Animation Theatre: Ladislaw Starewicz

8th August 1882- 26th February 1965

Fig. 1 Ladislaw Starewicz

Born in Russia Ladislaw Starewicz is a significant figure in his native Polish animation history. From an early age Starewicz had a keen interest in film but it was his love for nature especially insects that stood out to him and which he wondered could he combine with his pursuit of being involved in the film industry. You can still see this love for insects through Starewicz being named the director of the Museum of Natural History in Kovno, Lithuania. Starewicz started off by producing documentaries of insects such as the battle of stag beetles yet he was faced with an issue, the fact that whenever the lighting for filming was beamed onto the insects they would refuse to move. It then hit him that he could produce stop-motion documentaries using dead insects so they would resemble puppets and so this kicked off his introduction to stop-motion animation. Even after becoming involved with his first film company Starewicz continued his use of insect puppets which proved to be effective perhaps because we became immersed in an insect world rather than our own. The Cameramans Revenge (1912) about adultery and jealousy among insects was the most popular of Starewiczs insect puppet animations. Starewicz takes human life complexities and applies them on animals that we wouldnt have necessarily thought of when it comes to these issues of life, but think about it insects must have their own life drama so why wouldnt it be similar to ours. This personification of animals was highly original of its time and shows just how inventive and imaginative animation can be. To delight and astonish those privileged to witness a body of work that had hitherto been purely legendary. Bizarre, witty, inventive and often startlingly surreal Starewiczs films defy conventional expectations of animation. (Schneider: 2000)

Fig. 2 The Cameramans Revenge

The effects of the First World War changed Ladislaw Starewiczs career in that he moved over to France and began work on all new animations, ones that did not involve insects but ones that followed the action of other objects such as stuffed toys. His animations became more political especially Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi (The Frogs that demand a king) (1922) but even this had a touch of Starewiczs developing stories influenced by Eastern European folklore in that he added mythological beings such as the god Jupiter who the frogs demand a king from. However, probably his most well-known and celebrated animation that he did from his time in France was The Mascot (1934) which follows a stuffed toy dog who is brought to life by the love in his owners tears. The dog known as Duffy spends the film trying to get an orange back to the ill young girl who wishes for one. What stands out from this animation is Starewiczs animating of highly unusual objects but which we do not end up questioning the truth of them. Instead they feel natural and truly alive in how Starewicz animates them to capture personality. He doesnt lack any small detail, even Duffys eyes move and show strong emotion and thought that makes the audience pray that he manages to get this orange back. Its no wonder that this highly original animation has influenced so many contemporary animators. Starewicz may have even been one of the first who thought about characters from older animations making supporting roles in his newer films. Much pleasure of The Mascot lies with its attention to details of mise-en-scene, its focus on animating unlikely objects (such as vegetables and dead chicks half-born in their shell) and the interaction of its characters within particular environments. For example, the party scene of discarded and dead objects is grotesquely reminiscent of many representations of the Mexican Day of the Dead. This scene is also clearly referenced in the macabre, re-built toy scene in Toy Story. (Danks: 2004) It isnt just this scene which has clearly influenced Toy Story though, the whole idea of unlikely objects coming to live when nobody is looking and the question of what do your belongings get up to is undoubtedly visibly in the whole concept of Toy Story.

Fig. 3 & 4 The Mascot & Toy Storys mutant toys

What is so innovative of Ladislaw Starewicz and his work is how he took an interest which was completely unrelated and made it connected. An ability to do this in film is what takes it to newer territory and this is what Starewicz did. Combining his interest with the conventional qualities of film made something truly creative and unconventional as well as his ability to express multiple emotions in just one scene through objects that do not normally even convey one emotion. Just look at The Mascot, Duffy up against these evil satanic objects trying to escape with an orange is double coded. The evil villainous emotion which we avoid and want to get its just dessert and the caring but at the same time fearful emotion we cheer on to succeed. There is an all new world just within Starewiczs animations which sucks us in and makes us feel so many emotions at once that it is hard to define just where his films sit in terms of genre as Pat Kewley assesses. Starewicz did more than just create films; he used the craft of cinema to invent an utterly, self-contained world, one that reflected his own unadulterated artistic vision. His films could be bizarre, surreal, funny, disturbing, and deeply touching, sometimes all within the same scenehis films exist somewhere in between the realms of disturbing adult darkness and innocent childlike whimsy. (Kewley: 2010)

Bibliography
Danks, Adrian, (2004) Ladislaw Scarewicz and The Mascot http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/cteq/starewicz_mascot/ (Accessed 24/03/2012) Kewley, Pat, (2010) Love Among the Insects http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/71/71starewicz_kewley.php (Accessed 24/03/2012) Schneider, Eric, (2000) Entomology and Animation: A Portrait of An Early Master Ladislaw Starewicz http://www.awn.com/mag/issue5.02/5.02pages/schneiderstarewicz5.php3 (Accessed 24/03/2012)

List of Illustrations
Fig. 1. Ladislaw Starewicz. [Online image].On wikimedia.org http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Starevich_1.jpg (Accessed 24/03/2012) Fig. 2. The Cameramans Revenge. [Online image].On wordpress.com http://moviereviewswithatwist.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/001512.jpg (Accessed 24/03/2012)

Fig. 3. The Mascot. [Online image].On filmbash.tv http://cdn.filmbash.tv/wpcontent/themes/videozoom/scripts/timthumb.php?src=http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9MyLQ4Ck2A/hqdefault.jpg&h=160&w=228&zc=1 (Accessed 24/03/2012) Fig. 4. Toy Storys mutant toys. [Online image].On wikia.com http://images.wikia.com/pixar/images/6/66/MutantToys2.jpg (Accessed 24/03/2012)