{"id":19195,"date":"2019-06-21T01:04:53","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T00:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=19195"},"modified":"2025-09-20T17:30:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T16:30:23","slug":"jan-svankmajer-the-animator-of-prague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2019\/06\/21\/jan-svankmajer-the-animator-of-prague\/","title":{"rendered":"Jan \u0160vankmajer: The Animator of Prague"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"svankmajer.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Surrealism is not aesthetics. It is a philosophy,” says Jan \u0160vankmajer in James Marsh’s short (25 mins) portrait for the BBC from 1990<\/a>. This was broadcast at a time when \u0160vankmajer’s films were receiving more attention in the UK than they had before or since, thanks in part to Channel 4’s screening and funding of animation, and to the late Michael O’Pray, a film writer and champion of avant-garde cinema. O’Pray is the main commentator here apart from \u0160vankmajer himself, and his name was a regular fixture of any writing about \u0160vankmajer or the Brothers Quay in the 1980s. \u0160vankmajer’s films were featured in at least two of the touring programmes of short films that O’Pray put together for Film and Video Umbrella<\/a> in the late 1980s, so its good to see his enthusiasm memorialised in this way, even if it is stuck on a rather temperamental Korean website. In addition to discussion of the influence of Bohemian emperor Rudolf II on \u0160vankmajer’s work we also see the director filming his latest short, The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia<\/em>; a rare glimpse behind the camera. (Note: the video wouldn’t load for me but the stream is downloadable<\/a> if you’re determined to see it.)<\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Jan \u0160vankmajer, Director<\/a>
\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":"

“Surrealism is not aesthetics. It is a philosophy,” says Jan \u0160vankmajer in James Marsh’s short (25 mins) portrait for the BBC from 1990. This was broadcast at a time when \u0160vankmajer’s films were receiving more attention in the UK than they had before or since, thanks in part to Channel 4’s screening and funding of … Continue reading “Jan \u0160vankmajer: The Animator of Prague”<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[52,7,18,19],"tags":[399,10111,4508,375,513,2096,3527],"class_list":["post-19195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animation","category-film","category-surrealism","category-television","tag-brothers-quay","tag-film-and-video-umbrella","tag-james-marsh","tag-jan-svankmajer","tag-michael-opray","tag-rudolf-ii","tag-vaclav-svankmajer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-4ZB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19195","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=19195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}