Global Animation Theory

Global Animation Theory Global Animation Theory International Perspectives at Animafest Zagreb Edited by Franziska Bruckner, Nikica Gilic´, Holger Lang, Daniel Šuljic´ and Hrvoje Turkovic´ BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States of America 2019 Copyright © Franziska Bruckner, Nikica Gilic´, Holger Lang, Daniel Šuljic´, Hrvoje Turkovic´, and Contributors, 2019 Cover image © Zlatka Salopek This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives Licence. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third- party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bruckner, Franziska, editor. | Gilic, Nikica, editor. | Lang, Holger, 1964– editor. | Suljic, Daniel, 1941– editor. | Turkovic, Hrvoje, editor. | Animafest Scanner. Title: Global animation theory : international perspectives at Animafest Zagreb / edited by Franziska Bruckner, Nikica Gilic, Holger Lang, Daniel Suljic, and Hrvoje Turkovic. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing Inc, 2018. | “This anthology is based on a selection of the most relevant and interesting presentations from the first three editions of the Symposium for Contemporary Animation Studies, Animafest Scanner.” | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018040037 | ISBN 9781501337130 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501337154 (epdf) Subjects: LCSH: Animated films—Congresses. | Animation (Cinematography—Congresses. Classification: LCC NC1765 .G62 2018 | DDC 791.43/34—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018040037 ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-3713-0 ePDF: 978-1-5013-3715-4 eBook: 978-1-5013-3714-7 Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters. CONTENTS Foreword ix Giannalberto Bendazzi Introduction xi Franziska Bruckner, Nikica Gilic´, Holger Lang, Daniel Šuljic´ and Hrvoje Turkovic´ Section 1 Historical and Theoretical Approaches from International Animation Studies 1 Animation since 1980: A Personal Journey 3 Marcin Giz˙ ycki 2 Animation in the Gallery and the Gestalt: György Kovásznai and William Kentridge 11 Paul Wells 3 On Analogical Thinking: Jan Švankmajer’s Jabberwocky and Alice 29 Mareike Sera 4 The Successful Chorus of ‘The Second Wave’: An Examination of Feminism’s ‘Manifesto’ of Digital Art 51 Chunning Guo (Maggie) 5 Seeking Truth in Facts: Historicizing Chinese Animation 61 Olga Bobrowska vi CONTENTS 6 Austria Unlimited – Chances, Spirits and Limitations of a Small Production Environment 83 Holger Lang 7 Beyond Self- images: The Context and Development of Animated Documentaries, the Cornerstones of Modern Animation in Sweden 99 Midhat Ajanovic´-Ajan Section 2 Case Studies from Around the World 8 Short Circuits: On the Impact of the Flipbook in the Work of Robert Breer 117 Edwin Carels 9 ‘. The Film Is Not About That’: Notes on (Re)Reading Tale of Tales 143 Mikhail Gurevich 10 The Importance of Ranko Muniti´c’s Work on the Zagreb School of Animation 163 Andrijana Ružic´ 11 Animation Experienced through Music: Tomislav Simovic´ and the Zagreb School of Animation 177 Irena Paulus 12 The Puppet as Not-Puppet: The Notion of Puppet as ‘Human in Theatrical Performance’ in the Works of Barry Purves (the Case of Screen Play) 197 Fatemeh Hosseini-Shakib 13 Subversive Machinery: DIY Method in the Work of Julian Antonisz 213 Michał Bobrowski CONTENTS vii 14 Lynsey Martin: A Case Study of 1970s Australian Experimental Animation 233 Dirk de Bruyn List of Contributors 253 Index 259 FOREWORD Giannalberto Bendazzi ‘But what does that all mean?’, asked Samantha, after having examined a Joan Miró painting. The professor had answered that same question a thousand times. She was a patient person. You see the contrasts of the colours, and the balance of the structure, don’t you? This is the painting’s language. Relax and let it speak to you. Imagine you are watching a tropical sunset. You instinctively let the sunset speak to you. You recall many beautiful things you have experienced; you would like to have your boyfriend next to you. You are giving your meaning to the sunset. Other people give their own meanings, which are possibly the opposite of yours. Moral: Samantha still lacked an art theory, while the professor had one. What, then, is an art (in our case, an animation) theory? Pragmatically – not philosophically – we could say that it is any intellectual structure that helps us to better appreciate and understand art (in our case, animation). An art theory may be a recipe. Although you will barely find examples of a successful work of art created by abiding a written or unwritten law, artists have often obeyed precepts that they share among themselves: a religion, a political party’s ideology, or a moral cause. An art theory may be a viewers’ guide, too. Barocco, Art Nouveau, Pop Art, are labels attached to some practitioners’ common stylistic approaches. An art theory may have a lot to do with market and marketing, audiences’ tastes, or audiences’ understanding. Mass communication is full of dos and don’ts, of rules and manuals that practitioners are supposed to learn by heart and follow through. An art theory should not be mistaken with the aesthetics of a philosopher’s system. The latter is consequential to a major mindset that contains ethics, metaphysics and so on, while a good art theory is a generalization based on the actual works. Italian Neorealismo is a good example for what I mean. x FOREWORD Few people have written about animation theory, or have written essays that posterity would later consider to be of theoretical interest for animation; the best ones are probably Ranko Muniti´c and Ülo Pikkov. The one I most like – and the only prophetic one – was Élie Faure, who stated: You know, these animated drawings, still so barren, so stiff, so meagre, that are projected on the screen are like, if you will, the forms I imagine a child’s graffiti drawn on a blackboard compared to Tintoretto’s frescoes or Rembrandt’s canvasses. Suppose that three or four generations of people are harnessed to the problem of animating these images in depth, not by surfaces nor lines, but by thicknesses and volumes; of modelling, by values and half- tones, a series of successive movements that by long practice would gradually become habit, almost a reflex, so that the artist comes to using it at his pleasure for drama or idyll, comedy or poetry, light or shade, forest, city, desert. Suppose an artist is so armed with the heart of Delacroix, the passion of Goya and the strength of Michelangelo; he will throw on the screen a cineplastic tragedy entirely his own, a kind of visual symphony so rich and so complex, opening, by its rush through time, perspectives of infinity and the absolute, which are both exalting by their mystery and more moving by their tangible reality than the sound in the symphonies of the greatest musicians. There, that is the distant future, which I believe in but which I do not know can be achieved. FAURE 1920: 361 It actually did not take three or four generations, but eleven years. Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker’s Night on Bald Mountain was screened in 1933. Until now the theoreticians have not been numerous, so I welcome this rank- strengthening book. The essays contained within not only scan historical and current trends from different academic and artistic perspectives, but also present the newest findings by the global animation studies community. The minds that have produced it are brilliant, the subject matter is ripe, and every year animation studies grow and expand. I wish you all an enjoyable reading. Reference Faure, E. (1920). ‘De la cinéplastique’, La Grande Revue, CIV 1920 (11): 52–72. 1 Translated by G. Bendazzi. INTRODUCTION Franziska Bruckner, Nikica Gilic´, Holger Lang, Daniel Šuljic´ and Hrvoje Turkovic´ What is Global Animation Theory? In the Foreword, Giannalberto Bendazzi defines an art theory as ‘any intellectual structure that helps us to better appreciate and understand art (in our case, animation)’. This structure is an evolving interdisciplinary field. It includes different theories, methods and perspectives from research areas such as film, media and cultural studies or art history, but also technical and artistic approaches. Worldwide animation studies have been rapidly expanding and progressing in recent years, catching up with the increasing spectrum of animated films. By giving space to this international discourse, Global Animation Theory is at the vanguard of an interaction involving historical and theoretical positions on animation. This anthology is based on a selection of the most relevant and interesting presentations from the first three editions of the Symposium for Contemporary Animation Studies, Animafest Scanner. It offers detailed and diverse insights into the methodologies of contemporary animation studies, as well as topics relevant for today’s study of animation. Global Animation Theory has given way to academic writing that is very open to the practical aspects of animation, with several contributors not only being established as animation scholars, but also as artists. This contact between practical and theoretical approaches to animation is closely connected to the host of Animafest Scanner, the World Festival of Animated Film Animafest Zagreb. The latter was established in 1972 and is the second- oldest animation festival in the world.

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