During the starting point of my Animation project, as a class we had to research many different animation artist from the past. I had decided to choose Jan Svankmajer.
Jan Svankmajer is a
Czech filmmaker and artist whose work spans several media. He is a
self-labelled surrealist known for his surreal animations and features, which
have greatly influenced other artists such as Terry Gilliam, the Brothers Quay,
and many others. Jan Svankmajer was born in Prague. An early influence on his
later artistic development was a puppet theatre he was given for Christmas as a
child. He studied at the College of Applied Arts in Prague and later in the
Department of Puppetry at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts. Svankmajer
made his first film The Last Trick in 1964 and for over thirty years has made
some of the most memorable and unique animated films ever made for example
Alice, gaining a reputation as one of the world's foremost animators, and
influencing filmmakers from Tim Burton to The Brothers Quay.
After studying puppet theatre for four years in Prague,
Svankmajer began his career as a director, designer and puppeteer at the State
Puppet Theatre in Liberec. During the Early 1960s he had started to work with
several different theatre companies in Prague to stage a variety of puppet
plays. During the year of 1962 Svankmajer had switched his interest to
filmmaking, he had felt that more work would be possible technically, and that
his work would reach a better audience from around the world. As a filmmaker
Svankmajer had created many highly praised films involving animation and live
action.
During the year of 1972 Czech authorities banned him from
making films for seven years simply because he had been filming footage of
Czech’s life without authorisation. Working as a professional, Svankmajer takes
a very individual approach to filmmaking, in contrast to most stop-motion
animators. When watching a Svankmajer film, the viewer could be presented with
a cast of real people, porcelain dolls, skeletons, animal corpses, corkscrews,
tights or any object that he had found interesting. Svankmajer’s imagery is
usually dim, frequently shot in black and white and it would often have films
with no discernible plot, he always considers choosing to focus on the beauty
of the movement of the objects, and on the simple creation of a strange and
evil world.
Recently during an interview, Svankmajer explained that he
uses animation to allow objects speak for themselves. He had said that this is
because he believes that objects are capable of concealing the events that they
have witnessed. What Svankmajer does is listen to the listen to the objects,
and then communicate with them by animation and bringing them to life. In
another interview he clarifies that his ability to make this interpretation is
the single most important thing to him within his work. He criticises other
animators for preferring to demonstrate their technical abilities rather than
concentrating on giving meaning to their films.
In Many of Svankmajer’s short films the viewer’s imagination
is given freedom to create a personal sense of horror, in reaction to the evil
and sensitive imagery used in many. Because Svankmajer’s work is so rigid in
style and content, it would seem to be unmarketable for commercial purposes on
TV, especially given popular tastes. However in 1988 he made a music video for
Hugh Cornwall, and a year later made two short films for the worldwide known
channel MTV. As his wok is becoming more widely recognised, his work is having
thoughtful influence on animators, from the famous Brothers Quay to even the
most prominent of Hollywood directors, like Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam.
In 1997 Svankmajer received the ‘Persistence of Vision’
award at the San Francisco Film Festival, a fitting award for a director with
such solid ideals. Despite the fact that most of his work exists in the form of
short films, and therefore can only receive limited release, it seems clear
that his talent has made its mark within the realms of animation and
film-making worldwide.
