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"Culture" Channel

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presents

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Weightless Life

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OLEG ANOFRIYEV
Actor

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All on Earth has its secret birth.

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Poetry, for example.

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Animation also has its secret birth.

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It is this secret which we
will try to reveal to you

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in this unusual film about the creation
of Soviet Russian animation.

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Dialogue With Disney

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People in this film:

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Oleg Anofriyev - actor, has voiced
many animated characters.

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Iosif Boyarskiy - director, animation historian.
Many directors have learned from his books.

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Fyodor Khitruk - director. His "Winnie-the-Pooh"
has been hailed by Disney animators.

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Yuriy Norshteyn - director. His "Hedgehog in the Fog"
has topped a list of the world's best animation.

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Inessa Kovalevskaya - director.
Her "Bremen Musicians" became
the first Soviet animated musical.

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Aleksandr Kurlyandskiy - writer. Many generations
have watched his serial "You Just Wait!"

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Aleksandr Tatarskiy - director. He developed
the technique of flat plasticine animation.

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Strange though it may be, the studio
Soyuzmultfilm owes its existence to Walt Disney

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There's no shame in learning from the greats.

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How to apply that knowledge
is a different question.

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In the early 1930s, it was decided
that the country should industrialize.

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Film had to also become "an industry".

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The country needed a "Soviet Hollywood".

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The physicist Pyotr Kapitsa went to England,

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The steel founders were sent to Germany,

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And the management of the photo-
film industry sent its representative
Viktor Smirnov to the US.

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In order to learn about methods for creating films.

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He spent several months at Disney's studio,
and fell in love with his animation assembly line.

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Henry Ford, the inventor of the assembly line,

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unsuspectingly gave Disney the hint
of how to speed up the production of films:

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put them on an assembly line!

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IOSIF BOYARSKIY
director

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There were two Disney brothers.

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They saw that the assembly line
method is more progressive

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and they applied this method,

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and they also separated the production process

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The story, the director's script,

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the concept artists,

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and everything after that is
divided between workshops

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the animation workshop;
drawn acting,

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technical helpers, who draw the
in-between drawings,

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a line workshop,
a drawing-on-celluloid workshop,

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and painting the celluloid.

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One for film developing,
another for sound, and so on.

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N. Khodatayev
"Interplanetary Revolution", 1924

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In our country at that time, animation
was made by numerous small studios.

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Such a studio would make 1-2 films a year.

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The public liked them, but the speed
of the output pleased no-one.

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Animated production had to be quicker.

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The factory-like Disney working
method was very fitting for this.

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But a big factory was needed for it!

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And soon a decision was made to combine
the small studios into one big one.

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That is how Soyuzmultfilm was born.

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FYODOR KHITRUK
director

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I came to the studio at the end of 1937,
when it was barely a year old.

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I know where the studio began - in
Kudrinskaya Square, Novinskiy Boulevard

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Every time I drive by, I feel like I'm
back at the house of my birth.

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I had a completely different
conception of a film studio.

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Like any unenlightened person, I thought
that a film studio was something exotic,

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that there had to be decorations everywhere,

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cranes, stage lights, cinematographers
running around everywhere...

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Nothing of the sort!

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"We Don't Bite Here"

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There was a long corridor, with door signs
like "We Don't Bite Here", "It's Hot in Africa",

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"Little Liar", "Kind Umar", these
were director's groups.

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My first film was called "A Noisy Voyage".

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I adore this film; I watch it
every week at least once.

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V. Suteyev
"A Noisy Voyage", 1937

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These films were begun on small
studios before Soyuzmultfilm's arrival,

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and the Disney-inspired technological
changes hadn't yet touched them.

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When I arrived, they still used
expressions like:

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These were copied from the technical
manual which was translated

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on the orders of Viktor
Fyodorovich Smirnov.

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They completely changed
the technology.

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Earlier, each phase of movement
was drawn on paper,

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cut out, and put in front
of the background.

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You can imagine, no-one talked
of any plasticity or 3D movement.

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Now they decided to
switch to celluloid

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and this greatly bolstered
all animators.

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One could move characters in
any fashion, use 3D space,

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This was a Klondike for animators.

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V. + Z. Brumberg
"Red Riding Hood", 1937

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Grandma, what a big,
scary mouth you have!

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The better to eat you with!

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Animators were shaken up,
working at the new studio.

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They had to forget about
past technologies,

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and make films exclusively
in Disney's style.

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A Most Colourful Tale About
a Duckling and a Rainbow

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A Duck Comedy

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A cartoon must be funny!
Nothing but the comedy genre.

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Nothing lyrical, no drama, and so
a conflict arose in our animation,

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between the Russian craving for
self-expression and Disney's style.

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Naturally, there were losses.

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Though we acquired unbelievable
freedom and plasticity of movement,

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we could previously use our treasure
trove of children's book illustrations.

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Such geniuses as Lebedev,
Cherushin, Favorskiy,

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could not be shown on celluloid
because the even, hard pen

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did not allow us to reproduce this
astounding texture of the illustrations.

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Aleksandr Tatarskiy
Director

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One thing that Disney
definitely lacked was design.

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His design is primitive, on the
level of soap commercials.

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But it didn't take long for Smirnov to
make our artists do it Disney's way.

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His films were already at the
peak of their public popularity.

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In 1935, the first international
film festival took place in Moscow

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and 3 of Disney's films were shown:

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"Peculiar Penguins", "Mickey's Revue"
and "The Three Little Pigs"

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All of Moscow, back then,
was singing the song
"Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"

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The Happy Generation

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Even directors who'd made more
than one film at the new studio

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began to make films "� la Disney"

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Ivan Ivanov-Vano, for the
film "Little Liar"

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adopted a famous
Disney character.

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I remember, as a trainee, I was
assigned a scene with a duckling,

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and this duckling was an
unsuccessful imitation of Donald Duck.

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I. Ivanov-Vano
"Little Liar", 1938

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Tell me please, is that
monster your dog?

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Yes; once I had to go on
a hunt at the end of winter.

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Not enough action!
Not enough action!

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Everyone repeated the mantra:
A film must be funny!

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But the question of why it must
be funny was never asked.

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If Disney does it this way,
then so must we.

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Each one of us strove to
think of something.

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This was like a kind of sport.

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And this was imperative - we had
to imbue the characters

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with some interesting
events and tricks

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Aleksandr Kurlyandskiy
scriptwriter

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We did not have a
"gagman" profession.

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So for one "gag" we could
work a whole day, or even more.

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Every story point had to be
funnily conveyed.

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"How to Invent
a Funny Trick?"

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Meetings were held in
the famed studio,

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caricaturists, circus workers
and humour writers were invited,

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and each "trick" that they
invented was paid for.

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I remember returning
from one of these gag meetings

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Vladimir Grigoryevich Suteyev
gave me 20 cents.

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This was a premium.

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Nowadays people guess for 3 million,

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but back then these 20 cents
were dear to me.

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Such meetings were also
imitations of Disney,

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whose whole studio
was inventing gags.

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In other words, tricks
and funny situations.

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W. Disney
"Steamboat Willie", 1928

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But no matter how much we
racked our brains thinking up gags,

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audiences still had no belly
laughs during our films.

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And understandably; Russian and
American animation have different roots.

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American animation was born from comics,

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from humourous pictoral stories.

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They appeared in America in the 19th
century as additions to newspapers.

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In this way, publishers made immigrants
and the illiterate buy the periodicals.

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Later, comics came to life,
and American animation was born.

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O. Messmer
"Woos Whoopee", 1930

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Soviet animation got started with
parody and propaganda posters.

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Dziga Vertov can be called
the first Soviet animator.

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While working on "Cinema Eye",
he began to animate.

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The films made were mostly
of a political nature;

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"Down With the Second International",
"China in Flames"

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"How Avdotya Became Literate"

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and other socio-political
themes like that.

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But gradually, propaganda films were
replaced by children's cartoons.

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Directors began paying attention
to the artistic side of animation.

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Yuriy Norshteyn
director

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Tsekhanovskiy immediately made
an unbelievable film: "Post",

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based on Marshak's poems.

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One must also note that Marshak's
poem itself is very elastic,

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and this is reflected in the film.

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M. Tsekhanovskiy
"Post", 1929

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"Post" was and remains
a Soviet classic.

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"Post" is among the best of the best
of children's cinematography.

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And then he started a film called

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"The Tale of the Priest and
of His Workman Balda"

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It was supposed to include
the music of Shostakovich.

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Do you see what a level animation
had attained, what culture,

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if the genius Shostakovich saw in it

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unbelievable compositional
opportunities for himself.

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M. Tsekhanovsiy "The Tale of the
Priest and of His Workman Balda", 1933

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And so the imposition
of the Disney style

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again made our animation
indistinguishable and unexpressive.

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Disney himself helped us to
cross-examine his style,

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with his films "Snow White"
and "Bambi".

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He understood that the viewer
was tired of watching comics;

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it was time to wow him
with realism.

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Disney decided to draw Snow
White as a pretty young girl,

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and make her move like
a regular person, not as the
traditional Disney character.

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W. Disney
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", 1937

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And Bambi, made during early WW2,
impressed the world even more.

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NAPOLEON I

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L. Amalrik
"Film Circus", 1942

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Soviet animators did things
like in a circus,

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while Disney, filming stories about a calf

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whose mother died from
a hunter's bullet,

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was able to comment on the
horrors of war and death.

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D. Hand
"Bambi", 1942

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"Bambi" became the iconic
anti-war film.

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and forced our animators to
reflect on the fact that they

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had become too engrossed
in others' accomplishments,

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and had forgotten about finding art.

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L. Almarik, V. Polkovnikov
"The Little Grey Neck", 1948

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Soon, we too began to make films

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which did not try to induce
laughter by any means possible.

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After artists came
back from WW2,

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they submerged themselves
into a completely peaceful world.

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There is nothing more peaceful than
talking with or drawing for children.

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And so there suddenly appeared a huge
number of films exclusively for children.

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Amelrik and Polkovnikov's
"The Little Grey Neck"

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became a revelation for the
whole world,

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and Ivanov-Vano's 1947
"The Little Humpbacked Horse"

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was shown by Disney to his workers
as an example to learn from.

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after such a success,
as is typical in our country,

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we went from worshipping Disney
to completely shunning him.

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Fyodor Khitruk
director

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We even had the following
curious thesis:

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"We long ago overtook Disney!

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Because he lives under capitalism,
and we're already under socialism."

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Disney's main work consists of
one genre: comedy for children.

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Soviet animation took a different
view of children's cinema

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Iosif Boyarskiy
director

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The main task became pedagogical:

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The moral and artistic
education of children.

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Inessa Kovalyovskaya
director

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For children, animation is not
mere fun and games,

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it is the discovery of the world.

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We turned away from
the Disney style,

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and our animation began producing
such insightful films as

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Lev Atamanov's
"The Snow Queen",

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Roman Kachanov's "Mitten",

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Fyodor Khitruk's
"Boniface's Holiday"

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Pope John Paul II once said,

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"if you want your children to
obtain a high spiritual education,

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show them Soviet animated films."

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00:18:10,058 --> 00:18:16,458
In the 50s and 60s, Soyuzmultfilm
turned its attention to films for adults.

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00:18:16,859 --> 00:18:21,909
Parables are made, satirical portraits,
philosophical metaphors,

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00:18:21,910 --> 00:18:24,600
like Khrzanovsky's
"Glass Harmonica",

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00:18:24,701 --> 00:18:29,000
or Fyodor Khitruk's
"History of a Crime".

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00:18:30,401 --> 00:18:32,101
This is a different cinema,

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00:18:32,102 --> 00:18:36,302
which thinks of people using
different forms.

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00:18:36,503 --> 00:18:41,503
Only once did Disney decide to
make a film for the adult viewer.

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00:18:41,704 --> 00:18:46,204
It is called "Fantasia". It's a
big film of about 2 hours.

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00:18:46,205 --> 00:18:48,905
where Stokowski conducts an orchestra

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00:18:48,906 --> 00:18:52,606
and makes these novellas
to the music.

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00:18:52,607 --> 00:18:54,607
W. Disney
"Fantasia", 1940

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00:18:57,008 --> 00:19:00,608
The novellas are very closely
tied to the music.

243
00:19:07,909 --> 00:19:13,709
The idea is very interesting,
original, and very impressive.

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00:19:17,150 --> 00:19:22,710
He already had that abstract
animation which is now talked about.

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00:19:23,211 --> 00:19:26,011
He did Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring"

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00:19:26,312 --> 00:19:30,812
Huge boulders, the birth of
volcanoes, and of the Earth.

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00:19:31,013 --> 00:19:33,513
It is done in a very
unusual manner.

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00:19:34,214 --> 00:19:37,314
The film flopped,

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00:19:38,215 --> 00:19:45,015
and Disney never again
made films for adults.

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00:19:45,516 --> 00:19:50,700
His opinion about our own
abundance of genres was blunt:

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00:19:50,701 --> 00:19:54,501
"One whose profession was finding
novelty would find it interesting,

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00:19:54,502 --> 00:19:58,502
but how would one sell it?
It is only experimentation."

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00:19:58,703 --> 00:20:04,773
And he continued to turn out
family films in the familiar style.

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00:20:04,874 --> 00:20:07,300
"Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty",

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00:20:07,301 --> 00:20:10,401
Now his films impressed
in terms of money,

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00:20:10,402 --> 00:20:13,502
with their cost and high
box-office gross.

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00:20:13,503 --> 00:20:18,603
If 150 artists worked on "Cinderella",
300 would work on "Sleeping Beauty"

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00:20:18,704 --> 00:20:23,304
If the press called "Cinderella" the
most profitable film of the decade,

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00:20:23,305 --> 00:20:29,305
"Sleeping Beauty" would become
the emblem of the studio.

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00:20:36,506 --> 00:20:42,306
Disney's children's films and our own
were now completely different.

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00:20:44,307 --> 00:20:49,107
Cartoons about Winnie-the-Pooh
were released by us and Disney

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00:20:49,308 --> 00:20:51,108
almost at the same time.

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00:20:51,109 --> 00:20:56,309
But he was not a very smart bear,
and so thought only with great effort.

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00:20:57,010 --> 00:21:00,310
He was a poet, and composed
poems in his free time.

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00:21:00,511 --> 00:21:04,511
I can't think of anything.
What about you?

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00:21:05,912 --> 00:21:08,512
If I scratch my head at times,
it's no fright.

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00:21:08,513 --> 00:21:11,003
I have sawdust in my head,
that's quite right.

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00:21:11,004 --> 00:21:12,354
But though sawdust's
all that's there,

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00:21:12,355 --> 00:21:13,705
cry- and wail-poems very fair

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00:21:13,706 --> 00:21:15,606
(and noise-, huff- and bawl-
poems, also fair)

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00:21:15,607 --> 00:21:17,407
with some skill I sometimes can write.

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00:21:17,408 --> 00:21:18,408
Right.

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00:21:18,409 --> 00:21:21,409
Compared to Disney, Khitruk's
Winnie-the-Pooh is considerably

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00:21:21,410 --> 00:21:23,500
more interesting and brighter.

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00:21:23,701 --> 00:21:26,001
Aleksandr Tatarskiy
director

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00:21:26,202 --> 00:21:30,702
Disney's Winnie-the-Pooh
was genuine to Milne.

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00:21:31,093 --> 00:21:32,503
The English writer.

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00:21:32,904 --> 00:21:41,004
But Khitruk's Pooh was completely
different - a charming philosopher,

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00:21:41,505 --> 00:21:46,305
and not simply someone
who likes to gorge on food.

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00:21:46,706 --> 00:21:53,206
I once showed my... our Pooh
at Disney,

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00:21:53,207 --> 00:21:56,507
to the creator of the Disney
Winnie-the-Pooh.

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00:21:56,808 --> 00:21:59,000
He liked our version.

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00:22:00,201 --> 00:22:09,401
Around that time, Soyuzmultfilm
put up an unofficial ban on the use
of the Disney style and genre.

284
00:22:10,402 --> 00:22:16,002
The directors were scared stiff of
allowing Disney-ification to take
over the studio again.

285
00:22:16,103 --> 00:22:21,103
Even in those films which required
characters in the Disney style,

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00:22:21,404 --> 00:22:26,704
authors were persistently told to
change their character and plot.

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00:22:27,005 --> 00:22:31,305
Dyozhkin's "Unbelievable Match"
and "Shaybu! Shaybu!"

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00:22:31,306 --> 00:22:33,706
were met with raised
bayonets at the studio.

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00:22:34,207 --> 00:22:38,707
After seeing them, Disney invited
the director to work for his studio.

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00:22:38,808 --> 00:22:43,408
Boris refused.
Series were not his thing.

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00:22:43,609 --> 00:22:47,909
Why, they were very good series.
Wonderful series, I think.

292
00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:52,510
Our "You Just Wait!" came from them.
One should know this. It was a good idea.

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00:22:53,511 --> 00:23:01,911
The first installments of "You Just Wait"
were badly received by the
masters of Soyuzmultfilm.

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00:23:02,602 --> 00:23:03,612
Aleksandr Kurlyandskiy
scriptwriter

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00:23:03,613 --> 00:23:05,313
it all started at the series
"The Happy Merry-Go-Round",

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00:23:05,314 --> 00:23:08,714
with small, roughly 1-minute films.
There were three of them.

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00:23:08,715 --> 00:23:10,715
There was a different wolf
and a different hare.

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00:23:10,716 --> 00:23:11,916
G. Sokolskiy
"You Just Wait!", 1969

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00:23:11,917 --> 00:23:17,717
They were successful, and they
gave us the opportunity to make
a big 10-minute film.

300
00:23:17,818 --> 00:23:20,518
We never foresaw such a
runaway hit, of course.

301
00:23:20,619 --> 00:23:24,919
Behind the Iron Curtain, and with the
full absence of any American films,
it stood alone.

302
00:23:25,120 --> 00:23:27,020
Of course people would like it.

303
00:23:27,021 --> 00:23:31,501
If "Tom and Jerry", which is just like
"You Just Wait", had been
shown at that time,

304
00:23:31,702 --> 00:23:33,222
nobody would've watched
"You Just Wait".

305
00:23:44,723 --> 00:23:47,023
"You Just Wait!"

306
00:23:47,424 --> 00:23:48,704
And that's how it was.

307
00:23:48,705 --> 00:23:55,525
Through these constant arguments,
our animation was born and lived.

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00:23:56,926 --> 00:23:59,826
In 2003, at the Tokyo
Laputa festival,

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00:23:59,827 --> 00:24:02,127
the most prominent
cinematographers from across the globe

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00:24:02,428 --> 00:24:06,628
chose 150 of the best animated
films from all eras and nations.

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00:24:06,629 --> 00:24:13,129
Among these 150, 11 were from
the Soyuzmultfilm studio,

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00:24:13,130 --> 00:24:15,930
and only four films from
Disney's studio.

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00:24:16,031 --> 00:24:22,831
The top two were "Hedgehog
in the Fog" and "Tale of Tales".

314
00:24:22,932 --> 00:24:28,000
It would seem that our animation had
forever forsaken the Disney style,

315
00:24:28,001 --> 00:24:34,401
But lately, the animators of the 2000s
are trying to resurrect the
dialogue with Disney.

316
00:24:35,002 --> 00:24:38,602
Disney is long gone, as are
his students. See over there -

317
00:24:38,803 --> 00:24:43,303
I have a poster with my friends,
Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston,

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00:24:43,304 --> 00:24:46,304
the greatest of Disney's animators,

319
00:24:46,305 --> 00:24:51,005
When they were still alive,
animation was crystal-clear.

320
00:24:51,106 --> 00:24:52,006
Fyodor Khitruk
director

321
00:24:52,406 --> 00:24:57,106
Now it is becoming crafty, and
not as clean as it once was

322
00:24:57,507 --> 00:25:01,407
during the time of
Disney's "Snow White".

323
00:25:01,908 --> 00:25:06,608
Our animation is becoming
commercial.

324
00:25:07,609 --> 00:25:14,909
Just as at the dawn of American
animation, it tries as hard as it
can to make people laugh.

325
00:25:16,510 --> 00:25:20,910
And so Alyosha began to learn
the military business.

326
00:25:21,511 --> 00:25:23,511
K. Bronzit
"Alosha", 2004

327
00:25:24,811 --> 00:25:33,111
The defenders of our older
animated films call this a return
to animating comics.

328
00:25:33,212 --> 00:25:38,400
They say that we need to return
to the better aspects of Soviet animation.

329
00:25:39,001 --> 00:25:44,601
That for Russians, copying
Disney is already a dead end.

330
00:25:46,402 --> 00:25:47,802
Script and direction
Lyubov Khobotova

331
00:25:47,803 --> 00:25:49,203
Cameramen: Aleksandr Komov,
Vyacheslav Sachkov, Denis Katurga

332
00:25:49,204 --> 00:25:50,604
Editing
Sergey Garkavy

333
00:25:50,605 --> 00:25:51,999
Computer graphics: Sergey Garkavy,
Dmitriy Vasilyev

334
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:53,406
Sound: Pavel Dudin
Narrator: Oleg Anofriyev

335
00:25:53,407 --> 00:25:54,807
Artist: Anna Pinchuk
Editor: Viktoriya Belopolskaya

336
00:25:54,808 --> 00:25:56,208
Producer: Yevgeniy Sulla
Consultants: Larisa Layukova,

337
00:25:56,209 --> 00:25:57,609
Inessa Kovalevskaya,
Fyodor Khitruk, Iosif Boyarskiy

338
00:25:57,610 --> 00:25:59,010
Appeared in film: Iosif Boyarskiy,
Fyodor Khitruk, Aleksandr Tatarskiy,

339
00:25:59,011 --> 00:26:00,411
Aleksandr Kurlyandskiy, Yuriy Norshteyn,
Inessa Kovalyova, Leonid Shvartsman

340
00:26:00,412 --> 00:26:01,112
Film fragments from:
N. Mayorov, F. Khitruk,

341
00:26:01,113 --> 00:26:01,813
A. Tatarskiy, V. Pugashkin,
A. Petrov, I. Kaplichnaya,

342
00:26:01,814 --> 00:26:02,504
A. Kurlyandskiy, Y. Norshteyn,
E. Nazarov, A. Kirakosyan,

343
00:26:02,505 --> 00:26:03,205
G. Bardin, I. Kovalevskaya,
L. Malyukova, I. Maksimov,

344
00:26:03,206 --> 00:26:03,906
Private archives of: A. Atamanova,
E. Nazarov, F. Khitruk,

345
00:26:03,907 --> 00:26:04,607
I. Boyarskiy, I. Kovalevskaya,
V. Pugashkin, G. Borodin,

346
00:26:04,608 --> 00:26:05,299
L. Shvartsman, A. Kirakosyan,
N. Abramova, A. Petrov,

347
00:26:05,300 --> 00:26:06,079
N. Mayorov, V. Shilobreyev,
Y. Nesterova, E. Vakhurina

348
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:07,400
Material from "First in Cinema",
an unpublished book by N. Mayorov,
is used in the film

349
00:26:07,401 --> 00:26:08,111
Studio CBC would like to thank
F. and A. Vyrskiy, V. Kuzmin,
T. Petrov, Y. Zaytsev,

350
00:26:08,112 --> 00:26:08,899
L. Soldatenkov, O. Kuznetsov,
A. Velikokhodny,
Studio Soyuzmultfilm,

351
00:26:08,900 --> 00:26:09,913
special thanks to A. Kirakosyan,
the A.V.Shchusev architecture museum,
and D. Sarkisyan

352
00:26:10,314 --> 00:26:12,800
Studio CBC for Culture Channel, 2006