On the Links Between Caricatures and Animated Films in Communist Eastern Europe
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BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2017 / VOLUME 5 / ARTICLE Article On the Links between Caricatures and Animated Films in Communist Eastern Europe ÜLO PIKKOV, Estonian Academy of Arts; email: [email protected] 28 DOI: 10.1515/bsmr-2017-0010 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2017 / VOLUME 5 / ARTICLE ABSTRACT This article analyses and maps the links between cari- cature and animated film, as well as their development during the post-World War II era, in communist Eastern Europe. The article also deals with the specific nature of animation production under the conditions of political censorship and the utilisation of Aesopian language as an Eastern European phenomenon for outmanoeuvring censorship. Animated film has long been closely con- the post-World War II era, with the primary nected with caricatures; the pioneers of focus being on Eastern Europe, which is Western animation, such as Émile Cohl, defined here as a geographical area and James Stuart Blackton, Winsor McCay, John more importantly as a political space domi- Randolph Bray, Paul Terry, Max Fleischer nated by the Soviet Union after World War II. and many others, were known as carica- The area was generally called the com- turists before they turned to animation. munist sphere or Eastern Bloc. However, in In addition, several animated characters order to understand the specific circum- were born and won initial popularity on the stances related to the intertwined fields of humour pages of newspapers, and travelled caricature and animation in Eastern Europe on to the world of cinema with their authors. during the second half of the 20th century, In Animated Cartoons: How They Are an overview of prior key developments in Made, Their Origin and Development (1926) both the Western and Eastern hemispheres Edwin Georg Lutz observes that many needs to be provided first. trailblazers of animation launched their career as ‘comic graphic artists’ (Lutz 1926: THE NATURE OF CARICATURE 8–10). A number of other authors have also In the context of this article, I understand emphasised the importance of caricatures caricature to be a simplified graphic image in the development of animated film (e.g. that amplifies, for the purposes of comic Pikkov 2010: 31, Solomon 1987: 13, Wells or grotesque effect, certain distinctive 1998: 188). Yet, besides acknowledging the features of what is being represented. significance of these impulses, no exhaus- The essence of caricature lies in parody, i.e. tive studies have been written on the links drawing attention to human weaknesses between caricatures and animated film and or shortcomings of social and political life. this field remains largely unresearched. To The concept originates from the Italian word some extent, Donald Crafton has examined caricare, meaning ‘to charge’, ‘to load’, ‘to these issues in Before Mickey: The Animated exaggerate’. Film, 1908–1928 (1984) and Emile Cohl, The history of caricature runs in paral- Caricature, and Film (1990), but the scope of lel to art history; simplified and grotesque these books is limited to the pre-World graphic images can be traced back to the War II period. medieval period. Still, in the modern sense This article aims to map the connec- of the word, caricature took root in Germany tions between caricatures and animated of the Reformation Age, spreading, along film, as well as their development during with satirical literature, to the neighbouring 29 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2017 / VOLUME 5 / ARTICLE countries in the first half of the 16th cen- Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben tury. The proliferation of the caricature form, Sharpsteen, USA, 1937; Pinocchio, directed especially in terms of political and personal by Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske, Bill caricatures, was facilitated by the develop- Roberts, Norman Ferguson, Jack Kinney, ment of graphic art and the invention of the Wilfred Jackson, T. Hee, USA, 1940; Bambi, printing press in the late Middle Ages, while directed by David Hand, James Algar, earlier the satirical songs of minstrels had Samuel Armstrong, Graham Heid, Bill Rob- performed the same function (Wright 1875: erts, Paul Satterfield, Norman Wright, USA, 347). When considering the ‘caricaturesque’ 1942). In a similar manner, early live-action in a broader sense, I mean the depiction of filmmaking was heavily influenced by the something in a highly exaggerated or sim- circus and vaudeville and only later became plified manner, a grotesque abstraction. an art form for telling stories. From early on, the production of ani- CARICATURES START TO mated films in the United States developed MOVE AND TURN INTO FILMS as a collective, studio-based undertaking, The similarity between early animation rather than the enterprise of individu- and caricatures stems partly from techni- als. In America, the popularity of the first cal aspects, i.e. from the fact that drawing animated films and the rapidly growing (reproducing) a character had to be easy network of cinemas facilitated a constant and the figure itself sufficiently clear and demand for new animated films, which in highly contrasted, in order to stand out even turn created favourable conditions for set- if the film or printed page was of low qual- ting up the animation industry. ity. Other similarities include accentuating In contrast to the United States, where satiric aspects and simplification in the cre- major animation film studios flourished ation of memorable characters. Indeed, the before World War II, European animation earliest drawn films (and specifically those, relied on individual authors with diverse since animated film also employs many personal styles. Among them were film- other techniques) are characterised by a makers inspired mainly by caricatures strong emphasis on the caricaturesque. For (Émile Cohl, Robert Lortac, Cavé), directors instance, Walt Disney taught his animators striving to tell epic stories (Lotte Reiniger, that ‘the first duty of the cartoon is not to Ladislas Starevich, Berthold Bartosch), as picture or duplicate real action or things as well as artists experimenting with animated they actually happen – but to give a carica- images (Walter Ruttmann, Hans Richter, ture of life and action’ (Barrier 1999: 142). Viking Eggeling, Oskar Fischinger). The first films of Disney Studios were World War II halted the development of strikingly caricaturesque and consisted European cinema in its tracks, many film- mostly of sequences of moving caricatures. makers emigrated and the continuity of Disney’s early concept prescribed the crea- film production was disrupted. In addition tion of moving caricatures. In due course, to filmmakers, a large number of European as the field of animation developed and its artists also went to the United States, technical arsenal expanded, the produc- bringing with them the ‘spirit of modern- tion of Disney Studios, as well as other ism’. The strong American film industry was major studios, became more epical and the enriched by the creative investigations and initial cartoonish quality gradually disap- experimentations of various modernist art peared. In addition to the introduction of schools, exemplified by Disney’s collabo- more advanced techniques, the films also ration with Salvador Dalí or the American changed in terms of their content. Romantic works of Oskar Fischinger. With the influx screen adaptations of fairy tales became of European talent, ‘US took the lead role the norm for feature-length animated films in avant-garde film, as it did with painting (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, directed when New York replaced Paris as the cul- by David Hand, William Cottrell, Wilfred tural capital of modernism’ (Rees 1999: 57). 30 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2017 / VOLUME 5 / ARTICLE During World War II, the United States portraying the confrontation between work- became the world’s leading film producing ers and peasants and a wealthy capital- country and the pioneer of technical inven- ist. Cinema, including animated film, was tions in the field of audiovisual culture. In mainly seen in Soviet Russia as a propagan- the narratives of the world history of anima- distic tool. The best known Soviet animated tion, Western Europe is typically seen as film directors of the period are Vladimir ‘a fertile area for experimental and avant- Suteyev, sisters Valentina and Zinaida garde animation’ that, in particular, led the Broomberg, Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Olga Khoda- way in the early days of cinema, soon los- taeva and Nikolai Khodataev. ing its predominant position to the United For a while, Soviet Russian animation States, while Eastern European state- artists were relatively free to experiment, funded animation industry is recognised for just as the entire post-revolutionary society providing financial security and criticised was open to various forms of innovation. for curtailing creative freedom (Cavalier New forms of expression and approaches 2011: 13). were explored in cinema, literature and the- atre, as well as in visual art. Yet these artis- DEVELOPMENTS IN ANIMATED tic liberties did not last for long: ‘Initially FILM IN THE EASTERN BLOC avant-garde and satirical, Soviet animation Compared to the rest of the world, the changed in the middle of the 1930s with the development of animated film in Eastern establishment of socialist realism ... Control Europe took a different route. was tightened, and Stalin-era animation concentrated mostly on didactic animation Between 1945 and 1989 … the for children’ (Klots n.d.: 5). development of these countries Soviet animation and caricatures have was levelled to a significant often been regarded as a means of embel- extent and dictated by Soviet pol- lishing the state of affairs and concealing icies in the spheres of economics its true nature. This tendency of airbrushing, and culture. [---] Whatever hap- typical of Soviet visual culture in general, pened in the Soviet Union directly can be traced back to the satirical ‘Rosta influenced the cultural climate in (Российское телеграфное агентство or Rus- the countries of the Eastern Bloc, sian Telegraph Agency) windows’ – propa- and often events in the USSR ganda posters accompanied by texts in were replicated in the Eastern verse.