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Jan Švankmajer
Jan Švankmajer (; born 4 September 1934) is a Czech filmmaker and artist whose work spans several media. He is a self-labeled surrealist known for his stop-motion animations and features, which have greatly influenced other artists such as Terry Gilliam, the Brothers Quay, and many others. Life and career Early life Švankmajer 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, where he befriended Juraj Herz. He contributed to Emil Radok's film ''Johanes doctor Faust'' in 1958 and then began working for Prague's Semafor Theatre where he founded the Theatre of Masks. He then moved on to the Laterna Magika multimedia theatre, where he renewed his association with Radok. As a filmmaker This theatrical experience is reflected in Švankmajer's first film '' The Las ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate oceanic climate, with relatively warm summers and chilly winters. Prague is a political, cultural, and economic hub of central Europe, with a rich history and Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architectures. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and residence of several Holy Roman Emperors, most notably Charles IV (r. 1346–1378). It was an important city to the Habsburg monarchy and Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city played major roles in the Bohemian and the Protestant Reformations, the Thirty Years' War and in 20th-century history as the capital of Czechoslovakia between the World Wars and the post-war Communist era. Prague is home to a number of well-known cultural attractions, many of which survived the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vratislav Effenberger
Vratislav Effenberger (22 April 1923 in Nymburk; - 10 August 1986 in Prague) was a Czech literature theoretician. He has German Bohemian descent from his paternal side, but has assimilated into Czech. Life and career In 1944, Effenberger left industrial school with his Abitur. He went to study chemistry and the history of art as well as aesthetics at the philosophical faculty. Starting from 1946, he joined the Czechoslovakian Film institute, from which he was dismissed 1954. He was then a worker until 1966 and later was appointed to the Czech Academy of Sciences. In 1970, he was dismissed for political reasons and had to take a job as a nightwatchman. In 1969, he became editor of the surrealist magazine ''Analogon''; which around 1968 it published newspapers and magazines, which were concerned with literature, theatre or art. Adam Biro et René Passeron, ''Dictionnaire général du surréalisme et ses environs'', PUF, 1982, Paris, 1987, Works He became famous with a collection ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Otik
''Little Otik'' ( cs, Otesánek), also known as ''Greedy Guts'', is a 2000 Czech surreal dark comedy horror film by Jan Švankmajer and Eva Švankmajerová. Based on the folktale Otesánek by Karel Jaromír Erben, the film is a comedic live action, stop motion-animated feature film set mainly in an apartment building in the Czech Republic. The film uses the Overture to ''Der Freischütz'' (1821) by Carl Maria von Weber as the score. Plot Karel Horák (Jan Hartl) and Božena Horáková (Veronika Žilková) are a childless couple and for medical reasons are doomed to remain so. While on vacation with their neighbors at a house in the country, Karel decides to buy the house at the suggestion of his neighbor. When he is fixing up the house, he digs up a tree stump that looks vaguely like a baby. He spends the rest of the evening cleaning it up and then presents it to his wife. She names the stump Otík and starts to treat it like a real baby. She then works out a plan to fake her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faust (1994 Film)
''Faust'' ( cs, Lekce Faust, lit=Lesson Faust) is a 1994 live-action/animated film directed and written by Jan Švankmajer. An international co-production between the Czech Republic, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany, the film merges live-action footage with stop-motion animation, including puppetry and claymation. Produced by Jaromír Kallista, the film does not relate the legend of Faustus accurately according to the original, instead borrowing and blending elements from the 1808 story as told by Goethe and c. 1598-1592 by Christopher Marlowe with traditional folk renditions. It has elements of modernism and absurdism, and has a Kafkaesque atmosphere, enhanced by being set in Prague, and the tone is dark but humorous. The film was selected as the Czech entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 67th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Plot The story begins on the streets of Prague on a grey morning busy with commuters. A colourle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alice (1988 Film)
''Alice'' is a 1988 surrealist dark fantasy film written and directed by Jan Švankmajer. Its original Czech title is ''Něco z Alenky'', which means "Something from Alice". It is a loose adaptation of Lewis Carroll's first Alice book, ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865), about a girl who follows a white rabbit into a bizarre fantasy land. Alice is played by Kristýna Kohoutová. The film combines live action with stop motion animation, and is distinguished by its dark production design. For Švankmajer, a prolific director of short films for more than two decades, ''Alice'' became his first venture into feature-length filmmaking. The director had been disappointed by other adaptations of Carroll's book, which interpret it as a fairy tale. His aim was instead to make the story play out like an amoral dream. The film won the feature film award at the 1989 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. Plot Alice is sitting by a brook, throwing rocks in the water. She ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Johnston (critic)
Andrew Johnston (1968–2008) was a film and TV critic. He wrote primarily for ''Time Out New York'' and ''Us Weekly'' and was also editor of the "Time In" section of ''Time Out New York''. Biography Andrew Johnston was born in Washington, D.C., and spent most of his youth in Charlottesville, Virginia, apart from the five years he was a student at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Puducherry, India. After returning from India he graduated from Tandem Friends School in Charlottesville, Virginia, and subsequently earned a B.A in English from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, and a M.S.in Journalism from Columbia University. Andrew died from cancer in New York City in 2008. The film and TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz has written about Andrew's life and career in two pieces: "Deathproof: The Life in Andrew Johnston" and "Missing Andrew: Ten Years without a Good Friend". Career Andrew Johnston began writing criticism during his college years, publishing a wee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national " newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conspirators Of Pleasure
''Conspirators of Pleasure'' ( cs, Spiklenci slasti) is a 1996 black comedy film by Jan Švankmajer. His third feature film after '' Alice'' and ''Faust'', it was nominated for the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival. Plot In Prague, Mr. Pivoňka, an unmarried man, buys some pornography from his local newsagent, Mr. Kula, and returns home. A postwoman, Mrs. Malková gives him a letter which reads "On Sunday" in cut-out letters. In secret, she then rolls pieces of bread into little balls and carries them in her satchel. Pivoňka asks his neighbour, Mrs. Loubalová, to slaughter a chicken for him. Using the leftover feathers and papier-mâché made from the pornography, he constructs a chicken head and fabricates wings made from umbrellas. Meanwhile, police captain Weltinský buys rolling pins and pan lids from the same shop that sells Pivoňka's umbrellas. Using these items, plus stolen pieces of fur and sharp things, Weltinský constructs unusual objects in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Food (film)
''Food'' ( cs, Jídlo) is a 1992 Czech animated short film directed by Jan Švankmajer that uses claymation and pixilation. It examines the human relationship with food by showing breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Plot Breakfast A man enters a room, sits down, and brushes the previous diner's leftovers onto the floor. Across from him sits another man with a placard attached to a chain hanging around his neck. The diner stands up and reads the placard one line at a time and follows the instructions. He puts money down the man's throat and pokes him in the eye. The man's shirt unbuttons itself, and a dumbwaiter rises up into where the man's chest should be. The diner takes his food, and punches the man in the chin with his third knuckle for his utensils. When he is done eating, he kicks the man's shin for a napkin. After wiping off his mouth, the diner convulses, and then goes limp. The man now comes to life, stretches, and places the placard on the former diner. He stands and puts anoth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pixilation
Pixilation is a stop motion technique in which live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in an animated film, by repeatedly posing while one or more frame is taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame or frames. The actor becomes a kind of living stop-motion puppet. This technique is often used as a way to blend live actors with animated ones in a movie, such as in '' The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb'' by the Bolex Brothers. Early examples of this technique are '' Hôtel électrique'' from 1908 and Émile Cohl's 1911 movie ''Jobard ne peut pas voir les femmes travailler'' (''Jobard cannot see the women working''). The term is widely credited to Grant Munro (although some say it was Norman McLaren) and he made an experimental movie named "Pixillation", available in his DVD collection "Cut Up – The Films of Grant Munro." Films * Norman McLaren's Oscar-winner ''Neighbours'', '' A Chairy Tale'' (1957) and ''Two Bagatelles'' * Chuck Menville and Len Janson' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claymation
Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay. Traditional animation, from cel animation to stop motion, is produced by recording each frame, or still picture, on film or digital media and then playing the recorded frames back in rapid succession before the viewer. These and other moving images, from zoetrope to films and video games, create the illusion of motion by playing back at over ten to twelve frames per second. Technique Each object or character is sculpted from clay or other such similarly pliable material as plasticine, usually around a wire skeleton, called an armature, and then arranged on the set, where it is photographed once before being slightly moved by hand to prepare it for the next shot, and so on until the animator has achieved the desired amount of film. Upon playb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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