Animation Artifacts &Frame Grabs 04 Jun 2009 07:31 am
Bruno’s Bolero I
- Every once in a while, there’s a screening that you happen to attend that turns out to be monumental and stays in your memory the rest of your life. The Ottawa Animation Festival in 1978 had such a screening. It was a midnight premiere of Bruno Bozzetto’s new feature, Allegro Non Troppo. Everyone who was anyone attending the particular festival had to attend that screening.
The film screened to lots of laughs, rapt attention, and spontaneous bursts of applause. It ended with an overwhelming ovation that told Bruno he had created a gem.
The movie was a parody of Disney’s Fantasia. There was some innocuous live action holding animated segments together. The animation was closely tied to classical music pieces. The highlight of that film was the Bolero sequence.
Here is the first of a couple of posts that give you frame grabs from Bolero. It all starts with a discarded Coke bottle in outer space.
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The first time I met Bruno was in New York, about six months after that showing. We had lunch, and he gave me a souvenir cel. One from this sequence.
on 04 Jun 2009 at 8:49 am 1.hans bacher said …
the BOLERO is one of my favorite parts in ALLEGRO, but overall there is such a variety in different styles that makes it hard to decide. when it was aired on german tv in 1976 I first wanted to film it in S-8 from the screen. but weighing the costs for so many 3min S-8 puzzles and the problem of synchronizing the sound, I finally decided to buy my first VCR – only for that film! it was one of the first generation pieces, a german own system that died within 3 years. costs – in $ about 1.500. at that time a fortune. and 1 tape was only 1 hour long and cost $ 100. I was very careful, what to tape. the resolution was of course lousy! but – I could watch ALLEGRO together with ANDREAS DEJA, who had started to work with me once in a while. you can imagine, all this makes it a very ‘historic’ piece for me.
on 04 Jun 2009 at 9:27 am 2.Bob Flynn said …
Is this on DVD? I desperately need to see this. The stills alone are amazing.
on 04 Jun 2009 at 9:30 am 3.Michael said …
Yes, the fil is on DVD. Go here.
on 04 Jun 2009 at 11:53 am 4.bruno bozzetto said …
Dear Michael,
it has been a biiiig surprise to receive from google your blog and your wonderful words about Allegro. I hope you are well, as I am, and I really hope to see you again somewhere (unfortunately I’ll not be in Annecy this year). Let me know your movements… Ciao Michael !!
Bruno
on 04 Jun 2009 at 12:54 pm 5.Michael J. Ruocco said …
I didn’t discover Allegro until last year, when Howard Beckerman & a few friends from SVA recommended it to me, since they knew I was a humongous Fantasia fan. Now it’s one of my favorites! It has this ‘spunk’ that Fantasia doesn’t have & the range of styles are so diverse that, like Hans, it’s hard for me to choose a favorite sequence.
I gotta pick up a copy on DVD & watch it again.
on 04 Jun 2009 at 2:27 pm 6.Will Finn said …
Around 1990, when giving an informal lecture at Feature Animation, Ward Kimball introduced this clip as his favorite piece of animation.
I think I saw this as early as 1977, Bozetto came to USC in ’79 and screened it again. The thing is absolutely brilliant and has been released on DVD at least once. It’s a must have.
on 04 Jun 2009 at 5:22 pm 7.Ian Lumsden said …
“Allegro Non Troppo” is one of the great works and Bruno a gentleman, a masterful director. Thank you Michael, as ever, for the wonderful images. What they cannot show is the fluid movement of it all, a glorious complement to the music. No wonder there was that ovation.
on 04 Jun 2009 at 7:20 pm 8.Stephen Worth said …
It’s a wonderful film. One of my favorites.
It’s ironic that Allegro Non Troppo was a parody of a Disney film, yet Disney later turned around and did their version of the cat sequence for Fantasia in 2006 (Little Match Girl). Bozetto’s Valse Triste is a million times more powerful than the Disney remake. I screened them side by side at a program at Woodbury University last Fall, and the similarities (and differences) are striking.
on 04 Jun 2009 at 7:42 pm 9.Elliot Cowan said …
When I was a kid we came home late from a family dinner and Allegro happened to be on the television.
I’d never seen or heard of it before and at the time (and at the age I was) there was no immediate way for me to find out what it was or where it came from.
(Yes, there was the TV guide but it was late at night and I was supposed to be in bed so it was hard to ask my folks about it).
Anyway.
The images, particularly from Bolero stuck in my head and it was a full 10 years before I actually discovered who had been responsible for it.
It’s one of very few animated pieces that inspired me as a kid.
on 04 Jun 2009 at 9:30 pm 10.Heather said …
Bozzetto on the phone: “Yes? …Who is this Fizney…Deezney?”
So glad I got to see this film on the big screen when it first came out. All the sequences are wonderful, but my personal faves are “Afternoon of a Faun” and the piece centering on the Garden of Eden Serpent’s point of view. Love Bozzetto’s animated outlook on the hypocrisy of religion (and humanity in general) which he continues brilliantly in “Grasshopper.”
on 05 Aug 2014 at 5:50 am 11.Georgeanna Mullice said …
Nice post, had a good read!