Jiří Trnka | |
|---|---|
.png) Trnkac. 1950 | |
| Born | (1912-02-24)24 February 1912 Plzeň, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 30 December 1969(1969-12-30) (aged 57) Prague, Czechoslovakia |
| Years active | 1936-1969 |
Jiří Trnka (none[ˈjɪr̝iːˈtr̩ŋka]; 24 February 1912 – 30 December 1969) was aCzechpuppet-maker,illustrator, motion-pictureanimator and film director.[1][2]
In addition to his extensive career as an illustrator, especially ofchildren's books, he is best known for his work in animation with puppets, which began in 1946. Most of his films were intended for adults and many were adaptations of literary works. Because of his influence in animation, he was called "theWalt Disney of Eastern Europe",[3] despite the great differences between their works. He received the internationalHans Christian Andersen Medal for illustrators in 1968, recognizing his career contribution to children's literature.[4][5]
Jiří Trnka was born inPlzeň, in westernBohemia, where the family lived as middle class citizens. Although his father was a plumber and his mother a dressmaker, both remained very close to their peasant origins. As a child, young Jiří enjoyed sculpting puppets made of wood and put on small shows for friends.
He later attended classes at a vocational school in his hometown, where he met his teacherJosef Skupa, who eventually would become a leading public figure in the world of Czech puppeteers. Skupa was his mentor, entrusted Trnka with certain responsibilities, and managed to convince his family, who were initially reluctant, to allow him to enroll at the prestigiousSchool of Applied Arts in Prague, where he completed his apprenticeship between 1929 and 1935.
With the training received in the school of arts and his experience working in a printmaking workshop, Trnka embarked upon a successful career as an illustrator. He was hired by the Prague publishing houseMelantrich, and his first illustrated work wasTygr pana Boška (The Tiger of Mr. Bošek) by Vítězslav Šmejc, published in 1937.
From then on, Trnka illustrated numerous children's books. During his life he illustrated 130 works of literature, most of them for children. Especially famous are his illustrations for the tales of theBrothers Grimm, and collections of folktales from Czech authors such as Jiří Horák and Jan Páleníček. Also drawing upon his native folklore are his illustrations forBajaja byVladimír Holan, published in 1955, which proved to be the starting point for his future work in animation. In addition to these, Trnka illustrated the tales ofAndersen andPerrault, the fables ofLa Fontaine,The Thousand and One Nights, several works ofShakespeare and Lewis Carroll'sAlice in Wonderland (unfinished).
In some cases his work as illustrator generated his ideas for making animated films, as happened withBajaja andA Midsummer Night's Dream.
Trnka also created some children's books as writer and illustrator, for exampleThrough the Magic Gate, published in 1962 in London.
The biennialHans Christian Andersen Award conferred by theInternational Board on Books for Young People is the highest recognition available for a writer or illustrator of children's books. Trnka received the Illustrator award in 1968 for his lasting contribution.[4][5] He also taught: his pupils includedDaniela Havlíčková.[6]
After graduating from the Prague School of Arts and Crafts, Trnka created a puppet theater in 1936. This group was dissolved whenWorld War II began, and he instead designed stage sets and illustrated books for children throughout the war. Several years later, at the end of World War II, he founded with Eduard Hofman and Jiří Brdečka the animation studioBratři v triku. He began his activity in the study of animation by making some 2D animated short films:Zasadil dědek řepu (Grandfather Planted a Beet, 1945);Zvířátka a Petrovští (Animals and Bandits, 1946), which was awarded at the1st Cannes Film Festival, just one year after he had begun working in films,[1]Pérák a SS (Springman and the SS, 1946), ananti-Nazi film, andDárek (The Gift, 1946), asatire on the values of the middle class in a style echoingsurrealism. Despite his early success, Trnka did not feel comfortable with traditional animation, which in his opinion required too many intermediaries that prevented him from freely expressing his creativity. In the fall of 1946 he first considered puppet animation films, and began to experiment with the help ofBřetislav Pojar.[1]
The result was his first feature puppet film in a cycleŠpalíček (The Czech Year, 1947), based on a book illustrated by Mikoláš Aleš. The cycle consists of six short films, which put on stage the legends and customs of his country: Carnival (Masopust), spring (Jaro), the legend of St. Procopius (Legenda or svatém Prokopu), the procession (Pouť), party in the village (Posvícení) and Bethlehem (Betlém). The film attracted international attention to Czech animation and gained awards at many festivals, including theVenice Film Festival.
From 1948, the studios of Trnka began to receive subsidies from the government. The next film they produced wasCísařův slavík (The Emperor's Nightingale, 1949), based on the 1843 fairy tale"The Nightingale" byHans Christian Andersen. Unlike the previous, it is a real feature film with one single storyline. The movie also includes real actors (two children, Helena Patrocková and Jaromir Sobota),[7] although only in the prologue that precedes the story itself. The puppets and sets are significantly different from the previous film, given the setting of an idealizedimperial China.Císařův slavík also won numerous awards at international festivals across Europe and the United States.
During 1949, Trnka also made three short films with animated puppets:Román s basou (Story of a Bass, orNovel with Bass), adapted from a story byAnton Chekhov;Čertův mlýn (The Devil's Mill), based on a Czech fairy-tale, andArie prérie (Song of the Prairie), a westernparody loosely based onStagecoach (known in Trnka's country asThe Diligence) byJohn Ford.
The following year he produced his third feature animation withpuppets,Bajaja (The Prince Bayaya, 1950), based on two stories by writerBožena Němcová. Set in a fantasticalmedieval time, it is the story of afarmer who succeeds in becoming aknight, defeats adragon, and wins the love of aprincess.
During the first half of the next decade, Trnka experimented with new techniques in his short animations. He returned to the cartoonO zlaté rybce (The Golden Fish, 1951), and animated shadow puppets inDva mrazíci (1953). InVeselý Circus (The Merry Circus, 1951) he used a technique that involved stop-motion with two-dimensional paper cutouts. He neglected, however, the production of any animated feature-length puppet film. Apparently, for a time he had the idea of making a film aboutDon Quixote, but the project was not well received by the Czechoslovakian authorities. In 1953 he premieredStaré pověsti české (Old Czech Legends, 1953), his quarter-length movie. As withŠpalíček, his first feature,Staré pověsti české is structured in seven episodes that tell the legendary history of theCzech people. The film is adapted from a work byAlois Jirásek (1851-1930), then a popular author among the Czech youth, and has an obviouspatriotic tone.
In the same vein of exploring the classics of Czech literature, Trnka in 1955 faced the challenge of adapting to the screen a work immensely popular, the anti-war satireOsudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války ofJaroslav Hašek (The Good Soldier Švejk). At that time there already existed film adaptations of this work made using real actors, but Trnka was the first to make an animated film about the character. For the construction of the puppets, Trnka was inspired by the illustrations for the original book made byJosef Lada, which in the popular imagination were closely associated with the characters of Hašek. This humorous film is divided into three episodes, which tell the grotesque adventures of Švejk duringWorld War I. It received several awards at international festivals.
In 1959 he made his last feature film:Sen noci svatojánské (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1959), adapted from one of the most famous works ofWilliam Shakespeare.[8] Trnka had previously illustrated this book so he knew it well. In his adaptation he gave focus not only to the images, but also to the music ofVáclav Trojan, and strove to give the film an air of ballet, for which he hired a renowned dancer as an adviser. The puppets used in the film were not constructed of wood, but of a specially-made plastic, which allowed for a more detailed modeling of faces. Although it did not escape some criticism,Sen noci svatojánské was a resounding international success and is recognized as one of Trnka's masterpieces.
Over the next decade, the filmmaker made only a few short films, which were progressively in apessimistic tone. The first wasVášeň (The Passion, 1962), the story of a young man passionate about his motorcycle. He followed that same year withKybernetická babička (Cyber Grandma), a satire on the increasing importance oftechnology in everyday life.Archanděl Gabriel a paní Husa (The Archangel Gabriel and Ms Goose, 1964), set in medievalVenice, adapts one of the stories of theDecameron byBoccaccio.
He considered his greatest work to be the shortRuka (The Hand, 1965), his last film.[9][10][11] In the words of Bendazzi,Ruka is "a kind of hymn to the creative freedom raging." In short, it is about a sculptor visited by a huge hand, which seeks the completion of a sculpture of itself. By rejecting the imposition, the artist is constantly pursued by the hand, ending with inducedsuicide and the hand officiating at hisfuneral.Ruka is considered a protest against the conditions imposed by the Czechoslovak communist state to artistic creation, and even some have seen in it an anticipation of the so-calledPrague Spring. Although the film initially had no problems with censorship, after his death copies were confiscated and banned from public display in Czechoslovakia for two decades.[12]
Jiří Trnka died of complications from a heart condition in 1969 when he was only 57 years old, in Prague. His funeral, held inPlzeň, was a large public event.
Throughout his career Trnka experimented with different animation techniques, from traditional cartoons in his first shorts to animation with shadow puppets. However, his preferred method, and that which gave him worldwide fame, wasstop-motion puppet work. His carved puppet characters were animated in complex sets with an expressive use of lighting. In this manner he was able to realize the dream of Czech baroque sculptors to set their sculptures in motion. Of puppet films Trnka said:[1]
Really Trnka was not involved so much with the animation itself, but primarily on the development of scripts and puppet making. His studio had a trained team of animators, among which especially Břetislav Pojar was credited as responsible for the animation of many of Trnka's films. Other prominent animators from Trnka's studios wereStanislav Látal, Jan Karpaš, Bohuslav Šrámek, Eduard Hofman and Václav Bedřich.
Although animated films with puppets had already been made before Trnka, he corresponds to the main thrust of this technique, later used in many parts of the world. Unlike what had been done before, Trnka chose not to alter the appearance of the dolls with artificial elements to denote their emotions but to keep it unchanged, getting his expression through changes in framing and lighting. According to Pojar:
The scripts of the films were also Trnka's own work, who often used works of Czech authors (many of them related to popular folklore), as well as classics of world literature, such as Chekhov,Boccaccio, and Shakespeare. On some scripts he collaborated withJiří Brdečka.
In Trnka animated films the music also had an important role. In all his films and several of his short films, the composer of the music wasVáclav Trojan (1905–1983).
