{animation} – Page 32 – { feuilleton }

More Brothers Quay scarcities

Look What the Cat Drug In (Long Way Down) (1992).

More short films by the Brothers Quay that haven’t yet appeared on their DVDs. Look What the Cat Drug In is a music video for Michael Penn that I was unable to find last time I did a YouTube trawl. It’s a good one.

Dolls (1994).

A 30-second warning about the perils of AIDS, made for the Partnership for a Drug Free America. Watch for the bizarre detail of a puppet snorting coke. The Quays made a lot of commercials and idents during the 1990s but few of them surface.

Black Soul Choir (1996).

A music video for 16 Horsepower featuring animated nails and pieces of chalk.

Alice in Not So Wonderland (2008).

Another short warning—climate change this time—made for Live Earth. How much of the message makes it through the surrealism is debatable but it’s good to see the Quays’ take on Lewis Carroll.

The Metamorphosis (2012).

Mikhaïl Rudy plays a piano piece by Leos Janácek (the subject of an earlier Quays film) while Gregor Samsa deals with his traumatic awakening. The previous scarcities post found a trailer for this piece which apparently runs for 33 minutes. The version linked here is only the first 5 minutes but it gives a better idea of the film as a whole.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Quay Brothers archive

Fu Liu, a film by Xiang Pu Zhu

According to the notes for Xiang Pu Zhu’s short demo piece, all the shots here are computer generated. Some are more obvious than others but the combinations of liquid and particles are very impressive. The music is by Esther Garcia.

Hell, a film by Rein Raamat

An inferno of a different kind, Hell (1983) is a short film by Estonian animator Rein Raamat based on a series of etchings by Estonian artist Eduard Wiiralt (1898–1954). The drawings date from around 1930 when Wiiralt was living in Paris so they’re understandably connected to Surrealism. Browse some of the originals at 50 Watts. (Thanks to Modzilla for the tip!)

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Inferni
• Mirko Racki’s Inferno
• Albert Goodwin’s fantasies
• Harry Lachman’s Inferno
• Maps of the Inferno
• A TV Dante by Tom Phillips and Peter Greenaway
• The last circle of the Inferno

The pinscreen works of Alexandre Alexeieff & Claire Parker

The incredible animated films of Alexeieff & Parker have been featured here before, the last occasion being a post about their 1963 adaptation of Gogol’s The Nose. The Gogol film is included in this 38-minute YouTube compilation whose contents are as follows: A Night on Bald Mountain (1933), En passant (1943), The Nose (1963), Pictures at an Exhibition (1972), Three Moods (1980). The Nose is still the best of their films that I’ve seen to date but mention should be made of the gem that is En passant, a very brief illustration of a Canadian song. The precision of this piece never fails to astonish me: the pinscreen technique must be difficult enough without also being able to suddenly shift viewpoint—the moment when the squirrel jumps on the windmill blades!—and accurately convey the movements of a squirrel and a rooster. Watch that one if nothing else.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Nose, a film by Alexandre Alexeieff & Claire Parker
• Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker

Spheres, a film by Norman McLaren and René Jodoin

Norman McLaren’s dance films were a late development, previous decades having been spent creating animated films in a variety of techniques. Many of these were abstract works with a musical accompaniment, as is Spheres (1969), one of McLaren’s last films in this style. It’s not completely abstract: a butterfly keeps interrupting the multiplying spheres which dance through space to a piano piece by Bach. This being a Canadian production, it’s fitting that Glenn Gould is at the keyboard.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Ballet Adagio, a film by Norman McLaren
• Pas de Deux by Norman McLaren
• Norman McLaren