Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- I have to admit I was more than a litte disappointed with the program held this past Sunday in Brooklyn.BAM Cinematek hosted a program of anmated shorts that head won the Oscar for animation back in the 60′s. It was an ineresting idea for a program and was pulled together by the indomitable Jerry Beck.

The films included he following list of thoughtful films:

Munro from Feiffer’s book as directed by Gene Deitch (1960).
Ersatz from Eastern Europe’s Zagreb film as directed (in a slow-moving, sexist way) by Dusan Vuctic (1961).
The Hole whcih has alsways seemed a bit overlong to me, as directed by John Hubley (1962). There is no lack for creativity in this film, though, and I have to give full credit where it’s due.
The Pink Phink didn’t have the same lustre that the original film titles had, and it wasn’t the most exciting pilot to reach the theaters as directed by Friz Freleng & Hawley Pratt (1964). It remains the dud it was, although the two Richard Williams directed title sequences make up for it.
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass Double Feature as directed by John Hubley had a lot of life even in the dated score. The marker drawn non-cel approach made it seem young.
The Box directed by Freddy Wolf was the slimmest of all the films despite its long, slow, 60-ish pace. (1967)

The program was moderated by Jerry Beck. Things started off with his comments trying to get us to open up about the wit of some of the films (as opposed to what was being done by studios at the time.)

No one else in the room seemed to know that for the first time the animators were ordereed – via Academy rules – to have to view all of hose entered in the program. Prior to that all 4000 employees of MGM or 3500 emploees of WB were pushed to vote for their studio’s film – and they did. This made for a sad list of mediocre winners. When Knighty Night Bugs or The Three Mousketeers wins the Oscar, something’s wrong. It’s even more obvious when a couple of Terrytoons are on the ballot.

The panel to discuss the program included J.J.Sedelmaier (who aditted to only having seen three of the winners), Emily Hubley (who probably saw as many of the shorts as I had, and I who was wrong in thinking I hadn’t seen The Box. I’d seen it twice (plenty enough times) before. That ruling, however, meant quite a few changes with strong and important films nominated and winning. There were the occasional slug such as “The Crunch Bird”, but many a good film filed past muster deservedly. Only in these latter days of more recent cgi films have duds gotten back into the voting.

The screening will be at the Light House where an admission will be charged: $3.00 for members, $5.00 for non-members. These are all dedicated art films and will have few showings beyond this weeks’ programs. His art is worth the effort, and it’s thankful to the Academy (particularly Patrick Harrison for taking that effort in making these available to us.)

(Don’t forget that he’s the guy who got Werner Herzog to eat his shoe – all by way of getting Erroll Morris’ shoe some well-worn attention.)

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