Gopo's Little Man (

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

: ''Omulețul lui Gopo'') is a

humanoid A humanoid (; from English ''human'' and '' -oid'' "resembling") is a non-human entity with human form or characteristics. By the 20th century, the term came to describe fossils which were morphologically similar, but not identical, to those of ...

character that appears in most of

Ion Popescu-Gopo Ion Popescu-Gopo (; 1 May 1923 – 29 November 1989) was a Romanian graphic artist and animator, but also writer, film director, and actor. He was born in Bucharest, Romania. He was a prominent personality in the Romanian cinematography and the ...

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

films.

History and symbolism

The Little Man first appears in ''A Brief History'' (1956), an animation film telling the story of the Universe and humankind from an

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

ary perspective. The trepidations caused by a

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

made a monkey fall off a tree and break its tail. The monkey then got off the ground under the appearance of The Little Man, who is then shown climbing a ladder. As he climbs, he successively turns into an Egyptian, a Greek, a Roman, a medieval knight, a Victorian gentleman, and a modern man. The Little Man explores the deep seas and then flies to space in a rocket (anticipating

Yuri Gagarin Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who, aboard the first successful Human spaceflight, crewed sp ...

's spaceflight by five years). The worldwide success achieved by ''A Brief History'' turned The Little Man into an iconic character, symbolizing the human race in its quest for knowledge and beauty.

was going to use it in another seven films. In many situations, The Little Man is shown holding a flower to his heart, which is taken to symbolize the humans' capacity and need for love.

Filmography

* ''A Brief History'' (1956) * ''Seven Arts'' (1958) * ''Homo Sapiens'' (1960) * ''Allo Hallo'' (1962) * ''Ecce Homo'' (1977) * ''Three Apples'' (1979) * ''Quo Vadis, Homo Sapiens?'' (1982) * ''Homo Faber'' (1986)

Awards

Palme d'Or The (; ) is the highest prize awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festiv ...

in the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...

for ''A Brief History'' (1957) * The Grand Prize for the Best Animation Film in the Tours Film Festival (France) for ''Seven Arts'' (1958) * The Golden Gate Award of the

San Francisco Film Festival The San Francisco International Film Festival (abbreviated as SFIFF), organized by SFFILM, is held each spring for two weeks, presenting around 200 films from over 50 countries. The festival highlights current trends in international film and vi ...

for ''Homo Sapiens'' (1960)

The Little Man statuette

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

n artist Adrian Ilfoveanu was commissioned to create the trophy for the

Gopo Awards The Gopo Awards () are the national Romanian film awards, similar to the Academy Awards (US), the Goya Awards (Spain), or the César Award (France). They are presented by the Association for Romanian Film Promotion and were inaugurated in 2007. T ...

, whose first edition in 2007 was also thought as a tribute to the 50th anniversary of ''A Brief History's victory at Cannes. Gopo's Little Man was chosen as a model. Although the Gopo Awards were recently established, the statuette entered popular culture, so that Romanian cinematic artists talk about receiving one or more "Little Men."

References

External links