One can deal with the world through puppets

February 25, 2016 4:04 PM

A four part documentary, each of 15 mins, about Jan Švankmajer probably the greatest living surrealist. Pt. I. | Pt. II. | Pt. III | Pt. IV.
An interview from 2012 - Freedom is becoming the only theme, and a previous incredibly thorough post.
posted by adamvasco (7 comments total)

Svankmajer's Faust made me realize that most other filmmakers are just wasting the potential of the medium.
posted by crazylegs at 5:41 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

Iowa has the National Czech Museum. I went for the first time at Christmas. It was fun, and a bitesize museum (you can get through the whole thing in a few hours). They supposedly have a puppet collection, but they weren't on display. They did have some books on puppeteers and they had some displays of the history of Czech puppetry.

I'm a puppet collector and am amateur puppeteer (mostly closeted). It's too bad so many of the links in the "previously" post are dead. I'll watch these when I have the patience for subtitles. I am only peripherally aware of Švankmajer (I have an extensive puppetry library). He's in a lot of my books, but I'm not a marionettist.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:45 PM on February 25, 2016

This post has made my day. Thank you adamvasco. I hope more of Jan's art makes it to Blu-Ray after 4k restoration. It is beyond words.
posted by The Salaryman at 5:43 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

I remember being horrified by Otesanek as a teenager, but also strangely drawn to it. Hadn't really seen anything like it before. Opened up a whole new world which, unfortunately, I didn't revisit until recently by watching the shorts' collection. With a friend. Served as a perfect night of after-partying surrealism.

Švankmajer: Surrealism is in fact a great collective adventure. - Agreed.
posted by sapagan at 6:21 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Animation is not merely a special effect but a tangible metaphor for manipulation and, potentially, for playing god.
Švankmajer’s interest in puppetry, animation, occult ritual, and the Golem suggest a conception of cinema as a form of magic.
pdf
posted by adamvasco at 10:19 AM on February 26, 2016

Great, now it looks like I won't be getting to bed any time soon. Thanks for posting this, though—Švankmajer is amazing, and a doc on him is worth the lost sleep. I guess I had assumed he was no longer living because I would have expected him to have been making more films all this time.

Svankmajer's Faust made me realize that most other filmmakers are just wasting the potential of the medium.

I've never laughed so hard at somebody trying to cross the damn street.
posted by Rykey at 11:52 PM on February 26, 2016

My wife didn't appreciate me nicknaming my milk-ravenous daughter Little Otik.
posted by benzenedream at 8:11 AM on March 1, 2016