Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– Continuing my series on Emanuele Luzzati, who died last Thursday, I want to point some attention to an Italian monograph, published in 1983, on Luzzati and his partner, Giulio Gianini.

This book by Sara Cortllazzo is Pastelli Pupazzi e Siparietti, Il Cinema di Gianini e Luzzati. Its primary usefulness is the complete filmography which makes up the latter half of the book.

(You can read a digital translation of Gianni Rondolino’s introduction to this here.)

The book is illustrated with a number of B&W frame blow ups from the films. There are a couple of original pieces which I post here:
Luzzati on the left, Gianini on the right.
(All images enlarge by clicking them.)

2 3
2. The book’s cover features the Thieving Magpie ridden by Pulcinella, their two Oscar nominees.
3. This is a small sketch of Pulcinella (Punch) from the film Pulcinella.

A model for the magpie from The Thieving Magpie.

5 6
5. A character sheet from their short, Ali Baba. You can see exactly how the pieces will be cut and reconstructed to animate the character under the camera. (Not too far from Flash.)
6. A character sketch from the short, The Paper Castles.

A background setup from The Paladins of France.

– Last Saturday, I sought some stills from the films of Emanuele Luzzati who died on Friday. I wanted to illustrate a piece I was writing reporting his death. The web offers little by way of illustration of the brilliant artist’s work.

I’ve been something of a fan of the films of Luzzati and Gianini. As I said Saturday, I’d met 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 following which I spent a couple of pleasant days with an assistant of his at the festival in Treviso, Italy.

As a bit of a memorial, since I think this was an important artist who died, I’ve decided to post some illustrations and information about the duo with a lot of frame grabs from a number of the Luzzati/Gianini films. This will take a couple of posts so be prepared this week for a bit of Italian artwork.

It seems appropriate to start with The Thieving Magpie, the first of their films to receive an Oscar nomination.

1 1
(Click any image to enlarge.)
The opera is 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.

4 5
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 is flat 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 methods. Ulltimately, it’s all related.

Emanuele Luzzati has died. He was the brilliant Italian designer, who worked with Giulio Gianini in creating some wonderful animated cut-out films.

Their films adapted operatic overtures in reworking the operas themselves. The two were nominated for the Oscar for “The Thieving Magpie,” done in 1965 an interpretation of Rossini’s opera and again in 1973 for “Pulcinella.”

Luzzati died Jan. 26th, 2007 on the way home from work. He collapsed just outside his home. He hadn’t been ill prior to this. He spoke on the phone with Giulio Gianini, who has been very ill for some time, that very morning.

Luzzati designed sets and costumes for stage productions and operas, including the 1963 production he designed for Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” Fifteen years later he turned the opera into an animated feature that remains one of his most famous works.

He’s illustrated and written quite a few books. See this list on Amazon.

(Above: an image from his children’s book, Cinderella.)

The only Obituary I’ve seen for him was this one for the AP. It does give rather complete details of his life and work. AP Obituary.

I got to meet Mr. Luzzati years ago at a function given by the Italian Embassy in his honor. He signed a copy of his book by drawing a beautiful drawing for me (which is currently in storage). Someday I’ll post it.

As someone who loves the combination of animation with music, I have long had an enormous fondness for the works of Luzzati and Gianini. It was an honor to have met him and I continue to appreciate his films. My regret his never having seen one of the many operas he designed.

His work is wildly colorful and beautifully designed. I wish I had on hand some of his images in color. I will have some images later this week and will post them. It’s amazing how little there is about him on line.

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