Animation &Animation Artifacts &Disney 01 Feb 2008 09:11 am
Eating Cheese
– The one of the “Nine Old Men” who generally seems to be left out of the starllight is Les Clark. At least, it seems that way to me.
He started as an assistant to Ub Iwerks (inbetweening Steamboat Willie) ang did his first animation on The Skeleton Dance. (A skeleton plays the xylophone-like ribcage of another skeleton.) He brought the lessons he learned from Ub to the rest of his animation. He became the Mickey expert (animating the mouse in The Band Concert). He animated Snow White dancing with the dwarves, scenes of Pinocchio, himself, as well as the little train in the Baia sequence of The Three Caballeros.
John Canemaker has a nice chapter on him in his book, Nine Old Men & The Art of Animation. (I cribbed the image above from that book.)
Perhaps Didier Ghez will uncover some excellent interview for an upcoming edition of his fine series of books, Walt’s People.
Here’s a series of drawings from The Country Cousin where a mouse devours a piece of cheese.
______(Click any image to enlarge.)
on 01 Feb 2008 at 9:57 am 1.Didier Ghez said …
Still to be confirmed: Walt’s People – Volume 8 should feature an interview with Les Clark by Frank and Ollie, and WP- Volume 9 should have one conducted by Christopher Finch and Linda Rosenkrantz. The other two interviews with Les which I know exist, but to which I do not have access yet, are those conducted by Michael Barrier and John Culhane, both of whom are current or future contributors to WP.
John Lounsberry is among the 9 the artist who has been much less interviewed than the others.
on 01 Feb 2008 at 12:43 pm 2.Thad Komorowski said …
Looking over drafts and IDs, Les Clark seems to be one of the only members of the nine who lives up to his reputation.
Max Ward and I were watching “The Country Cousin” in-between classes the other day (Max had never seen it before and wanted to see what the brouhaha was about), and while we were both impressed by the work of Clark, Moore, and Babbitt on this film, we were a little underwhelmed.
on 01 Feb 2008 at 12:59 pm 3.Biblioadonis aka George said …
Thanks for sharing this with us! I can’t wait to lose myself in Canemaker’s book.
on 01 Feb 2008 at 1:39 pm 4.Michael said …
Thad, you HAVE to put this film in proper historical perspective. Acting like this just did not happen in animation back then. It was a real step forward. The film really gives an indication of what they can do – acting wise, and it must have heartened Disney who knew he’d need GREAT ACTING to make Snow White work. The drunk scene is outstanding by any standards.
on 01 Feb 2008 at 2:10 pm 5.Thad Komorowski said …
Michael,
By underwhelmed, I meant by the story and the pacing. The acting was there, and is excellent, and as I pointed out to Max (you can even ask him, if he’s around online these days) “this was the first time stuff like this ever went on in animation.”
on 01 Feb 2008 at 2:47 pm 6.Stephen Worth said …
Once, when I was hanging out with Art Babbitt on a lunch hour at FilmFair, I asked him about Country Cousin. He was particularly proud of that cartoon. He spoke about how he was involved with the cartoon from the very early stages. I asked him if he had animated the whole film himself, and he said, “No. They brought in ‘Walt’s boy’ later on to help finish it.” I asked who “Walt’s boy” was, and he said that was Les Clark. Clark could work in just about any style, so his scenes meshed well with other animators’ work. Walt brought him in when a film was taking too long to help it along. (Another nickname for him was “the finisher”.)
I asked Art if he was disappointed in the way Clark had done the scenes he had hoped to be able to animate himself. Art straightened up and crossed his arms. He thought a minute, and I could tell he was struggling with what he was going to say. He obviously really wanted to have been able to animate the whole film himself. Finally, he sighed and said, “No. Les did a fine job. As good as anything I would have done. He was a fine animator.”
Art was stubborn and opinionated, but he was also 100% honest. Country Cousin is some of the best stuff he ever did. Clark really did a fine job too, especially on that scene where Abner eats the hot mustard. Great stuff.
By the way, Tytla did his own version of the Country Cousin drunk scene in a Terrytoon called The Mouse & the Lion.
See ya
Steve
on 01 Feb 2008 at 2:50 pm 7.Stephen Worth said …
Didier, do you get the feeling in that interview that Frank was trying to get Les to say things that he really didn’t want to say? I have a story about that you might be interested in. You’ll have to email me for the details though.
on 02 Feb 2008 at 6:39 pm 8.Didier Ghez said …
Steve,
No, I did not get that impression, but I will email you next week nonetheless
Didier