Jan Švankmajer

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Jan Švankmajer (2009)

Jan Švankmajer (born September 4, 1934 in Prague ) is a Czech surrealist filmmaker, poet, draftsman and object artist. He became known worldwide through his surrealistic animations and films. Artists like Tim Burton , Terry Gilliam and others are heavily influenced by Švankmajer's work.

biography

Švankmajer studied from 1950 to 1954 at the College of Applied Arts and from 1954 to 1958 at the Theater Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague - specializing in puppet theater . In 1970 he met his wife, the surrealist painter Eva Švankmajerová (née Dvořáková) and the organizer and theoretician of the Czech surrealist group, Vratislav Effenberger . He also joined this group. He came to film through Alfréd Radok and the magic lantern . His first film was in 1964 Poslední trik pana Schwarcewalldea a pana Edgara (German The last trick of Mr Schwarzewald and Mr Edgar ). From 1973 to 1980 he was banned from practicing his profession because he had allegedly cut political messages into his short film Leonardův deník (1972, German Leonardo's diary ). Nevertheless, he produced films during this period, but they were only shown abroad. During this period, however, he and his wife increasingly dealt with the fine arts and poetry. In 1981, Švankmajer bought the Horní Staňkov chateau in Hlavňovice and set up a studio in it. He has lived in Knovíz in Okres Kladno since 1992 . His film production company Athanor is located in his home in a former cinema .

plant

Švankmajer owes his reputation to the stop-motion technique he has developed over decades as well as his talent for surreal, nightmarish, but still funny films. He currently produces in Prague. Between 1964 and 2005 he produced a total of around 30 films with a length of 20 seconds to 95 minutes, most of which are animated. In 2005 his film Šílení , a horror film based on Edgar Allan Poe and the Marquis De Sade, was released - two authors whose influence had already been reflected in Švankmajer's earlier work.

Švankmajer's trademarks include the use of quickly processed images and highly exaggerated sounds, which create a very peculiar effect in all the scenes in which people eat. The walking of people and their interaction is often alienated by time lapse. With the help of his stop-motion technique, inanimate things often come to life; Švankmajer uses this technique in all of his films. In some of his works, including the 1988 film Alice and the short film Leonardo's Diary , he combines stop-motion technology with real film recordings. Further features are the mixing of dead and living materials as well as real and animation sequences, but also the use of true-to-scale dolls, animals, collages, painted animations and the materials clay, water and stone. The theme of his work is shedding fears, the main sources of his work are childhood experiences, dreams, eroticism and the mythical past of Prague.

Many of his films, such as Down to the Cellar, use the perspective of a child, while at the same time they are often unsettling and even aggressive in nature.

Švankmajer received 30 prizes and awards. His best-known films are Alice (1988), Faust (1994), Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) and Otesánek (2000). The latter film received the Bohemian Lion , the national film award of the Czech Republic , in 2002 .

Filmography

Feature films

  • Hmyz (2018)
    • Insects (Worldwide / English film title)
  • Přežít svůj život (2010)
    • Surviving life (Worldwide / English film title)
  • Šílení (2005)
    • Lunacy ( Worldwide / English film title)
  • Otesánek (2000)
    • Greedy Guts (Worldwide / English film title)
    • Little Otik (USA: submitted to festivals under this name)
  • Spiklenci slasti (1996)
    • Conspirators of Pleasure (Worldwide / English film title)
  • Faust (1994)
  • Něco z Alenky (1988, production: Condor Films AG)
    • Alice (German film title)

Short films

Exhibitions

literature

  • Charles Jodoin-Keaton: Jan Švankmajer. Un surréalisme animé (in French), Rouge Profond, 2011
  • Peter Hames (Ed.): The Films of Jan Švankmajer . Dark Alchemy. London: Wallflower Press. 2008.
  • Jan Švankmajer: The Lexicon of Dreams . Filmcasino, Vienna 1993.
  • Jan Švankmajer: Decalogue and Švankmajer about Švankmajer . In: Subversions of the surreal in Central and Eastern European film, compiled and conceived by Hans-Joachim Schlegel , ed. from the German Film Institute , Frankfurt am Main 2002 ISBN 3-9805865-4-5
  • Hans-Joachim Schlegel: Jan Švankmajer: The subversive power of the imagination. (German and English) In: Catalog of the 11th Central and Eastern European Film Festival. Wiesbaden 2011
  • Ursula Blickle, Gerald Matt (ed.): The cabinet of Jan Švankmajer: the pendulum, the pit and other peculiarities (German and English). Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Vienna 2011 ISBN 978-3-86984-256-1

Web links

Commons : Jan Švankmajer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

credentials

  1. ^ Jan Švankmajer , entry on czech.cz, December 11, 2009
  2. ↑ Wendy Jackson: The Surrealist Conspirator: An Interview With Jan Svankmajer , Animation World Magazine, Issue 2.3, June 1997
  3. ↑ Hans-Joachim Schlegel: The subversive dreams of Jan Svankmajer , freitag.de , March 2, 2001
  4. ^ Zámek Horní Staňkov
  5. ^ Jan Uhde: Jan Švankmajer: The Prodigious Animator from Prague , Kinema, University of Waterloo
personal data
SURNAME Švankmajer, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech surrealist filmmaker, poet, draftsman and object artist
DATE OF BIRTH September 4, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague