Frédéric Back was born in 1924 in France, where he studied drawing and lithography. He was
lured to Canada by Jack London's stories and
Clarence Gagnon's paintings, as well as
correspondence with a Canadian pen-pal. Back moved to Canada in 1948, married his pen-pal Ghylaine Paquin, and was hired by Radio Canada at
the birth of their television network to create still images for display on and to promote moving pictures. The drawings lead to
experiments with animations, which lead to a series of animated shorts, starting with the wordless short
Abracadabra (9:23, YT)
in 1970. You can read and see more about Frédéric Back on
his extensive website, and see more animations inside.
The follow-up to Back's first short came in 1972, with the
Inon ou la conquête du feu (
Inon or the Conquest of Fire), which is
based on the Algonquin legend about Inon, the God of Thunder, who kept fire from humans.
A series of adventures follows with a happy ending. [No video found online beyond
the three clips on Back's website]
That same year, Back created a second short based on Native American legends,
La création des oiseaux (
The Creation of Birds) (10:07, YT). The short won
best animation at the 1973
Yorkton Film Festival, the longest running film festival in North America.
It would be 3 years until Back's next short,
¿Illusion? (11:31, Tudou), which is a largely wordless short about
the miracles of nature versus "magicians of advertising, the promoters of progress and over-consumption."
In 1977, Frédéric Back made a short,
Taratata (8:33, YT),
in celebration of the parades that used to be held on
Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day.
Tout Rien (
All Nothing) (11:00, YT) is a short from 1978 about the greed of humankind. The
short was nomination for an Oscar, Back's first nomination.
His next short,
Crac! (15:20, YT),
was a tribute to Quebec, his adoptive home. For the short,
Back won an Oscar, allowing him to undertake more ambitious projects. Unfortunately,
while working applying a coat of fixative to a Crac! drawing, the fumes got into his right eye. His eye did not recover, but Back continued to produce art. There is a story-book version of this short,
illustrated by Back and written by his wife.
The next, more ambitious project was the 1987 animation,
L'homme qui plantait des arbres (
The man who planted trees) (30:03, YT, with English and Spanish captions;
previously,
twice). The film would be Back's first that relied on spoken roles to convey the story. The story resonated with Back as he had planted over 30,000 trees, as
a member of the Society to Overcome Pollution, which formed in 1970.
Back's final film,
Le fleuve aux grandes eaux (
part 2, in French on Daily Motion) (
The Mighty River, 24:02, on Google Video in English, with narration by Donald Sutherland) was
about the St. Lawrence River. The film was
won four awards for animation, and was nominated for an Oscar, but lost to
Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers.
Frédéric Back is now 87, and is continuing to be recognized for his lifetime of artwork, from his
environmental message to
a celebration of his work in Japan (10:00, Japanese news clip, with interviews of Back who speaks in French), including a display at
the Ghibli Museum (I think -- this part of the Ghibli Museum site is only in Japanese, and the
Google auto-translation may not be terribly accurate or clear).
Bonus links:
*
Lengthy interview with Back, year unknown.
*
Aother lengthy interview, in 1996.
posted by Wyatt at 5:00 PM on September 25, 2011