Russian animation

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Russian animation is the art of film Russian creator of animated films . The majority of Russian animated films for cinema and television were created during the Soviet Union and have only recently been the subject of research in Western film theory and history .

The beginnings

One of the first Russian filmmakers in the field of animation is the solo dancer, teacher and choreographer Alexander Schirjajew . Between 1906 and 1909 he created a series of groundbreaking animated ballet films using puppet animation techniques, which he only showed in small groups. Until their rediscovery in 1995, they were practically forgotten.

Another pioneer of Russian animated film is the biologist Władysław Starewicz . He used stop-motion animation techniques in educational films, with which he demonstrated their behavior using prepared insects. He soon used the process in entertainment films with prepared insects as characters. With his film The Night Before Christmas ( Ночь перед Рождеством , Notsch Pered Poschdestwom) from 1913, Starewicz was the first to combine stop-motion and real film techniques in one scene.

After the outbreak of the October Revolution , Starewicz left the territory of Russia and the development of animated films there came to a standstill for years. It was not until the mid to late 1920s that Soviet authorities could be persuaded to finance experimental studios. These were usually part of larger film studios and initially produced short animated films for propaganda purposes . An example of the political animated short film of this time is China in Flames ( Китай в огне , Kitai w ogne, 1925) by Senon Komissarenko, Yuri Merkulow and Nikolai Chodatajew.

Filmmakers like Iwan Iwanow-Wano , Michail Zechanowski or Nikolai Chodatajew began to experiment with both the technical and the aesthetic possibilities of animated films. As Ivanov-Wano points out in his memoirs, this enthusiasm for experimentation was due in part to the general atmosphere that the Russian avant-garde had created around them and in part to the collaboration in small groups of enthusiasts. Important films from this period are Eisbahn ( Каток , 1927) by Juri Scheljabuschski , Zechanowski's Post ( Почта , Potschta, 1929) and Chodatajew's Органчик (Organtschik) (German for example: The barrel organ , 1934).

In 1935 the first full-length Soviet animated film, Alexander Ptushko's Der neue Gulliver ( Новый Гулливер , Novyj Gulliver), a communist-tinged adaptation of Jonathan Swift's novel, which combines elements of animation and real- life film, was released.

Socialist realism

In 1934 Walt Disney sent a roll of film with some shorts ( Mickey Mouse ) to the Moscow International Film Festival . Fjodor Chitruk , then just an animator, remembers his impressions from this screening in an interview in Otto Alder's film The Spirit of Genius . He was absolutely delighted with the fluidity of the film's imagery, and enthusiastically overwhelmed by the new animation opportunities Walt Disney had to offer.

Senior officials also shared these impressions, and in 1935 the Soyuzmultfilm studio was created by the small and relatively independent animation studios Mosfilm , Sowkino, and Mezhrabpromfilm to focus solely on creating Disney-style animations using Cel technology focus.

As early as 1932, when a congress of Soviet writers had proclaimed the need for socialist realism, the influence of futurism and the Russian avant-garde on Russian animation had disappeared. Aesthetic experimentation was no longer the order of the day, and For over 20 years Soyuzmultfilm worked in a Frederick-Winslow-Taylor fashion using Cel technology and division of labor . It became the leading animation studio in the Soviet Union , producing a steadily growing number of animation for children and educational purposes, as well as shorts and features, but the experimental spirit of the early years was lost.

Michail Zechanowski is one of the alarming examples of the transformation that not only the studios underwent , but also the artists . The Leningrad-born artist made a name for himself with the illustration and graphics of books. He found animation to be an ideal medium to transfer his style and further develop his artistic visions. He became internationally known for his film Post , shot in 1929. This brought him a number of prizes at international film festivals. With the establishment of Socialist Realism , he had to give up his innovative and highly convincing style for the style that was common in Russia at the time, which became known as "Eclair": the filming of live action, followed by a frame-by- Frame projection, which the animators had to use as the only source for realizing the movement (in the West this was known as rotoscopy ). The differences in the visual decisions are clearly recognizable and characteristic of the transformation. Not only Mikhail Zechanovsky, but Soviet animation as a whole went through this time.

Many artists did not resist these changes and left the industry for other areas such as painting or book illustration . One example is the trio of Yuri Merkulov , Senon Kommissarenko and Nikolai Chodatajew , who stopped working in animation after completing their last film The Barrel Orgel (1934). For two decades, the studio has dealt exclusively soberly and, to a certain extent, lengthy with the adaptation of folk tales and communist myths. An exception could only be found in times of war, such as propaganda spots and the emergency evacuation in Samarkand (1941–1943), although their humor here was probably unintentional. Nevertheless, directors like the sisters Zinaida and Valentina Brumberg have it with films like Fedja Zaitsev (1948), Ivan Ivanow-Wano with Moydodyr from 1954 (there is a first version from 1927, but the later version lacks the fluidity ) or Lev Atamanow with The Snow Queen (1957, based on Hans Christian Andersen's story) managed to produce masterpieces in their genre, which have won various awards at festivals around the world, and to get a permanent place in the history of animation.

Disney's Russian distribution

The Walt Disney Company became known under its new major distribution arm in Russia as Disney CIS or The Walt Disney Company CIS. Disneyfilm CIS became part of Disney CIS as part of the Russian Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group.

Russian animation studios

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Critic's Notebook; Pioneering Russian Films Show Ballet Master's Wit . New York Times , January 14, 2005. Accessed June 23, 2009.
  2. ^ The start of stop frame . The Guardian , November 14, 2008. Accessed June 23, 2009.