stone
• Piranesi as designer
• Vedute di Roma
• Aldous Huxley on Piranesi’s Prisons

The Fourth Dimension

This post ought to have followed the one about Tango since it concerns another experimental film by Zbigniew Rybczynski. The Fourth Dimension was made in 1988 and like many of the director’s films uses a single effect to create striking results. In this case the effect involves photographing people and objects one narrow line at a time. When the lines are combined then shifted slightly the objects seem to bend and twist like melting plastic. This is the kind of semi-analogue technique which has now been made redundant by computer animation but Rybczynski gives his compositions a quasi-Surrealist quality, reinforced by the Magritte-like windows in some of the rooms.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Tango