Nishikata Film Review: UK

Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts

07 March 2015

Makoto Wada’s Movie Inspired Art 3: European Classics

Makoto Wada (和田誠, b. 1936) is best known as an illustrator whose work has adorned the pages of writers as diverse as Shinichi Hoshi, Haruki Murakami, and Agatha Christie. In addition to illustration, he has also dabbled in film directing and animation – winning the Noburo Ofuji Award for 1964 for his comic animated short Murder (殺人). In Murder, he spoofs a wide variety of famous film and literary icons including Poirot, Sam Spade, Dracula and James Bond. He has also done a range of paintings inspired by film stars and classic movies. This is my third in a series of posts looking at his art and his muses. See also: Part 1: Early Hollywood and Part 2: Hollywood Classics

You can support this artist by ordering collections of his work such as:

Order: Makoto Wada Cinema Art

In November 2011, Makoto Wada held an exhibition entitled "World of European Films" 「ヨーロッパ映画の世界」at the Dojima Avanza Entrance Hall in his native Osaka. According to Kansai Art Beat, the exhibition featured paintings inspired by everything from the popular Harry Potter film adaptions to art cinema classics like Fellini's La Strada (1954).

One of the images used to promote the film was a striking image of Sean Connery as James Bond against a red background.

I believe this studio photo of Connery was used for the promotion of Goldfinger (1964).

One of my favourites from Makoto's European film series is his rendering of the unforgettable moment from Godard's Breathless when Jean Seberg, in her Herald Tribute T-shirt kisses Jean-Paul Belmondo on the cheek:

The yellow background suits the mood of Breathless, I think, and Wada has captured the body language of the two protagonists perfectly. Less successful, in my opinion, is Wada's rendering of Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes (1948):

Yes, this is one of the classic stills from the movie, but the adaptation lacks finesse. Wada's body proportions for the ballet dancer Vicky Page are all wrong. Actress Moira Shearer was much more delicately proportioned than that, and her nose was quite dainty in real life. Wada makes her look more like one of Cinderella's evil stepsisters.

In contrast, Wada's interpretation of Albert Lamorisse's fantasy featurette The Red Balloon (1956) is spot on in its use of colour and design.

Next: Makoto Wada's Movie Inspired Art 4: Modern Classics

2015 Catherine Munroe Hotes

15 May 2014

A boy who wanted to be a super hero (2004)

Superhero comics usually rely on familiar character types and formulaic plots of good overcoming evil and restoring the status quo. Such stories are comforting to us as children, and one of the challenges of growing up is coming to terms with the reality that the world and superheroes are not as straightforward as in fiction.

A boy who wanted to be a super hero (2004) is an animated short by Hiromitsu Murakami that charts an imaginative young boy’s disenchantment with his dream of becoming a superhero. Instead of focusing on a more realistic goal; however, this young boy, for reasons he himself cannot even discern, instead dreams of becoming a panda. The imagined panda becomes the voice inside of the boy that tries to dissuade him from thoughts of depression and suicide, and seeks to restore the dream of being a superhero who can save the world. Kafkaesque flying fish signal a journey to the past in the seaside town where the boy spent his early childhood. Donning the guise of the panda himself, the boy witnesses his past self and must come to terms with the deep-rooted feelings of loneliness and inadequacy. Perhaps the world that needs saving is not an external act, but an internal one.

Many Japanese independent animators look outside of Japan, particularly to Europe and North America, for role their animation role models. Hiromitsu Murakami pursued his animation studies in England and the influence of both his native culture and British aesthetics are apparent in his work. The set design is inspired by real places around Finsbury Park, London and Folkestone, on the English Channel. Although the sets are English in character, the central protagonist is distinctly Japanese, with a wide-eyed anime look. The toys that he becomes disenchanted with in the first scene are also inspired by Japanese characters – in one hand he has a kaiju (a monster like Godzilla) and in the other an Ultraman-like superhero.

This duality between cultures is also reflected in the use of both 2D and 3D animation techniques. As Murakami himself describes, “At first, I took photographs of people and landscapes and transformed images into an anime look. Then I attached images on flat board and formed along the images. It's a kind of 2.5D cut-out animation in a 3D space.” It creates a feeling of dislocation in the spectator that reflects the psychological reality of this boy trying to make sense of an often senseless world.

Hiromitsu Murakami (村上寛光, b. 1975) has a BA in Imaging Art from Tokyo Polytechnic University (1998) and an MA in animation from the Royal College of Art (2004). He has been an assistant professor at Tokyo University of the Arts since the inception of its animation programme in 2008. Follow him on twitter @kaetama.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014

12 December 2013

The Insects (虫, 1964)

Jimmy T. Murakami, whom Giannalberto Bendazzi has called one of the “Globe Trotters of Animation”, began The Insects (aka Insects / 虫, 1964) while living in London, England in 1961. By this point in his career, Murakami had already worked for Stephen Bosustow at UPA, Ernest Pintoff in New York, and even Toei Dōga, before heading to the UK to work for George Dunning (initially for UPA’s London Office, but then for Dunning’s newly formed company TVC London).

TVC specialized in commercial animation, but The Insects was a pet project that Murakami did independently. As he explained in a 2001 interview with Andrew Osmond: “I made Insects at home, writing, animating, tracing, painting, I did the whole thing. I made it with a lamp under the table as a bottom-light. I couldn't afford to shoot it, so I went to Dunning and told him about this film, all painted and ready, and asked him if he could shoot it for a co-producer credit. He said yeah, he loved the story. So the film went through TVC and they added a great soundtrack, and it ended up winning the British Academy Award.” (Source: AWN)

First we hear the sound of a pen furiously writing on paper, and section by section a writer in a tall red hat appears. The writer is sitting at a desk, working away, in a space bare except for a fly swatter hanging on the wall beside him. He stops to briefly stretch and check over his work, and is so wrapped up in his writing that he does not notice a moth land on his hat. The moth devours his hat, revealing the writer’s bald head, and the moth flutters away laughing hysterically at his deed. The writer appears unmoved, but he is actually waiting for his chance at revenge and as the moth flutters close to his foot, the writer boots him off-screen and gets back to work.

Unfortunately for the writer, this is only the first onslaught. He gets attacked by a series of insects, with each episode more hilarious than the last. He slaps himself in a fury to get rid of a fly. Another fly drives him crazy by keeping just out of reach, going in his ear and just being generally annoying until he gets sprayed. His dog vies for his attention and leaves him covered in itchy fleas. His frustration impairs his writing and he balls up a page and throws it on the floor, only to have a group of ants pick up the ball of paper and play with it in front of his face. He pounds the table to get rid of the ants and they land on his head – forming first a wig, then a funny moustache, then other amusing shapes as he tries in vain to spray them dead. He fights them is a cloud of dust until he keels over and they carry him off. The film ends with him calling meekly for help – his dog bounds into frame but seems more interested in his fleas.

I found myself doubled over with laughter while watching this film and wondered if it was inspired by Murakami's move to the UK. My first encounter with insects indoors also occurred in the UK - in North America and Japan there are screens to keep insects out of homes/businesses so I was shocked to discover that windows in the UK had no screens. Ditto the rest of Europe. Here in Germany, the fight against insects indoors gets comically extreme in the late summer. I am always bemused by the strange anti-insect machines the local bakery purchases to fight wasps on their desserts instead of just installing screens. . . especially as there is a small local business just down the street who advertises screens as part of their window business. Murakami certainly captures the aggravation caused by insects perfectly.

The Insects won the BAFTA for animation in 1965. In recent years, big studio animated features have been winning the BAFTA for best animation. In the 1960s, the awards were much more focused on innovation in animation. Mel Brooks’ The Critic, directed by Murakami’s former boss Pintoff had won the previous year, and in 1963 George Dunning had won with The Apple. Like The Apple, The Insects uses a simple line-drawing style and a clever concept to generate big laughs. A classic of 1960s animated shorts.

The Insects can be found on the DVD Reflections of Jimmy T. Murakami. Please support this independent artist by buying the DVD via his official website.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2013

01 March 2012

A Wonderful Medicine (ふしぎなくすり, 1965)

This 15-minute stop motion animation is an important landmark in Japanese animation history. A Wonderful Medicine (ふしぎなくすり, 1965) is the first independent film by Tadanari Okamoto (岡本忠成, 1932-90) after he founded his own studio Echo Productions (Echo Kabushiki-gaisha) in 1964. It is also the first stop motion / puppet animation to win the Noburo Ofuji Award, which for 1965 was jointly awarded to Okamoto and experimental animation pioneer Yōji Kuri. Okamoto was to go on to win this prestigious award more times than any other animator.

A Wonderful Medicine is an adaptation of the short-short story Nusunda Shorui (盗んだ書類) by novelist Shinichi Hoshi (1926-1997), acclaimed for his “short-short” science fiction stories – many of which were illustrated by another Ofuji award-winning animator Makoto Wada and one of Kuri’s fellow Animation Sannin no Kai members Hiroshi Manabe. Short-short stories belong to the genre flash fiction, and as such tend to be not only short but also boast fresh, innovative storylines and unexpected endings.

The evil genius imagines the medicine giving him powers of defying gravity / the winding road leading up to the scientist's lab

In an opening reminiscent of To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955), an open top convertible winds its way up a coastal hill to a lookout point. But instead of Cary Gant and Grace Kelly, the car holds a tall, skinny, evil genius with a Poirot moustache and his short, checked-cap-wearing lackey. The two men are targeting a moustachioed elderly scientist who quirkily has a boy assistant and a talking crow.

Posing as a potential customer, the evil genius spies on the scientist and overhears him making a new discovery. Believing this new “wonderful medicine” to be something useful for his plans for world domination, the evil genius and his lackey plan a bold mission to steal the “wonderful medicine.” Comical at every turn, they are almost foiled by the alarm systems and the talking crow, but in the end their cunning allows them make off with their prize. In a hilarious twist at the end (spoiler alert), the lackey – who is coerced into being the guinea pig – takes some of the “wonderful medicine” which turns out to be a cure for turning a wicked heart into a good and wholesome heart. Overcome by his new-found sense of morally upstanding principles, the lackey confesses his crime to the scientist, who is delighted to learn that his new medicine works as intended.

Examples of special effects

Compared to Okamoto’s graduate work Mirror (1960), one can see an improvement in the fluidity of character movement and general expressiveness of the characters – skills which Okamoto acquired during his period working under Tadahito Mochinaga at MOM Productions. In an amusing touch, the scientist and the evil genius, whose mouths cannot be seen, both talk via their moustaches going up and down. The establishing shots, both exterior and interior, set the scene beautifully. The most innovative sequences occur when the crow tries desperately to prevent the thieves from taking the medicine. Scribbles and even foam have been overlaid on top of the scene in order to depict the chaos of the fight in a dynamic fashion – I am guessing that as with Eastern European puppet films of this period (hugely influential on Okamoto throughout his career), and indeed as with Kihachirō Kawamoto’s early puppet films, this film was shot on the horizontal surface of an animation table with the camera looking down from above. This would have allowed Okamoto to add depth and special effects on plates of glasses placed at different camera distances above the puppets.

A Wonderful Medicine appears on the first DVD of the Collected Works of Tadanari Okamoto (JP only), which I reviewed for Midnight Eye. This review belongs to my series on the Noburo Ofuji Award.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

14 September 2011

Shigeru Tamura’s Top Animated Films

The fantastic world of Shigeru Tamura’s illustrations and animations is a curious combination of science fiction landscapes with 19th and early 20th century characters that look more European than Japanese. When I looked up Tamura’s response to the Laputa 150 poll, I half expected the list to include a lot of Eastern European animation because the young boy in URSA minor BLUE is called Yuri. While the list does include Yuri Norstein’s celebrated classic The Hedgehog in the Fog (1975), Tamura’s list actually reveals his fascination with a wide spectrum of animation styles.

Tamura lists 15 animation favourites in no particular order. He clearly loves early animation such as Winsor McCay’s groundbreaking film Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), the early Felix the Cat series, and Betty Boop’s comical outing as Snow White (1933). He also displays a fondness for classic animation series such as Mickey Mouse when he was at his best in the 1930s and the Tex Avery classics (Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Droopy, Screwy Squirrel, et al.).

As Tamura works mainly with hand drawn and computer animation, I was surprised to see such a variety of stop motion animation on his list. From the pioneering stop motion work in the original King Kong movie to the surreal worlds of Jan Svankmajer’s Alice (1988), the Brothers Quay's Street of Crocodiles (1986) and the bolexbrothers’ The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb (1993), Tamura clearly has an admiration for innovative filmmakers. It’s particularly interesting to note his choice of Wallace and Gromit’s A Grand Day Out (amusingly called “Cheese Holiday” in Japanese) as a favourite rather than Nick Park’s more polished later Wallace and Gromit films. A Grand Day Out is pleasingly rough around the edges and has a more outlandish plot than the others.

What distinguishes Tamura’s own work for me has always been his bold use of colours and his fantastic imaginary worlds. I can see how the psychedelic colours of Yellow Submarine (1968), the imaginative worlds of Fantastic Planet (1973) and Laputa: Castle in Sky (1986), and the poetic splendour of Night of Bald Mountain (1933) would appeal to Tamura’s poetic sensibilities. If you haven’t seen the films and series on Tamura’s list, I highly recommend seeking them out.