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In the second post-war period, cinema production
became naionalized in practically all East European
countries. The state institution for cinematography was
divided into varies branches: rent and practice,
management of studios and production. The included, from
the very beginning, one more sections dedicated to cinema
of animation, often indicated as "movies for
kids". Naionalized cinema, in fact, has the function
of satisfying the cultural citizen, whatever bis age. It
has to instruct him and mold him. Thus, animation was
normally aimed at children, for the undeniable preference
they have always demonstrated for this movie form.
However, with the passing of time, creative pulsations
became stronger and wíth them the need to not
standardize the efforts of animated cinema, identifying
them as only movies for children. The productions, then,
chose a few auhors who were "allowed' to work
according to their inspiration. Not even in this manner,
however, was freedom of expression complete and for many
years excellent movies were excluded from because they
were considered the ideological censorship. A common
characteristic of Eastern cinematography particular
Hungarian, is its inspiration drawn from folklore and
folk traditions. Animation cinema, in fact, finds a large
quantity of subject-matter in farmers' songs, in the
legends and in the tales of oral tradition and even in
the history (official or not) of the respective country.
Its a tendency that follows the Soviet idiological
directives but one which Hungarian authors will, each
time, know how to personalize according to inspirations
and ever changing expressive forms. In the Thirties,
Hungary had, besides a few minor attempts, two rather
important studios:- one, founded by the constructivist
painter Sándor Bortnyik and dedicated to experimental
film, and the other directed by Janoa Halasz, Felix
Kassowitz and Gyula Macskássy; the latter had gretaer
economic pull and was dedicated to advertisement. During
the post-war period Hungarian animation was reconstrued,
as a form of nationalized cinema, by veteran Gyula
Maskássy (1912-1971), who directed the first short of
the new course, "A kiskakas gyémant
félkrajcarja" The Young Cock's Diamond (1951).
All the movies made followed the guide lines of all
Eastern national productions (movies for the young mostly
drawn from folktales) until 1959, year of "A
ceruza és a radir". He
made his first animated movie, Kitörés
"The Fight", in 1967. The following year he
demonstrated his qualities with A napés a hold
elrablása The Abduction of the Sun and the Moon,
taken from a poem by the young poet ferenc Juhasz. Then
concentrated on making the second part of an ideal
trilogy A nap és a hold elrablása of which The
Abduction was the first chapter. " Barbarok
ideje" The Time of the Barbarians (1970). Bruno
Edera writes the following on this film: "It's a
masterly film, perhaps the first tragedy short that
animated movies has known". The Time of the
Barbarians, made with the technique of photomontage and
collage of photographs, confronts the problems of hunger,
polution and death. On 1972, Reisenbüchler finished the
third element of the trilogy: "Az 1812- es év
"The Year 1812 (or War and Peace"), referring
to the Napoleonic imperial wars. The following was
written in regards: "One next to the other, the
films reflect the principal preocupations of human
intelligence: myth and religion in the first;
progress-technology-pollution in the second;
self-destruction in the race for power in the third.
Reisenbüchler' s movies will be amply explored in the
section dedicated to the history of Hungarian cinema of
animation, organized in collaboration with the production
studios Pannónia Film, Kecskemét Film and Studio Varga.
through the individualization of a number of significant
stages, it will be possible to analyse the route that
brought Hungarian cinema of animation from its beginning
of the post-war period to the present day. A monographic
section will be dedicated to Marcell Jankovics, one of
the most interestings authors and current director of
Pannónia Film. Marcell Jankovics, born in Budapest in
1941, directs his first film in 1964, "Szilveszteri
legenda" The Legend of Saint Silvester. He then
alternated an intense professional activity (series, film
for the young, art direction for the films of others)
with works of this type in Sisyphus (1973), which
narrates the efforts of a man to push a rock up a hill
that becomes increasingly larger; the merit of this film
is above all the beautiful black and white drawing in
perennial transformation. In 1973 Jankovics terminated
János Vitéz (John the valiant), the first full-lenght
Magyar animated movie.
The film is based on a story by the
national poet Sándor Petöfi, and its main character,
Janos, is a Hungarian Robin Hood of sorts. In the film
exhibition "The Pencil and History". Hungarian
Cimena of Animation" a brief panorama of the latest
tendencies will be presented, including not only some of
the most recent productions, but also the research and
experimentation conducted in the schools of cinema (in
Hungary, in fact, every production studio has its own
school of cinema). Lastly, matineés, reserved for
elementary and middle school students, will shoe shorts
and feature movies written and made for a younger
audience, in particular a few episodes of the highly
numeorus series that Hungarian television has always
produced for children.
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| M.
Jankovics Dirt/Lo
sporco, 1973
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