Cannes is a great place for cartoons. That may sound odd, given the festivals’s reputation as a towering arbiter of high-minded auteurist cinema, but it’s true. The Palme d’Or for short film (which is a thing!) has been given to many, many animated short films over the years. As is also true of the Best Animated Short Film category at the Oscars, Canada’s National Film Board has done quite will for itself. In 1955 the very first official Palme d’Or du Court Métrage went to Norman McLaren for his experimental his experimental Blinkity Blank. That said, the more interesting story is a Cold War one. The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries were powerhouses of animation for much of the latter half of the 20th century. The films never quite broke into American awards, but time and again juries at Cannes chose to recognize their brilliance. Russian...
- 5/24/2014
- by Daniel Walber
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Leading Russian animator whose witty films verged on the surreal
In the face of Walt Disney's worldwide dominance throughout most of the 20th century, European animators forged their own style and content. Fyodor Khitruk, who has died aged 95, was able to find new possibilities for animation in the Soviet Union, but only after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 and Nikita Khrushchev's subsequent speech attacking Stalinism. The resulting "thaw" was the beginning of a renaissance of Soviet animation after two decades of socialist realism and fairytales. Khitruk took his inspiration not from Disney but from the cartoons of the moribund Upa (United Productions of America) studio, set up by a breakaway group of Disney animators in 1943.
As a director – in charge of the general design and concept – Khitruk developed a freer, less lush, more economical and more contemporary art style than the naturalistic graphic look and sentimentality of Disney.
In the face of Walt Disney's worldwide dominance throughout most of the 20th century, European animators forged their own style and content. Fyodor Khitruk, who has died aged 95, was able to find new possibilities for animation in the Soviet Union, but only after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 and Nikita Khrushchev's subsequent speech attacking Stalinism. The resulting "thaw" was the beginning of a renaissance of Soviet animation after two decades of socialist realism and fairytales. Khitruk took his inspiration not from Disney but from the cartoons of the moribund Upa (United Productions of America) studio, set up by a breakaway group of Disney animators in 1943.
As a director – in charge of the general design and concept – Khitruk developed a freer, less lush, more economical and more contemporary art style than the naturalistic graphic look and sentimentality of Disney.
- 12/10/2012
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
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