Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

Pal’s legacy in Europe has been sustained, consolidated,
and advanced by two major figures of
Czechoslovakian origin. Influenced by indigenous marionette
and theatrical traditions, Jirí Trnka (1912–1969)
and Jan Svankmajer (b. 1934) produced a range of extraordinary
films pushing the boundaries of stop-motion and
other techniques as well. Trnka’s politicized if romantic
vision inspired masterpieces such as Staré povesti ceské (Old
Czech Legends, 1953), Sen noci svatojanske (A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, 1955), and Ruka (The Hand, 1965), while
Svankmajer’s more subversive and challenging view,
genuinely taboo-breaking in its daring, appears in such
features as Alice (1988) and Otesánek (Little Otik, 2000).
This altogether darker work inspired the Quay Brothers
working in England, Kihachiro Kawamoto (b. 1925) in
Japan, and Tim Burton and Henry Selick in the United
States. Svankmajer’s work is an important example of the
ways in which the principles of modernist thought and
political insight may be accommodated in experimental
film. His ‘‘agit-prop’’ (strident critique of authoritarian
regimes and political repression) and ‘‘agit-scare’’ (use of
surreal images drawn from the unconscious to prompt
moments of fear and revelation in his audience) are conceptual
applications to the medium and should be understood
as a methodology in the creation of distinctive
imagery and alternative narratives. Svankmajer’s masterpiece,
Moznosti dialogu (Dimensions of Dialogue, 1982), is
a tripartite meditation on the breakdown of communication,
illustrating the brutal and destructive tendencies
inherent in human exchange. The film is a complex metaphor
and a challenging comment on humankind’s inability
to resolve its differences.
The contemporary era has seen the emergence of the
Will Vinton studios in the United States and Aardman
Animation in England as masters of clay animation. The
two styles vary, but both studios value the ‘‘clay’’ aesthetic
as something visually distinctive and engaging.
Nick Park (b. 1958), Aardman’s most famous son, created
Wallace, the eccentric inventor, and his altogether
smarter dog, Gromit, a now globally famous partnership,
who have featured in Park’s shorts A Grand Day Out
(1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), and A Close Shave
(1995). Park’s work, though speaking to a wider tradition
of English wit and whimsy, nevertheless has clear
affiliations with the stop-motion animation made for
children’s television in England by Gordon Murray
(b. 1921) and Bura and Hardwick (Camberwick Green,
1966, and Trumpton, 1967); Oliver Postgate (b. 1925)
and Peter Firman (b. 1928) (The Clangers, 1969, and
Bagpuss, 1974); and Ivor Wood (1932–2004) at Filmfair
(The Wombles, 1973, and Postman Pat, 1981). The high
quality of 3D animation for children in England has
been sustained by Cosgrove Hall, S4C, and BBC
Animation, and has been only echoed in the United
Animation
States by the early 1960s work of Jules Bass (b. 1935)
(Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, 1964, and Mad Monster
Party, 1968) and by Art Clokey’s (b. 1921) simple clay
figure, Gumby (1955 onward). Inevitably, Will Vinton’s
(b. 1948) Martin the Cobbler (1976), The Adventures of
Mark Twain (1985), and the 1990s’ advertisements for
the California Raisin Advisory Board, featuring raisins
singing popular songs, have in their various ways created
a high-water mark in clay animation in the United States,
which has always had to compete with the Disney tradition,
but also in recent years with the now dominant
CGI aesthetic.
Stop-motion and clay animators have always championed
the ‘‘materiality’’ and ‘‘textural’’ aspects of their
work as the distinctive appeal of 3D stop-motion, but
one of the most significant aspects remains the necessarily
artisanal approach to the work, which is reliant not on
off-the-shelf software but on the ability to make and
build things, as well as to respond to the miniature
demands of theatrical practice and live-action filmmaking
techniques on a small scale. The fundamental belief
in the sheer ‘‘difference’’ and visual appeal of stopmotion
animation has also prompted the emergence of
important individual artists, from Serge Danot (The
Magic Roundabout, 1965) to Joan Gratz (Mona Lisa
Descending a Staircase, 1992) to Barry Purves (Gilbert
and Sullivan, 1999), each bringing a specific vision to
the materials, as well as a sense of theatrical space and the
fluid timing of their narratives. Peter Lord (b. 1953) and
David Sproxton’s (b. 1954) Animated Conversations
(1978) and Conversation Pieces (1982–1983) were also
groundbreaking in their combination of animation and
‘‘documentary’’ soundtrack. Chicken Run (2000), an
Aardman feature, proved hugely successful, and crucially
represented the maintenance of 3D work in a physical
and material context. The persuasiveness of 3D CGI has
proved a serious threat to such work, but the sheer
tactility, texture, and presence of 3D stop-motion work
with puppets or clay has endured and has maintained its
own aesthetic distinctiveness. Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride
(2005) and Aardman’s feature Wallace and Gromit: Curse
of the Were-Rabbit (2005) are testaments to the style’s
achievement and future.
DIGITAL ANIMATION
The history of digitally produced animation, and animation
produced through the use of a computer, begins
outside the sphere of the entertainment industry, emerging
out of the work of military and industrial research
teams seeking to use computer graphics for simulation
and technical instruction. The Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), created by the US
army at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946, was
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