“I was trapped into being alive”
| The great Robert Wyatt.
Karel Zeman
Inspiration (1949).
Karel Zemen (1910–1989) is a filmmaker I’m often telling people about but whose work isn’t easy to see, so it’s good to find that YouTube has gained some clips of his animations and examples of the partly-animated adventure films he made in the Fifties and Sixties. Zeman was yet another great Czech animator, and the YouTube collection includes his most celebrated short, Inspiration, which gives life to glass figurines, an unyielding medium that he moves as expressively as if it were clay or plasticine.
The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1961).
The adventure films are predominantly based on Jules Verne and place live actors into animated settings, many of which are taken directly from (or intended to imitate) the engraved illustrations of the original novels. The animation enabled Zeman to fill his films with dirigibles, submarines and various steam contraptions which would be too expensive to create otherwise. Zeman’s The Fabulous Baron Munchausen took the Gustave Doré illustrations for its visual style which is something this particular Doré enthusiast appreciates, and the film is closer to the spirit of the Raspe novel than the Nazi adaptation of 1943 or Terry Gilliam’s later version. The results are a lot more artificial than the seamless blend of animation and live action attempted by Ray Harryhausen in his own Jules Verne film, Mysterious Island, but the artificiality gives the films a distinctive charm.
• A Deadly Invention aka The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958)
• The Fabulous World of Jules Verne trailer (1958)
• Excerpts from Baron Munchausen (1961)
• The Special Effects of Karel Zeman pt. I | pt. II
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls
• Jan Švankmajer: The Complete Short Films
• Taxandria, or Raoul Servais meets Paul Delvaux
• Barta’s Golem
• The Hetzel editions of Jules Verne
Russian book jackets, 1917–1942
Pushtorg (Fur-Trade) by Il’ia L’vovich Sel’vinskii (1931). Designer uncredited.
Tri veka (Three Centuries) by Dmitrii Dmitrievich Blagoi (1933). Designer uncredited.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive
The recurrent pose 9
Here we go again… Okay, so it’s not quite the Flandrin pose since he has his head up, but I love Lindsay Lozon’s photography and can use the topical excuse that he has a new book of his work out, All My Boys, which includes this picture.
Previous posts in this series have now been archived to a single page for convenience.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The recurrent pose archive
The art of Toni Pecoraro
Dedalo (2004).
Laberinto 21 (2000).
Lots more etchings of labyrinths and other
imaginary landscapes at the artist’s site.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive