Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Lou Bunin was born in Russia near Kiev. He received his early art training at the Chicago Art Institute and followed up studying with the sculptor Bourdelle in France at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere. In 1930 he returned to the US with a one man show at Chicago’s Younge Gallery. This was followed by a year in Mexico where he served as an assistant to the painter, Diego Rivera.

He started a marionette theater in Chicago with the author, Meyer Levin. they produced a version of Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape and Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.

In 1938 he collaborated with Charles Bowers on his first film with “stringless” puppets. Petroleum Pete and His Cousins (sometimes known as Pete-roleum and His Cousins). This was a 30 min. movie commissioned by the Petroleum Industry for the 1938 World’s Fair and was directed by Joseph Losey. 12 mins. of the film were animated.

During World War II, he was involved in the production of another stop-motion animated film, Bury The Axis. This film is available in dvd from Steve Stanchfield on his Cartoons For Victory. (I highly recommend this disc. A great collection of truly rare WW II films.) I found this film on YouTube and thought I’d share to celebrate this animator’s beginnings.

– The Oscar nominees were revealed this morning.
The animated features were excellently chosen:
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf’s Up

I think you know which one I’d like to see win. A hint – it’s 2D.

Those nominated for animated short include:
I Met the Walrus
Madame Tutli-Putli
Meme Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)
My Love(Moya Lyubov)
Peter & the Wolf

I’m quite disappointed that Jeu didn’t make it. Georges Schwizgebel‘s film was brilliant, but the voters didn’t get it, I guess. I’m also a bit surprised the The Pearce Sisters wasn’t nominated. Instead the insipid My Love made it. One could have predicted that, but then I already wrote about this film.

Congratulations to them all, and also to Brad Bird and Jim Capobianco, Jan Pinkava for the nomination for Best Screenplay for Ratatouille. If they win, Jan Pinkava could win after being replaced by Brad Bird.

- Here is the third and final installment in the Charles Bowers article by noted animator, I.Klein. This final article appeared in the Sept. ’75 issue of Cartoonist Profiles magazine.
I want to thank Mark Mayerson for volunteering to post the article when it seemed that I wasn’t going to be able to locate it. (As long as the information gets out there, I’m happy.)

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Rob Farr has an overview of Charles Bowers‘ life and career on his site, Mug Shots, which is a home page of all the forgotten silent film comics. (Don’t forget that Boweers, teamed with Harol L. Muller, made many silent comedies. Farr includes extensive quotes of news articles and reviews about Bowers.

Tomorrow morning I’ll post the next couple of Pinocchio boards “Pinocchio Comes To Life.”

– So when we last left I. Klein yesterday, he was telling us about Charles Bowers. Bowers was a silent film animation pioneer and entrepeneur. He’s done enough that I think he deserves a little more attention by historians, but there isn’t much interest in and information about the silent film animators. Other than Winsor McCay, not too many early pioneers have been the focus of attention. Even someone as important as J.R. Bray remains a silent shadow in the corner of animation history overshadowed by the likes of Disney and the Fleischers.

As a matter of fact, other than specific biographies (such as a book I have on Lotte Reineger or John Canemaker‘s books on McCay and Otto Messmer) I can only think of two books which focus on silent film animation. There’s the excellent book, Before Mickey by Donald Crafton, and there’s Walt In Wonderland by Russell Merritt and J. B. Kaufman. Both are must-haves for animation lovers.

Here then is the continuation of I.Klein’s article for Cartoonist Profiles’ June 1975 issue:

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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– Charles Bowers was an animation pioneer and entrepeneur. He is often mentioned in animation histories but is given short mention in the same publications. The brilliant book, Before Mickey by Donald Crafton, often mentions Bowers by name and company (Celebrated Film Corporation), but it doesn’t really go into what he did.

In fact, he supervised the Mutt and Jeff series for Pathe-Freres and Bud Fisher and was instrumental in trying to get The Katenjammer Kids animated (until law suits from Hearst developed). He invented a new camera for live action and became a moderately successful silent-screen comedian. He also did a couple of puppet animated shorts in 1939 & 1940 which were released by the Fleischers.
(Click on any image to enlarge.)

Additioinally, he was an animator for Loucks & Norling on a World’s Fair film about petroleum done in 3-D (stereo vision), a story writer for Walter Lantz, a published cartoonist, a children’s book author/illustrator, a high-wire walker and at one time a bronco buster. Perhaps his problem was that his energies were too spread out trying to do many different things. Had he been more focussed on a single métier, he might have had more success. (Just a guess.) His is in some ways a typical animation biography.

In March and June of 1975, Cartoonist Profiles published a two-part article by animator, Izzy Klein. Klein witnessed Bowers’ work and writes about it in a very affable style.

Cartoonist Profiles magazine stopped publishing in 2005 when editor Jud Hurd died. I’ve decided to post the two parts of this article: Part 1 here, today. Part 2 later this week.

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– After thinking about Dick Williams‘ Thief and the Cobbler feature, I can’t help but be brought back to Errol Le Cain. Of course, there isn’t much of his art from the feature available for viewing. The best we can do is to look at his illustration work again. Here, I’m posting several of the images from his adaptation of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The daring and invention in images like these makes me wonder why animated films are so obvious in their choices. Is it just that we expect the general public not to appreciate good ideas and imagery, or do we actually think the clichés we’re producing are good? Le Cain‘s backgrounds for Dick Williams were just as original, and in a way Le Cain became to Dick what John McGrew was to Chuck Jones.

The Disney Aladdin was about Robin Williams more than it was about telling the story from the Arabian Nights. The final film was a successful amalgam of reworked Warner Bros. and Disneyesque schmaltz. The design was attractive cartoon; they weren’t trying to do more than that, and it worked. The film was successful.

I just would like to see someone reach a bit higher. These illustrations get me excited about the possibilities of animation, yet animation does that so rarely.