Comments on: German animator Hans Fischerkoesen

German animator Hans Fischerkoesen

mediareport — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 16:15:24 -0800

1942's Weather-Beaten Melody [youtube], an innovative nine-minute cartoon by German animator Hans Fischerkoesen in which insects discover an abandoned phonograph in a meadow. "To fully appreciate Fischerkoesen's daring, one must remember that the Nazis had forbidden jazz and swing as an Afro-Judaic plot to undermine traditional German culture," says William Moritz in "Resistance And Subversion in Animated Films of The Nazi Era: the Case of Hans Fischerkoesen." Before and after subverting Goebbels' battle with Disney, Fisherkoesen made lively cartoons for Philips light bulbs, grocery stores, cigar ettes, stockings and digestive aids. [Shorter version of Moritz' article, with pics] [via Glyph Jockey]

By: mediareport

mediareport — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 16:18:50 -0800

Sadly, neither The Snowman (1943) nor The Silly Goose (1944) are available online, although the first can be bought as part of this compilation.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 16:56:14 -0800

Hmm. In light of the Nazi suppression of Jazz, I wonder if this film is a commentary? The family are clearly German, though I also detect a hint of yiddish sometimes.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 18:20:12 -0800

This guitarist I work with related to me a Nazi author's opinion of Jazz while occupying France. Something along the lines of "it is horrible to march to."

By: hexatron

hexatron — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 18:52:28 -0800

McDerMott I Love to Singa is a riff on the first commercial sound film, "The Jazz Singer", which starred Al (not Owl) Jolson as the son of a yiddish cantor, who wanted to sing jazz (or jezz).

By: mmahaffie

mmahaffie — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 19:29:45 -0800

That short film was lovely, mr. Thank you.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 20:50:23 -0800

You're welcome. That catchy chorus won't leave my head. :) His story's pretty interesting; the Soviets imprisoned him after the war as a Nazi sympathizer but he was exonerated in 1948, then escaped to the West with his family. Moritz seems to think that just keeping Nazi propaganda out of his films was a major accomplishment for Fischerkoesen, let alone including joyous cooperation and sensual dancing. Near the phonograph lies an "abandoned" clasp from a woman's garter belt (with a "lucky" four-leafed clover growing out of it!), which suggests that the interrupted picnic that left behind the musical instrument had also involved erotic play -- something also strictly forbidden by the puritanical Nazi codes. So, from beneath the charming surface of this cartoon emerges a subversive message: women, far from the unnatural Nazi-designated stereotype of revolving around "children, church and kitchen," can escape into Nature to be self-reliant and adventurous, erotic and free -- they can rediscover or revitalize a suppressed world of forbidden joy that is found in music and friendship between diverse creatures; creatures who may be brown or white, frog or caterpiller, or even a pair of ladybug beetles who may be a same-sex couple...the entire community of animals depicted in Weather-beaten Melody are peaceful, friendly, fun-loving, imaginative and altruistic -- quite the opposite of the Nazi requirements for a dedicated Aryan citizen. Hard to tell how much power that kind of stuff had at the time, but it's interesting to think of folks working to spread a more open-hearted message in the midst of such a horridly authoritarian society.

By: Artifice_Eternity

Artifice_Eternity — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 21:01:01 -0800

jazz and swing as an Afro-Judaic plot to undermine traditional... culture Hey, that's kind of a cool idea.

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 22:08:46 -0800

What a wonderful post, mediareport, thank you! If I could favorite it twice, I would. The animation is great - he even was prescient about scratch. The article is well worth a read, very interesting, and makes me want to do more exploration about resistance within Germany. I am only partway through the commercials, I love the Phillips one. If we had commercials like that, I would go out of my way to watch them!

By: neckro23

neckro23 — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 22:12:53 -0800

Wow. I wasn't going to watch the video until I read mediareport's quote. That's some pretty amazing animation for the age. Not a hint of shortcuts.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 15:16:14 -0800

There's a very fine novella about the Nazi suppression of Jazz, by Josef Skvorecky, a writer who lived through it, called 'The Bass Saxophone'. There's an excerpt here on Skvorecky's website. Thanks for the info on I Love to Singa, hexatron. I don't know why I never made the connection with The Jazz Singer. After all, I've seen the Jolson Story (with Larry Parks playing Asa himself) often enough.