Books &Hubley 26 Sep 2009 08:00 am
Zuckerkandl! book 2
- I continue, today, with my posting of the book published from the setups of the John & Faith Hubley film Zuckerkandl!. This book was released by Grove Press in1968. It’s an adaptation of the comic lecture by Robert Maynard Hutchins espousing the philosophies of one, Alexander Zuckerkandl, M.D., Ph. D.
The artwork for the film was done wholly with Sharpie markers and Design markers. All of them bled through the Bristol paper for the backgrounds and the animation paper (cut out and glued to cels). All backgrounds were done by John Hubley. The animation was done by Vinnie Bell, Shamus Culhane, Tissa David, and Bill Littlejohn. The inking was by Faith Hubley, and coloring was by Nina Di Gangi & Sara Calogero.
23(Click any image to enlarge.)
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Saints
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Sinners
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Audience
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Back Cover
I have some more artwork for this film which I hope to put up soon.
on 27 Sep 2009 at 1:18 pm 1.George Griffin said …
I saw the film back in the late 60s (!) and was astounded by its nerve. Its length was determined by an actual lecture by Hutchins, the former boy genius president of the University of Chicago (whose chief contribution to education was the Great Books curriculum), and served as a parody of tedious academic pedantry, compounded further by Hutchins’ own self-conscious wit. And just as the animated lecture audience is bored, the attention-deficit film audience of today will probably start to squirm and yawn well before the end of the 15 minutes. The Hubley design is similarly tongue-in-cheek with its sepia monochrome, cross-hatching, wash and crude cut-outs (with ample margins), looking a little like an old manuscript masquerading as a doodle.
It’s a brilliant, satirical “meta-essay†with nested narratives and multiple points of view. Was it commissioned, a collaboration with Hutchins or a purely personal project? Either way, the film and book are great examples of animation dealing with important ideas, and further proof of the Hubley genius.
on 30 Sep 2009 at 5:44 pm 2.Eddie Fitzgerald said …
Wow! great pictures! I wish I could see this film. I like the idea of a Great Books program, but I’m not surprised to hear that it was championed by a tedious and pedantic speaker.
Lots of 50s academics, even some of the good ones, used to speak that way, why i don’t know. Unfortunately a lot of them wrote that way too, and the era produced a lot of high-toned but paded and rambling books that no one in the future will ever want to read. They had titles like “Education at the Crossroads.” I learned to avoid any book with “crossroads” in the title.
Maybe the McCarthy era made left wing academics timid; maybe political correctness intimidated the right wing authors. Whatever it was, a lot of junk books were published at this time. It’s significant because the flamboyant 60s were partly a reaction to what was perceived at the time as the boring 50s.
on 07 Nov 2010 at 4:36 pm 3.Bruce Dennis said …
I borrowed this film from the Toronto Public Library in 1968 and absolutely loved it. I borrowed it again every time we had guests — I considered it a masterpiece of social commentary. Where could I ever find a copy of it now?
on 07 Nov 2010 at 4:51 pm 4.Michael said …
Here‘s an inexpensive video version of it.
Here‘s a DVD version.
Here‘s the picture book made from the film.
Or if you belong to Netflix you can rent it here.