![\"svankmajer.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/svankmajer.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
As I have always said, my aim is to make Surrealist documentaries. I want to show that our world is imaginative by nature, that you can look at it imaginatively. It has something that escapes the quotidian gaze. And it is possible to reveal it through the technique of animation. Animation thus becomes a sort of new alchemy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Thus Jan \u0160vankmajer whose production company, Athanor, is named after the furnace used by medieval alchemists. Jan \u0160vankmajer, Director<\/em> (2009) is an hour-long documentary by Martin Sul\u00edk, one of several films from Golden Sixties<\/em>, a Czech television series about film directors. \u0160vankmajer has been the subject of several documentaries following his rise to international prominence, one of which, Les Chimeres des\u00a0<\/em>\u0160vankmajer<\/em> (2001), may be found on the BFI’s DVD set of the complete short films. Martin Sul\u00edk’s documentary doesn’t cover as much ground as the French film\u2014the focus is on the 1960s\u2014but has an advantage by allowing \u0160vankmajer to talk at length about his work. Topics include his discovery of the usefulness of animation, his approach to filmmaking (and art in general), and peripheral subjects such as the soundtrack music of Zden\u011bk Li\u0161ka, and the activities of the Prague Surrealist group. (Via MetaFilter<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
\u2022 Jan \u0160vankmajer, Director<\/em>: Part one<\/a> | Part two<\/a> | Part three<\/a> | Part four<\/a><\/p>\n
Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Don Juan, a film by Jan \u0160vankmajer<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Pendulum, the Pit and Hope<\/a>
\n\u2022 Two sides of Li\u0161ka<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Torchbearer by V\u00e1clav \u0160vankmajer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As I have always said, my aim is to make Surrealist documentaries. I want to show that our world is imaginative by nature, that you can look at it imaginatively. It has something that escapes the quotidian gaze. And it is possible to reveal it through the technique of animation. Animation thus becomes a sort … Continue reading “Jan \u0160vankmajer, Director”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[52,2,7,18,19],"tags":[375,8051,146,3527,5099],"class_list":["post-17761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animation","category-art","category-film","category-surrealism","category-television","tag-jan-svankmajer","tag-martin-sulik","tag-prague","tag-vaclav-svankmajer","tag-zdenek-liska"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-4Ct","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}