Ladislas Starevich
Ladislas Starevich was a Polish-Russian stop-motion animator notable as the author of the first puppet-animated film The Beautiful Leukanida. He also used dead insects and other animals as protagonists of his films. Following the Russian Revolution, Starevich settled in France.
Early career
Władysław Starewicz was born in Moscow to ethnic Polish parents from present-day Lithuania. His father, Aleksander Starewicz, was from Surviliškis near Kėdainiai and his mother, Antonina Legęcka, from Kaunas. Both belonged to lesser nobility and were in hiding after the failed January Uprising against the Tsarist Russian domination. Due to his mother's death, he was raised by his grandmother in Kaunas, then the capital of Kaunas Governorate within the Russian Empire. He attended Gymnasium in Dorpat, where he worked painting postcards and illustrations for local magazines. Starewicz pursued an artistic career despite the protest of his family, and enrolled in a painting school.Starewicz had interests in a number of different areas; by 1910 he had been named Director of the Museum of Natural History in Kaunas, Kovno Governorate. There he made four short live-action documentaries for the museum. For the fifth film, Starewicz wished to record the battle of two stag beetles, but was stymied by the fact that the nocturnal creatures stopped moving or died due to the heat whenever the stage lighting was turned on. Inspired by a viewing of Les allumettes animées by Arthur Melbourne Cooper, Starewicz decided to re-create the fight through stop-motion animation: by replacing the beetles' legs with wire, attached with sealing wax to their thorax, he is able to create articulated insect puppets. The result was the short film Lucanus Cervus, apparently the first animated puppet film and the natal hour of Russian animation.
In 1911, Starewicz moved to Moscow and began work with the film company of Aleksandr Khanzhonkov. There he made two dozen films, most of them puppet animations using dead animals. Of these, The Beautiful Leukanida, inspired in the story of Agamemnon and Menelaus, earned international acclaim, while The Grasshopper and the Ant got Starewicz decorated by the czar. But the best-known film of this period was The Cameraman's Revenge, a cynical work about infidelity and jealousy among the insects. Some of the films made for Khanzhonkov feature live-action/animation interaction. In some cases, the live action consisted of footage of Starewicz's daughter Irina. Particularly worthy of note is Starevich's 41-minute 1913 film The Night Before Christmas, an adaptation of the Nikolai Gogol story of the same name. The 1913 film Terrible Vengeance won the Gold Medal at an international festival in Milan in 1914, being just one of five films which won awards among 1005 contestants.
During World War I, Starewicz worked for several film companies, directing 60 live-action features, some of which were fairly successful. After the October Revolution of 1917, the film community largely sided with the White Army and moved from Moscow to Yalta on the Black Sea. After a brief stay, Starewicz and his family fled before the Red Army could capture the Crimea, stopping in Italy for a while before joining other émigrés in Paris.
After World War I
At this time, Władysław Starewicz changed his name to Ladislas Starevich, as it was easier to pronounce in French. He first established his family in Joinville-le-Pont, while he worked as a cameraman there. He rapidly returned to make puppet films. He made Le mariage de Babylas, L'épouvantail, Les grenouilles qui demandent un roi, Amour noir et blanc, La voix du rossignol and La petite chateuse des rues. His family worked with him to produce these films. These were his daughter Irina who collaborated in all his films and defended his rights, his wife Anna Zimermann, who made the costumes for the puppets and Jeanne Starewitch who acted in some of the filmsIn 1924, Starevich moved to Fontenay-sous-Bois, where he lived until his death in 1965. There he made the rest of his films. Among the most notable are The Eyes of the Dragon, a Chinese tale with complex and wonderful sets and character design, in which Starevich shows his talent as an artist and in set decoration as well as ingenious trick photography, The Town Rat and the Country Rat, a parody of American slapstick films, The Magical Clock, a fairy tale with amazing middle-age puppets and sets, starring Nina Star with music by Paul Dessau, The Little Parade, from Hans Christian Andersen's tale The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Six weeks after the premiere of The Little Parade, sound was added by Louis Nalpas' company. Starevich started a collaboration with him, wishing to make a feature full-length film: Le Roman de Renard. All his 1920s films are available on DVD.
''Le Roman de Renard''
Often mentioned as being among his best work, The Tale of the Fox was also his first animated feature. It was entirely made by Starevich and his daughter, Irène. Production took place in Fontenay-sous-Bois from 1929 to 1930. When the film was ready, the producer, Louis Nalpas, decided to add sound using disc support but this system failed and the film was not released. The German film studio UFA became interested in showing the film in two parts. Sound was added in German and it premiered in Berlin in 1937. Later, in 1941, Roger Richebé produced a French sound version, which premiered in April 1941. It was the third animated feature film to have sound, after Quirino Cristiani's Peludópolis and The New Gulliver from the Soviet Union.The ''Fétiche'' series
In 1933 Ladislas and Irene Starevich produced and directed a film of about 1000 meters, initially titled LS 18. Under pressure from distributors, the length was greatly reduced. It became the film Fétiche Mascotte, about 600 meters, distributed in 1934. Starevich had a contract with Marc Gelbart to make a series with this character. Twelve episodes were planned, but for economic reasons, only five were made between 1934 and 1937 and distributed worldwide. These are Fétiche prestidigitateur, Fétiche se marie, Fétiche en voyage de noces and Fétiche et les sirènes which was not released because sound could not be added. There is an unfinished film, Fétiche père de famille. In 1954, L. Starevich conceived The Hangover, using images not included in The Mascot. A reconstruction of the original LS 18 was produced by 2012.During World War II
During this period, Starevich ceased producing films. He had expressed some intent to make commercial films, but none are known to have been produced during the war.After World War II
In 1946 he tried to make A Midsummer Night's Dream but abandoned the project due to financial problems. The following year, he made Zanzabelle a Paris adapted from a story by Sonika Bo. The script and direction of this film are credited to Irène. In 1949, he met Alexandre Kamenka, an old Russian friend, who produced Starevich's first colour film Fleur de fougère. It was based on an Eastern European story, in which a child goes to the forest to collect a fern flower, which grows during the night of Saint-Jean, and makes wishes come true. In 1950, Fern Flower won the first prize as an animated film in the 11th International Children Film Festival in Venice Biennale. Then he started a collaboration with Sonika Bo to adapt another of her stories, Gazouilly petit oiseau, followed by Un dimanche de Gazouillis.Again produced by Alkam films, Starevich made Nose to Wind, which tells the adventures of Patapouf, a bear who escapes from school to play with his friends the rabbit and the fox. The same year, 1958, his wife Anna died. Due to the success of the previous film, Winter Carousel was made, starring the bear Patapouf and the rabbit going through seasons. This was his last completed film. All his family co-labored on it, as remembers his granddaughter Martin-Starewitch, whose hands can be seen in animation tests from Like Dog and Cat, Starevich's unfinished film.
Ladislas Starevich died on February 26, 1965, while working on Comme chien et chat. He was one of the few European animators to be known by name in the United States before the 1960s, largely on account of La Voix du rossignol and Fétiche Mascotte. His Russian films were known for their dark humor. He kept every puppet he made, so stars in one film tended to turn up as supporting characters in later works. For example, in Fétiche mascotte the viewer can see puppets from The Scarecrow, The Little Parade, and The Magical Clock. The films have shown incredible imagination and also development of techniques including motion blur, replacement animation, multiple frame exposure, and reverse shooting.
Posterity
Since 1991, Leona Beatrice Martin-Starewitch, Ladislas Starevich's granddaughter and her husband, François Martin, have restored and distributed her grandfather's films.Filmmaker Terry Gilliam ranked The Mascot among the ten best animated movies of all time.
In 2005, Xavier Kawa-Topor and Jean Rubak joined three Starevich short films together to make a feature film, with music by Jean-Marie Senia. The film, entitled Tales of the Magical Clock, contributed to recognition by the press and the public of Starewitch Engineering.
In 2009, Wes Anderson paid homage to Le Roman de Renard in Fantastic Mr. Fox.
In 2012 a full reconstruction of LS18 to the original length and content of 1933 had been reconstructed, called Fetish 33-12. This was done by Léona Béatrice Martin-Starewitch, his granddaughter, and her husband, François Martin, owners of the rights to the films made by Starevich and his family. The reconstruction used multiple original copies of "The Mascot", a negative of The Hangover and material from the archives of Ladislas Starevich.
In 2014, the town of Fontenay-sous-Bois and service Documentation Archive with the family Martin-Starewich organized projections of Ladislas Starewich films in municipal Kosmos cinema with the release of all the preserved films, more than 7 hours on two projection days.