Tadahito Mochinaga: Puppet Animation
Filmmaker
人形アニメーション作家 持永もちなが只仁
National Film Center, Tokyo
13 May – 10 September, 2017
The National Film Center
in Tokyo has been closed for renovations but will be reopening in May. As part of their celebrations of thecentenary of Japanese animation the museum will feature an exhibition
celebrating the career of legendary puppet animation pioneer Tadahito Mochinaga. The exhibition will start with his
contributions to early pre-war anime in Japan, such as assisting Mitsuyo Seo in
the production of Ari-chan (1941). Among his many innovations
during the production of this film, he constructed the first multiplane
animation table in Japan.
In 1945,
Mochinaga moved to China where he set up an animation studio and mentored young
artists who would go on to become the top animators in the country. Upon his return to Japan in 1953, he began
producing educational puppet animation shorts.
One of these films, Little
Black Sambo (1956) came to the attention of the American film producers Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Saul Bass and led to Mochinaga’s company doing the stop motion for
some of America’s best loved television
holiday classics such as Rudolph
The Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and The
Little Drummer Boy (1968).
Mochinaga
was a mentor to Japan’s
puppet animation masters Kihachirō Kawamoto and Tadanari
Okamoto, who in turn would inspire a future generations of stop motion
animation in Japan.
The
exhibition will feature original puppets, drawings, and notes. There are also film screenings to be held
July 22-23, 2017. More information TBA at
a later date.
To learn
more about Mochinaga, read:
2017 Cathy
Munroe Hotes
