Michael Sporn Animation - Splog

Issue #7 of ANIMAFILM included an article about the Gianini/Luzzati feature, The Magic Flute. To keep the names of these greats in the present, I’m posting the article here. Enjoy.

The Magic FLute
by Massimo Maisetti

The “Magic Flute” was Mozart’s last opera, written not for the court theatre in the centre of Vienna, but for a theatre situated at the outskirts, whose manager was Schikaneder, author of the libretto. Giorgio Strehler said that it was one of the most complex and most universal works, which could be approached both from the position of the performer and the spectator. The libretto, inspired by oriental short stories, published in 1786, and by abbot Terrason’s novel, stirs up imagination, intelligence, feelings and the sense of ethics. Goethe wrote that one needed more culture to admit the values of the libretto than to deny their existence. This opinion should be thought over, as it deals with the performance staged at the outskirts in the period when to acknowledge values of a “folk” work was to oppose the accepted norms.

The opera, performed for the first time on September 30th, 1791, has many elements aimed at entertaining less sophisticated audience. Next to the drama of Tamino and Pamina, which is the embodiment of the eternal conflict between Right and Wrong, the Sun and Darkness, next to esoteric elements, connected with the doctrine of freemasons, which both Mozart and Schikaneder professed, there is a counterpoint - Papageno, a purely folk character from commedia dell’arte. The opera has many aspects, but the most visible ones are its fabulous and folk aspects, and next to them - metaphysical, symbolic and cosmic aspects with their Egyptian and Hellenistic associations, making one “gravitate towards one’s conscience”, according to Kirkegaard’s words. Thus to screen the “Magic Flute” was a very difficult task, as the authors of the film rejected the possibility of screening the theatre performance. It was also difficult because they had to use a chromatic and graphic language, animating drawings, where culture and experience should be combined with great sensitiveness and invention.

Giulio Gianini and Emanuele Luzzati are among the few film-makers in the world, who can perform such a task successfully. Gianini is an animator. He is an organizer, who is able to subordinate the technique to creative requirements. His characters move like puppets against the scenography. Its colour scheme is joy, music and charm. Those colours are the invention of the scenographer Luzzati, and Gianini, the master of photography (Nastro d’Argento for best colour photography in 1952), can reproduce them using his miraculous alchemic recipes. It was not a mere chance that many years ago at the Festival in Gildenbourgh he worked on Mo/art’s operas: “Don Juan”, “Abduction from Serai”, “Cos! fan Tutte” and “Magic Flute”. “I have always wanted to make such a film since the day I worked on that scenography”, says Luzzati. Twelve years of preparations, two years of work financed by the German and Austrian television, work done with patience, skill and imagination. At least three of Gianini’s and Luzzati’s films, first films of that kind, are characterized by a perfect relation between the music and the image: “La Gazza ladra”, “L’ltaliana in Algeri” and “Pulcinella”, where the charming music happily underlines the fancy, lyrical approach and ironical reserve.

All this was expressed with the help of images in an apologue, in a stylistically sophisticated way. The above mentioned films are among the most interesting effects of using the technique of “decoup-age” in the history of animated cartoons, especially animated fairy tales. Both Gianini and Luzzati turned out to be great artists in synchronizing movements with the music of the three operas and creating three symphonies of lines and colours. Kings, soldiers, Moors, dragons and birds from those beautiful stories, created by Luzzati’s imagination come alive thanks to Gianini’s technique and move in the rhythm, forced upon them by the music and often interpret the music with the help of ballet. In this sense Rossini’s operas helped in the realization of the “Magic Flute”.

Mickey Rose, an English musicologist, made a fifty minute-long abbreviation of the opera, performed by Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Karl Boehm, preserving its most vital elements. At the same time the graphics enriches fantastic and folk aspects with expression. It was done with charm, amazing clearness and respect for the music. When the artists use the technique of decoupage paper becomes gold, glass becomes diamond and colours become rich and luminous, like Mozart’s music. It reminds us of such great modern painters as Rouault, Chagall, Picasso, Kandinsky, as well as of oriental wall paintings, Byzantine mosaics, story, creating a naturally composed style, rich in different shades, -where a brilliant visual side interprets and completes Mozart’s wonderful music. Finally the fairy tale aspect predominates over the symbolic aspect, also due to the character of Papageno, who plays a double role: of a paper character and a live narrator (actor Marcello Bartoli). This character in multicoloured feathers reminds its famous classic ancestors. The grandson of Harlequin and Pulcinella becomes the hero of the story, determining its character. Thus the romantic story of Tamino and Pamina concentrates the philosophic sense, which is shown in the form of a fairy tale, and is meant for a demanding audience. But the simple first layer of the film pleases children, like the films “Turandot” and “L’Augellin Belverde”, screened by Gianini and Luzzati in a similar style and technique. About seventy thousand photograms with their immobile and mobile parts, three hundred drawings of the background, creative power and enthusiasm of the authors make a work of art, which is a credit to the Italian cartoon film and deserves emotions, enthusiasm and approval.

- Last reminders for those in the New York area that tonight at 6pm there will be a celebration of the first animated Christmas Special on tv - Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. The film will be screened at 6pm and will be followed by a panel that includes Marie Matthews, the voice of “young Scrooge,” the director’s daughters, Roberta and Judy Levitow, as well as animator Darrell Van Citters, who recently wrote and published the extraordinary book Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, The Making of . . ..

The event will be held at the Paley Center. (Follow that last link for further information.)

DVDs of the show will be given free to anyone who attends.

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- Back in 1972 I entered the NY animation industry. I’d been out of the Navy for a year and had worked for six or seven months at Hal Seeger’s company, Channel Films, as a messenger who’d worked his way up to Film Editor on Wide World of Sports segments for ABC. The day I was offered the official raise to that position was the day I quit. I wanted animation and didn’t want to go down any alluring wrong roads.

The Hubley Studio had hired me for two days to help finish a commercial, and that had extended to several months of steady employment. I was totally green about the animation industry, though I thought I knew a lot - learned from books. (Unfortunately, they don’t teach you how to punch paper in books - nor do they properly train in most places.)

I was a sponge and tried to soak up anything I could learn about animation. I saw all the films I could and listened to anything any professional told me.

One day John Hubley, in passing, asked me if I was going to the NY Animation Festival. I didn’t know what that was, but found out immediately and went to every show I could - around my work schedule.

I once posted an article from Backstage Magazine that wrote about the 1st USA International Film Festival. This was a Festival founded by on Fred Mintz. I don’t quite know what his history was, but he had put together a Festival which ran at the New York Hilton Hotel on 54th Street.

Ultimately, there were three annual Festivals hosted by Mintz, and they were all a bit different from each other. I attended 1 & 2 and missed the tiny third (and last) edition which had moved to NYU.

I just recently found the programs for these, so here’s the one for the original, first “USA” International Film Festival.

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(Click any image to enlarge and read.)

When you opened the yellow cover of the magazine,
a blue hand out fell out. This corrected changes in the program.
An auspicious start.

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Lots of praise from groups like UNICEF.

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The letter from the director, Fred Mintz and
an article about animation by John Culhane.

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Articles by Robert Edmunds (who?) and Charles Csuri (double who??)
Lots of talk about computer animation.

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More articles by Peter Cowie (he’d written a couple of books I’d owned -
I knew who he was) Ken Knowlton (more computer animation - there
wasn’t much computer animation visible to the general public back then.)

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Articles about RIchard Williams (now you’re talking) and
Yoj Kuri (I’d read about him and saw his films for the first time here.)

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Raoul Servais (I didn’t know but would get to know him) and
Norman McLaren (I defintely knew him in 1972 and would learn more.)

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An article by RIchard Williams (he was already a hero of mine in 1972).
Every Festival had to have a show of Polish animated films back then.

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Zagreb was big at the time. Deservedly so.
I still don’t know what Yaniv Productions was.

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Elinor Bunin and the Zanders were staples in NYAnimation back then.

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Note some of the titles in the schedule: MR. ROSSI BUYS A CAR (Bozzetto),
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Williams), Paul Fierlinger ad, BATTLE OF KERSHENZ.

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More titles: Barrie Nelson’s PROPAGANDA MESSAGE, Zagreb’s VENUS AND THE CAT,
Gianini & Luzzati’s ITALIAN IN ALGIERS, Hubley’s CHILDREN OF THE SUN, George Griffin’s THE CANDY MACHINE.

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Eight years later I would open my own studio and do my
first films for the LEARNING CORPORATION OF AMERICA.

Back cover - WOODY ALLEN talks about DICK WILLIAMS

I have the program for the 2nd Festival. It’s a bit slicker. I’ll post that someday as well.

- An article in Variety announced Chris Wedge’s upcoming film at Blue Sky. There’s a history of studio politics behind this film.

Apparently, when Wedge and the author of the book, “The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs,” William Joyce (Robots) weren’t able to get Fox to give the project a “go” they went to Pixar and Disney, with Fox’s blessing. Many meetings and discussions and planning later, just as Disney was about to make the deal, Wedge learned that Fox hadn’t and wouldn’t give up the rights.

Fox wouldn’t respond to Variety except to say that it was proud to have greenlit the film at Blue Sky. Of course,they started the project now that Disney and Pixar wanted it and Chris Wedge.

It would have been enormously interesting to see Wedge move to work at Pixar. We would’ve seen the real difference between the two studios comparing the pre and post films of the director. However, we’ve been spared the excitement as he takes control of this “major animated title” at his home, Blue Sky Studio in Connecticut.

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- Ken Priebe wrote to say that he is at work on a second volume of his book, The Art of Stop-Motion Animation. The release is scheduled for sometime next summer.

Of the book, Ken says: “I’m covering history of stop-motion again, but this time specifically focusing on the evolution of feature-length puppet films, from Starewitch’s ‘Tale of the Fox’ and onwards (to Wes Anderson’s ‘Fox’…funny how we’ve come full circle this year with foxes.) Also included will be rarely-talked about gems like Hansel & Gretel, Nutcracker Fantasy, Pogo for President, and others.”

Considering that the last year has seen at least four animated features done in stop-motion, the books are timely.

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I really got excited this article. Werner Herzog will start to teach a class in Rogue filmmaking. “The director of Aguirre and Rescue Dawn is offering students a chance to experience ‘the exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully’ and learn skills such as ‘the neutralisation of bureaucracy’”

The Werner Herzog school of guerrilla film-making is open for business!

“‘The Rogue Film School is not for the faint-hearted,’ said the film-maker. “It is for those who have travelled on foot, who have worked as bouncers in sex clubs or as wardens in a lunatic asylum, for those who are willing to learn about lock-picking or forging shooting permits in countries not favouring their projects.”

Not very faint-hearted and one who has travelled on foot, I’m trying to raise the $1,450 to be able to attend the weekend course.

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- Ward Jenkins posted pages from Emanuele Luzzati’s first children’s book, Chichibio and the Crane .

This is an adaptation of a story by Boccacio which was adapted and illustrated by the artist. Luzzati was already a designer of costumes and sets for the opera, including La Scala, and he had been a cermacist. The book is designed for two color printing, as were many books in the day, and it’s amazing to see the excellent results the artist pulled out of the limitations he was given.

This book is hard to find, and I’m pleased to see it on Ward’s site.

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- I doubt I need to direct any of you devoted to animation to Mike Barrier ’s site. Recent posts are coming at us with a vengence. Animation history is active on that site, and you get a good idea of what it takes for someone serious about the business.

There’s the long and excellent post on the information gleaned from an ad in the Film Daily Year Book for 1927 which goes into depth about Disney’s break from Charles Mintz and the interviews with Hugh Harman and film director, Andrew Stone.

There’s the trip Disney made to NY and Carnegie Hall in 1940 where he got to hear the use of the sound device that would become Fantasound.

There’s the discussion of Walt’s connection to Norman Rockwell or Dr. Seuss’s first cartoons.

This is probably the most important site for anyone interested in the history. Go there.

- Ali Baba is another beautiful film from the Luzzati-Gianini team. The film is adapted from the book by Luzzati done for Pantheon books in 1973. I’ve made some frame grabs:

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The film includes a lot of pans. Some of them quite long.
Doing cut-out animation, under the camera, with arduous pan movements
was a very tricky operation. You never knew if you were going to have a bump.
Today, in Flash or AfterEffects, you can see it immediately and repair any problem.

- I’ve been something of a fan of the films of Luzzati and Gianini. I’d met Emanuelle Luzzati at a function thrown at the Italian Embassy in New York, years ago. I bought a book by him, and the artist drew a beautiful pen and ink drawing in the frontispiece of the book.

In 1988, I met Giulio Gianini in Italy during a stay of a couple of pleasant days with an assistant of his at the festival in Treviso, Italy.

Mr. Gianini died this past Saturday, and I wanted to offer a bit of a memorial. Emanuelle Luzzati died January, 2007 and to memorialize that I posted some illustrations and information about the duo with a lot of frame grabs from a number of the Luzzati/Gianini films. It took a few posts, and I left off without wanting to overplay all of the art at my availability.
Luzzati & friend

The Thieving Magpie was the first of their films to receive an Oscar nomination, and it was the first of the frame-grab posts I showcased. I’d like to post it again in honor of Mr. Gianini. He was sick for several years and in particularly bad condition. His death wasn’t a surprise, but it is still an enormous loss.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie) is a Rossini opera about a young maidservant who, accused of stealing a silver spoon, is sentenced to death for her crime.
At the eleventh hour, the real culprit is found to be a magpie.
A cartoon, if ever there was one. With great music!

The film tells a tale wherein a king and his hunters, on a bird hunt, are beaten
by a magpie who steals their gems and ultimately destroys their village.

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Luzzati who spent many years designing operas and ballets,
brought his knowledge to animation as the pair adapted several operas often utilizing the overtures of the operas they were adapting.

6 7 The film was nominated in 1964 along with
Clay, and the Origin of the Species by Eliot Noyes
and the winner, Chuck Jones’ Dot and the Line.
The Sound of Music won the Best Picture Oscar, that year.

8 9 The use of cut-out animation wasn’t mainstream at the time.
This is years before Terry Gilliam made it somewhat fashionable. All of the
Luzzati-Gianini films were totally inventive and creative within the form they established.
Gianini’s animation was as dreamlike as Luzzati’s exciting designs. The films
look to be designed somewhere between Chagall, Kirchner and
stained-glass windows; the sensibilities are all Luzzati and Gianini.

Today we have Flash animation which does just about the same thing as cut-out animation, but the form used today is flat and vulgar and cartoony. It might be useful for practitioners of Flash to take a good look at what these two brilliant designer/animators did with a similar form under more complex and arduous methods. Ulltimately, it’s all related.

You can get a bit more information about Gianini and Luzzati from the website of the Luzzati Museum in Genova.

Thanks to Karl Cohen for the following information from Gianalberto Bendazzi:

Dear Karl,
I just want to share with you my sorrow for the death of twice Oscar-nominee Giulio Gianini.
He died in Rome on Saturday morning, May 16th, 2009.
He was born in Rome on February 9, 1927.

His lifelong friend and artistic partner Emanuele Luzzati had died in Genoa on January 26th, 2007.

I’ll post some further piece about his work later this week.

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- I was starting to put together a post of photos of signage and thought I should look back on what I’d posted in the past. I wasn’t impressed with my photos, but I enjoyed reviewing some pictures sent me by Steve Fisher.

Since I don’t have enough of what I wanted to put up today, I decided to send out Steve’s images again. They’re great.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Finally, this one. You have to get right on top of it
to see the message printed on the fence.

- Last week I posted a book byEmauele Luzzati, The Magic Flute. (Part 1, Part 2)

This was an adaptation of the feature film he did with Giulio Gianini. Luzzati also did a number of other children’s books (aside from all the animated films, as well as the theater and opera designs he did). None, that I know of, were pure adaptations of his film work. However, he did build on the character Pulcinello (Punch) to develop his story around Grimm tales.

Here’s a version of Punch and the Magic Fish, first published in English in 1972.
Most of the book is done as two-page spreads. I didn’t separate them. As with his past work, Luzzati uses a lot of mixed media. It looks like marker was the primary tool he used.

pg 1
(Click any image to enlarge.)

pgs. 2-3

pgs. 4-5

pgs. 6-7

pgs. 8-9

pgs. 10-11

pgs. 12-13

pgs. 14-15

pgs. 16-17

pgs. 18-19

pgs. 20-21

pgs. 22-23

pgs. 24-25

pgs. 26-27

pgs. 28-29

the back cover

- This post concludes the images from The Magic Flute, a book by Emauele Luzzati. The illustrations are reworked sketches and drawings done for the animated feature he did with animator, Giulio Gianini in 1978.

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(Click any image you’d like to enlarge.)

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A large part of the book is composed of two-page spreads.

- Emanuele Luzzati teamed with animator Giulio Gianini many times to produce some of the most beautiful films of the 60s & 70s. Their feature version of The Magic Flute completed in 1978 was also adapted into a book by Luzzati. He’d done the sets and costumes for a version of the opera in 1963.

The film didn’t get the attention it deserved, and it remains hard to locate. A small snippet is incorporated into a video on YouTube. (The animation doesn’t come on until about a minute of the piece.)

I originally saw the film when it once aired on local WNET (PBS station). It wasn’t repeated and video wasn’t available back then. However, I do have the children’s book which Luzzati published from his designs for the animation.

Here are the first half of the illustrations in the book.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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I left the type in the illustrations, though it’s a bit hard to read.

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To be concluded tomorrow.

Two excellent videos are posted on Willym Rome’s site, Willy or Wont He. They’re film pieces by Emanuele Luzzati and Giulio Gianini. Both films are difficult to find available.

The Cat Duet is a work adapted from an operatic piece that uses much of Rossini’s music even though it’s not considered an opera by the composer. The background of the opera is hazy, but the animated film is a beauty.

Brancaleone alle Crociate (Brancaleone at the Crusades) is a title sequence for the film by Mario Monicelli. It stars Vittorio Gassman and is reminiscent of other pieces by Luzzati and Gianini. I’ve made some frame grabs and am posting them below to give a small taste of the work. Go to the site, and view both videos.

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See other posts I’ve done on Luzzati and Gianini. They’re all very musical, beautifully designed and cleverly animated films.

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- Craig Yoe posted a wonderful original Mutt & Jeff comic strip on the Arflovers Blog. The strip features cartoonist, Bud Fisher, trying to draw a politically correct strip in 1919. Take a look; it’s hilarious.

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- Speaking of politically correct strips, there’s a good post about blacks in the current comic strips at The Root. It’s enlightening to read about this stuff in the 21st Century when we’re considering a black man as President. (Go Obama!) Race still matters to some people, unfortunately..

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- And speaking about Obama if you haven’t watched the Will I Am song Yes We Can sung to Obama’s New Hampshire speech take the time to look at it. Over a billion people have watched it already. The last half is good. here
You should see it if only to appreciate the anti McCain parody
_______________-_________posted here.
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- For something a little less controversial, check out the new post on the ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive. It’s a beautiful book illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren. Tenggren, of course, had a big hand in the design of Pinocchio. He was also the creator of The Poky Little Puppy._________________________

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- Yesterday, John Dilworth showed me the cover of the latest copy of ASIFA International’s magazine, Cartoons. He came across the magazine before I’d received my copy. I was surprised to see my work featured so prominently. That was a treat, I can assure you.

Thanks to the editors, Chris Robinson and John Libbey for the fine choice of cover and to Ray Kosarin for writing it in the first place.

It was even more interesting that Dilworth was the one who animated that cover scene from my film, Abel’s Island.

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