Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Yesterday, I felt like I’d committed heresy when I wrote about Aleksandr Petrov‘s film My Love and my feelings about this filmmaker’s work. (Go here to see a short clip.)

I have a definite problem with Petrov’s painting style. It’s a semi-realistic, style, remniscent of some of the megre Russian impressionists like Chegodar. V.P. Krants or Krokholev. Though I respect the form, it doesn’t move me. The same is true of Petrov‘s work.

He’s a talented draftsman who has taken Caroline Leaf‘s painterly style, created for The Street, and developed it to a new level of meticulousness. He manipulates the wet paint on glass in a dissolve style and ties the transitions of scenes together with animated pans and zooms. It’s all rather fluid and impressionist almost to the point of muddy. One can’t help but admire the technique and give him countless awards for it.

The beautiful and expressive animation of Caroline Leaf, in my opinion, enormously surpasses the feeling of the literal and live-action bound animation of Petrov. Many people admire him, and I can understand that. I just feel differently.

However, if I do have to select one of his films as a favorite, I would have to choose The Cow, his first. You can watch it on YouTube. My least favorite is the Oscar winner, The Old Man and The Sea.

Though, actually, my real favorite is the work he did for United Airlines. I think his style is enormously commercial, and the George Gershwin music really works with it to give the film a 20th Century feel.

Since seeing My Love, I’ve been searching for a short bit I’d seen wherein Yurij Norstein gives his thoughts on the film. With some searching I was able to locate the video interview. Go here to see it. (Thanks to Animatsiya In English for posting it.)

Anyway, here’s the segment of the Norstein interview about Petrov:

Question: … well, let’s begin with Petrov’s film ["My Love"]. Unfortunately the name “Petrov”, I think, the rest of the world probably knows better than we do? The winner of…

Norstein: No, he’s also known over here, of course.

…winner of the Cannes festival…

..No, not Cannes, he received an Oscar for the film “The Old Man and the Sea”. Which incidentally was made in Canada, not here.

There’s an unusual technique, as I understand.

The technique is something. He has an unusual technique – I can’t say that he invented it, animating with paint on glass, I think it was invented by Caroline Leaf. She made the first film, in 1978. It was called “The Street”, and it was a wonderful film in its time. Some story by a Jewish writer [Mordecai Richler], I don’t remember now, I don’t know… this was an event then. Sasha was certainly aware of this film. He wonderfully… I think that in animated filmmaking today few draw like him, and maybe nobody does. He’s a complete virtuoso in this respect. And his first film “The Cow” was an immediate phenomenon. It was a diploma work and a full-fledged film at the same time, and incidentally was nominated for an Oscar. What’s surprising is that it DIDN’T win. Now that was one film which should have won, because it was in all respects a NEW film. Of a new psychology. Well, it’s sufficient to say that it was an adaptation of Platonov, you see? This already speaks of the quality of the animation. The film which he has just made – it received the Grand Prix, and I think won another two categories… but… I should really speak with Sasha about it, because the virtuosity is the same. The same glamour. But I think there are things in cinema more important than certain moments, than a simple showcase of mastery…

So basically… you wished for depth?

I wished for depth. I wished for… economy. I wished for, on some occasions, humility, when virtuosity gives way to something more deep, psychologically more important.

Those last lines are the key to everything I believe in animation. Let me repeat them:

I wished for depth. I wished for… economy. I wished for, on some occasions, humility, when virtuosity gives way to something more deep, psychologically more important.

Is this the difference between Art and Illustration?

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