skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The Appearance of Genre Characteristics in Hungarian Animated Films
Abstract
: In Hungarian cinema if we see the animated film in the point of view of popular film culture, we can find those genres which are mainly missing in the Hungarian live-action cinema. From crime genres through science fiction to horror, there are remarkable genre tendencies in Hungarian animated films. I am going to introduce Captain of the Forest (Az erdo kapitánya) as detective/cop movie, Egon & Dönci as space-travelling science fiction, while Cat City (Macskafogó, directed by Béla Ternovszky, 1986) shows a quite daring, entertaining and rexflexive mixture of several genres including spy film, war film and vampire movie.Biographical statement: Zoltán Varga is currently a Ph.D. Student of Doctoral Program in Film, Media and Contemporary Culture at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary. His research areas are: popular film culture, genre theory, history of genres, animated film (theory and history). His earlier publications include essays based on animation related material – in Hungarian: about Tim Burton, basic concepts of animated film, connections between live-action film and animation, clay animation; in English: Wordless Worlds? Some Notes on the Verbality in Animated Films through the Use of Verbality in Péter Szoboszlay's Animated Films. In: Ágnes Petho (ed.): Words and Images on the Screen: Language, Literature, Moving Pictures. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. pp. 242-256.
ART IN TRANSITION: BULGARIAN ANIMATION AFTER THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL
Abstract: A
fter the political changes in 1989 the social satire and the humorous miniature seem no longer to be the main artistic models in the Bulgarian animated films. The paper will focus on the Bulgarian animation’s specific ways to “globalize” its narrative and styles in the conditions of poor funding and practically non-existing distribution. Modernistic patterns had suffered a broken growth in Bulgaria (as in most of the ex-socialist countries). In spite of that the new generations give fresh and sharp tribute to the avant-garde stylistics, renewing the suggestions of highly symbolic film language to look at a situation of crisis and transition.
Biographical statement: Prof. Nadezhda Marinchevska, PhD, is head of “Screen arts” department in the Institute for Art Studies in Sofia. She teaches the classes “Animation Theory and History” and “Scriptwriting for Animation” in the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts and is an invited lecturer in the New Bulgarian University. Author of two books: “Bulgarian Animation 1915-1995”, Colibri, Sofia, 2001 (366 p.) and “Frames of Imagination. Aesthetics of animation techniques”, Titra, Sofia, 2005, (296 p.). She is also an author in the collective publication “Bulgarian cinema. Encyclopedia”, Titra, Sofia, 2000 (animation section), ed. Alexander Yanakiev. In 2006 she won the film theory award of the Union of Bulgarian Film Makers.
Subversive strategies in Soviet animation of Brezhnev period: Andrei Khrzhanovky’s “In the World of Fables” (1973)
Abstract: The cu
ltural pluralism that surfaced with the onset of Glasnost’ raises the interesting question of whether Stagnation might be somewhat of a misnomer for what was happening in the artistic and cultural life during Leonid Brezhnev’s administration. Although his regime tried its best to “tighten the screws” by increasing censorial control over cultural production, it couldn’t revert the process of cultural and social transformation set in motion by Khrushchev’s Thaw. Instead, it produced a milieu for a fascinating dialectic between authors and the State. Applying Linda Hutcheon’s theory of irony to Andrei Khrzhanovsky’s film “In the world of Fables” (1973), I would like to demonstrate how this dialectic has affected the development of subversively potent trends in the language of Soviet animation.
Biographical statement: The proposed paper is a part of my PhD dissertation: “Ideology, subversion and Soviet cartoons during Brezhnev’s ‘Stagnation’”, which I hope to complete in summer 2011. My research interests at the moment are subversion and critical discourses in the field of cultural production in particular visual arts, cinema and animation, as well as the role of the artist in such production. My long term interests are in animation history, theory and method.
: In Hungarian cinema if we see the animated film in the point of view of popular film culture, we can find those genres which are mainly missing in the Hungarian live-action cinema. From crime genres through science fiction to horror, there are remarkable genre tendencies in Hungarian animated films. I am going to introduce Captain of the Forest (Az erdo kapitánya) as detective/cop movie, Egon & Dönci as space-travelling science fiction, while Cat City (Macskafogó, directed by Béla Ternovszky, 1986) shows a quite daring, entertaining and rexflexive mixture of several genres including spy film, war film and vampire movie.
