Jiri Trnka

Jiří Trnka (February 24, 1912 Plzeň - December 30, 1969 Prague) was Czech puppet maker, illustrator, motion-picture animator and film director, renowned for his puppet animations. He graduated from Prague School of Arts and Crafts. He created a puppet theater in 1936. This group was dissolved when World War II began, and he instead designed stage sets and illustrated books for children throughout the war. After the war ended, Trnka established an animation unit at the Prague film studio. Trnka soon became internationally recognized as the world's greatest puppet animator in the traditional Czech method, and he won several film festival awards. One animator called him "the Walt Disney of the East". He won an award at the Cannes Festival in 1946, just one year after he began working in film. His films were mostly made for an adult audience. Beginning in 1948, the communist Czech government began to subsidize his work, although this did not seem to affect the message or style of his work. He also created animated cartoons. He wrote the scripts for most of his own films. He died of heart trouble in 1969.

Český výtvarník a režisér animovaných filmů, ilustrátor, malíř a sochař. Jiří Trnka je spolu s H. Týrlovou a K. Zemanem tvůrce českého animovaného filmu.

Life

In most cases, Trnka's films became first successful outside Czechoslovakia. Trnka attributed this to the fact that in Czechoslovakia, the poeticism and perhaps naiveté in his work was a common fare, whereas the West was inundated by somewhat tougher production. Moreover, he never thought that the fame was only because of the puppets; what is being said is what matters, not just the motion and attractiveness of the puppets. http://www.radio.cz/cz/clanek/81813

http://www.radio.cz/cz/clanek/85414 (audio by trnka)

Jan Werich was once visiting Trnka's studio and saw him painting the background?? on glass planes. Werich thought he was dreaming, so he came over and asked, "Excuse me, are you painting with both hands?" Trnka responded, "Well, not always, but those morons are not around and we are running out of time [children's movie project]." http://www.radio.cz/cz/clanek/82021

The animator, graphic designer, illustrator, painter, sculptor, stage and theater designer, and toy designer Trnka came from a lineage of artists. In 1923 he met with Josef Skupa and started giving puppet performances. In 1929-1935 he studied at the Uměleckoprůmyslové škole in Prague, with major in applied graphics. Between 1936 and 193 he gave puppet performances at the Rokoko theater in Prague. In 1937 he was produced his first puppet, Hurvínek.

In 1939 he caught the attention of the publishing world with his illustrations of the children's book Míša Kulička. In the same year, the National Theater in Prague (Národní divadlo) selected his bid for the stage design of opera Libuše.

The early years of World War II Trnka spent working with director J. Frejka working on the production of works by Shakespeare, Plautus, and Klicpera. Together with Adolf Zábranský, he invented a new type of illustration for children. His working with František Hrubín started in this period. In the middle of the war years, he painted Czech Bethlehem (Český Betlém) as an expression of beauty, calm and peace.

In 1945, along with other animators, he founded the animated film studio Bratři v triku, and the film became his creative medium for the next 20 years. In 1946 he founded the puppet film studio and was joined by Karel Látal and Břetislav Pojar.

In 1947 he shot the poetic puppet suite Špalíček, with music written by Václav Trojan, as a reflection of Czech life, happines, peace and work.

In 1948 came his first full-length puppet film Císařův slavík.

In 1950, after three short films Román s basou, Árie prérie, and Čertův mlýn, he attempted at full-fledged puppet play in fairy tale Bajaja.

In 1952 he finished Staré pověsti české, a perfect synergy of spoken word, music, action and puppets.

In 1954 he produced short films based on Josef Hašek's Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka with commentary by Jan Werich.

Po realizaci ploškového filmu Dva mrazíci se od roku 1956 věnoval knižní ilustraci (Pohádky tisíce a jedné noci, Andersenovy Pohádky), jež v jeho pojetí dostala rysy bohatosti a výpravnosti.

In 1958 he returned to the puppit film with filmu a pracoval na animátorsky náročné verzi Shakespearova Snu noci svatojanské.

V roce 1961 opět ilustroval (Pohádky bratří Grimmů, Staré pověsti české).

V roce 1964 natočil renesančně rozmarný film Archanděl Gabriel a Paní Husa a o rok později vyvrcholila myšlenkově závažným loutkovým filmem Ruka jeho řada filosofických snímků Vášeň a Kybernetická babička, jíž varuje před manipulací člověka stroji.

V posledních letech života se kromě práce pro Expo 67 v Montrealu věnoval malbě a sochařské tvorbě, ale znovu i knižní ilustraci (Werichovo Fimfárum) a sám napsal a ilustroval půvabnou knížku Zahrada (1962), která byla i zfilmována.

In 1967 he was appointed professor of Vysoké školy uměleckoprůmyslové, but failing health made it difficult and, eventually, impossible to work. He died in Prague at the age of 57.

His works were peppered with kind humor and founded on universally accepted moral values. His physique was almost remarkable - a robust, stocky man with a uniquely sculpted head. He never said much; he weighed every word. He was very fond of children, his and the others. http://osobnosti.unas.cz/#Ji%F8%ED%20Trnka

http://libri.cz/databaze/kdo20/search.php http://literatura.kvalitne.cz/trnka.htm

http://osobnosti.unas.cz/#Ji%F8%ED%20Trnka

Jiří Trnka je spolu s H. Týrlovou a K. Zemanem tvůrce českého animovaného filmu.

Walt Disney of the East

Trnka arrived to the first post-war Cannes Festival in 1946 with his three cartoons (his filmmaking career had only begun on May 29, 1945, when a group of young animators asked the famous book illustrator to become their boss). Despite the fact that his fairytale cartoon The Robbers and the Animals won the festival, another film that was entered, The Present,was of more importance to Trnka's work. The Present, written by J. Brdecka, was a cartoon for adults — a satire with Trnka's very own individual art design and a non-Disney way of storytelling. This film was completely misunderstood until Stephen Bosustow congratulated Trnka on it three years later. It was a visible step that divided post-war animation into two groups: the productions of big studios (classics) and films that were modern expressions, created in form and content by strong, individual personalities. Trnka liberated the Czech and world animated and puppet film from American influences and brought in complexity of animation and poeticism. Among his followers were his long-term co-worker Stanislav Látal, Václav Bedřich, Adolf Born, Zdeněk Smetana.

After he saw Trnka's wide screen puppet feature film The Midsummer Night's Dream at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959, English journalist labeled Trnka "Walt Disney Of The East". This is viewed by some as an exaggeration, citing the differences between the two great artists such as Disney's focus on the children or family audience, while most of Trnka's films targeted the adult audience.

In 1966, four years before his death, Newsday lauded him as "second to Chaplin as a film artist because his work inaugurated a new stage in a medium long dominated by Disney."

Puppets Come Alive

Trnka's preference was for puppets, whom he loved and elevated above all other kinds of art.

The Czech Year (Spalicek, which refers to illustrated folk songbooks and also a piece of wood) is a very significant work for Trnka's career. Asked twenty years later which of his films he liked the most, he answered The Czech Year. This was not an answer of a patriot, although the film is a cycle of six parts illustrating the old Czech folk customs around the year. When he started working on it in 1946, Christmas was drawing in, so he opened with "The Bethlehem" sequence, which was inspired by his own painting. The screening of this first portion of the film met with great success and led to the cycle's expansion to six parts. The Czech Year, his first puppet feature film, was internationally acclaimed for the beautiful, brilliant animation of unpretentious and unembellished wooden puppets and music inspired by Czech folk songs.

Trnka took on modern issues in the film Cybernetic Grandma.

The Hand was Trnka's last, and some say greatest, film. An artist, happy in his life, devotes his time making a pot for his favorite flower. But a giant hand appears and orders him to create a statue of a hand instead. He resists at first, but the hand is all powerful and he is forced to submit, at the cost of his liberty and ultimately his life. This darkly humorous allegory on totalitarianism, which won the top prize at the Annecy International Animation Festival, was banned in Communist Czechoslovakia.

Story of the Bass Cello is based on Chekhov's story about a bass player whose clothes are stolen while he's bathing in a river. When he happens upon a beautiful maiden in the same predicament, he hides her in the case of his large double-bass.

Merry Circus is neither a puppet film nor a cartoon, but an entirely unique means of expression and technique. Made from stop action photography of paper cutouts, the movement in this film, whether it's juggling seals or acrobats flying through the air, is magical.

A Drop Too Much is a tragic tale of a motorcyclist who, happily on his way to meet his fiancee, stops at a tavern with disastrous consequences. Trnka was the art director on this early warning against drunk driving.

Song of the PrairieAnother Trnka masterpiece, a parody of the wild American West, where the pistol rules the roost, timidity has no place, and love blossoms at first sight. Emperor's NightingaleThis English version, featuring a narration by Boris Karloff, has been digitally remastered. It is a puppet animation classic based on the Hans Christian Anderson story about how the song of a simple nightingale teaches an Emperor to revolt against the rigid protocol of his glittering but shallow world. When released recently on home video, the Washington Post called it "a lost classic happily found again" and Wired magazine "one of the most stunningly beautiful animated films ever released" and "a masterpiece of filmmaking and a production that elevates the art form to new heights." http://www.rembrandtfilms.com/jiritrnka.htm

After this limited success of The Old Czech Legends, he did three short adaptations of Hasek's famous classic The Good Soldier Sweik(1954) which made Trnka loved by the whole nation at last. But he was still looking for an internationally known classic story where he could speak to the audience using his art. He was a kind of Renaissance man unfortunately born in the wrong time and wrong country.

But in 1955 he started and in 1959 he finished his masterpiece, the wide screen puppet feature film The Midsummer Night's Dreamand — it failed. Both abroad and at home too. Even — or because — this adaptation of Shakespeare contains Trnka's entire opinions and esthetic notions about a puppet film. The elements he used were: an internationally known story, a carefully prepared screenplay (co-writer J. Brdecka), perfect characters and brilliant puppet animation, not too much dialogue and only a few lines of narration from time to time. Trnka never allowed lip-synch, he thought it was barbaric for puppets-sculptures-subjects of art to be treated in this manner. Music was always preferred to the spoken word. He often discussed his projects with the composer (V.Trojan) before he beginning work on a screenplay. When the musical score was composed before the animation and he liked it — he would even change his animation arrangement to fit the music. I think it is obvious why his Dreamfailed by most of journalists abroad and by ordinary adult audience too: they felt themselves lost in the picturesque but intricate story. I'm afraid they were not prepared for it. Trnka was strongly criticized at home as creating l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake) and loosing touch with the working class. Let's see the film today! Not on TV but on the wide screen at the cinema as it was intended and created by its creator to be. Trnka shot the film with two parallel cameras (classic and wide screen format which was a novelty at that time) because he did not believe in "compositions seen through a mailbox slot."

A reception of The Dream was a great disappointment for Trnka, he worked for years on it. Days and nights were spent in shooting, with everybody sleeping in the studio. It cost him his health but he was a strong man and a workaholic. He went back to his book illustrating, painting and sculpture but in the next few years he made another four short puppet films: The Passion(1961), The Cybernetic Grandma(1962), The Archangel Gabriel and Lady Goose after Boccacio(1964) and the classic The Hand (1965).

The Hand The last of Trnka's films, The Hand, was an unexpected and surprising break in his work thus far. It was something completely new in content and form. The Handis a merciless political allegory, which strictly follows story outline without developing lyrical details as usual; it had a strong dramatic arc with deep catharsisin the end. Trnka had used a combination of his typical funny-foolish but undefeated, ordinary man puppet as the protagonist and a live-action human hand (naked or in gloves) as the despotic antagonist. When The Handwas released it was officially declared as Trnka's criticism of the Cult of Personality (Stalin), but for all people, it was an alarming allegory of human existence in a totalitarian society. The film had the strong up-to-date story about the Artist and the omnipresent Hand, which only allowed the Artist to make sculptures of the Hand and nothing else. The Artist was sent to a prison for his disobedience and pressed to hew a huge sculpture of the Hand. When the omnipresent Hand caused the Artist's death, the same Hand organizes the artist's State funeral with all artists honoured. Trnka, for the first time, openly expressed his opinion about his own inhuman totalitarian society. The Handwas one of the first films that helped to open the short Prague's Spring. It is curious that Trnka predicted his own fate in it. When Jiri Trnka died in November 1969 (at only 57 years of age), he had a State funeral with honours. Only four months later, The Handwas banned; all copies were confiscated by the secret police, put in a safe and the film was forbidden for screening for next twenty years. A seventeen minute long puppet film intimidated the unlimited power of the Totalitarian State.

Edgar Dutka is a scriptwriter, animation historian and professor at The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. http://www.awn.com/mag/issue5.04/5.04pages/dutkatrnka.php3

Symbiosis with Communist Censorship

With the February 25, 1948, takeover of the post-war Czechoslovakia by the Communist Party, which gradually prompted many artists and famous personalities into exile, Trnka found himself not only unrestrained in his creative genius but also subsidized, for even the Communists enjoyed his work. They took the puppet stories to be meant for children; therefore, they did not censor or blacklist them. However, two parts of the film Spring, with a procession of Christians, and The Legend of St. Prokop were banned on grounds of religious propaganda until the late 1980s. When Trnka finished the national fairytale Bajaja in 1950, he was greatly honoured by the regime. But when he wanted to adapt Don Quijote in 1951, his project was banned by the Government as too cosmopolitan.

There always existed two sides to the Government's "generous" hand. Instead of Don Quijote,he was pressed to create historic myths in The Old Czech Legends(1952). Trnka didn't want to. He'd rather have quit working at the studio and gone back to illustrating children's book, but in solitude he found the clue to this theme. There are strong and brilliant scenes in the film, great character animation and superb music, more in the way of Janacek than Smetana. Trnka became a real filmmaker with this film but he was right: such a theme had a very limited audience. Even Czechs did not appreciate a filmed version of the history that they had to learn at school.

Jiří Trnka Studio

Along with fellow animators, Trnka in 1946 established a small puppet film studio (renamed The Studio of Jiří Trnka where puppets would "move on the screen". Here "active dreaming" — blending of imagination and poetry with invention and realism was put into practice, resulting in the classic animated puppet films, rarely shot elsewhere in the world. Not only puppet films but also commercials were made using superb animation techniques, wisdom, and moral values. The Czech puppet film remains the Studio's focus. All technologies of animated film, including puppet animation, semi-plastic film, flat-surface film, pixilation (animation of objects), and the plasticine method are used. http://www.kratkyfilm.com/catalogue/kf/studiojt.htm

Works

• Archanděl Gabriel a paní Husa

ČR, 1964, 28 minut

• Betlém

ČR, 1947, 10 minut

• Cirkus Hurvínek

ČR, 1955

• Císařův slavík

ČR, 1948, 71 minut

• Dva Mrazíci

ČR, 1954

• Kybernetická babička

ČR, 1962

• Legenda o sv. Prokopu

ČR, 1947, 10 minut

• Pérák a SS

ČR, 1946, 13 minut

• Ruka

ČR, 1965, 18 minut

• Sen noci Svatojánské

ČR, 1959, 75 minut

• Staré pověsti české

ČR, 1952, 91 minut

• Zvířátka a petrovští

ČR, 1946

References and further reading

• http://www.awn.com/mag/issue5.04/5.04pages/dutkatrnka.php3
• http://katalog.artfilm.cz/osobnost/OSO151

External links

• IMDb record
• Jiri Trnka — Walt Disney Of The East!

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