Ladislas Starevich - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Vladislav Starevich born Władysław Starewicz , was a Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n and French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

stop-motion animator

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

who used insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s and other animal

Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...

s as his protagonists. (His name can also be spelled Starevitch, Starewich and Starewitch.)

Early career

Władysław Starewicz was born in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, Russia to Polish parents (father Aleksander Starewicz from Surviliškis

Surviliškis

Surviliškis is a small town in Kaunas County in central Lithuania. As of 2001 it had a population of 376.-References:*This article was initially translated from the Lithuanian Wikipedia....

near Kėdainiai

Kedainiai

Kėdainiai is one of the oldest cities in Lithuania. It is located on the Nevėžis River. First mentioned in the 1372 Livonian Chronicle of Hermann de Wartberge, its population as of 2008 was 30,214. Its old town dates to the 17th century....

and mother Antonina Legęcka from Kaunas

Kaunas

Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...

, both from "neighbourhood nobility", in hiding after the failed Insurrection of 1863 against the Tsarist Russian domination), and had lived in Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

which at that time was a part of the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

. The boy was raised by his grandmother in Kaunas, then a capital of Kovno Governorate

Kovno Governorate

The Kovno Governorate or Government of Kovno was a governorate of the Russian Empire. Its capital was Kovno . It was formed on 18 December 1842 by tsar Nicholas I from the western part of the Vilna Governorate, and the order was carried out on 1 July 1843. It used to be a part of Northwestern Krai...

. He attended Gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

in Dorpat (today Tartu

Tartu

Tartu is the second largest city of Estonia. In contrast to Estonia's political and financial capital Tallinn, Tartu is often considered the intellectual and cultural hub, especially since it is home to Estonia's oldest and most renowned university. Situated 186 km southeast of Tallinn, the...

, Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

).

Starewicz had interests in a number of different areas; by 1910 he was named Director of the Museum of Natural History in Kovno, Lithuania

Lithuania

. There he made four short live-action documentaries for the museum. For the fifth film, Starewicz wished to record the battle of two stag beetles, but was stymied by the fact that the nocturnal creatures inevitably went to sleep whenever the stage lighting

Lighting

Lighting or illumination is the deliberate application of light to achieve some practical or aesthetic effect. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources such as lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylight...

was turned on. Inspired by a viewing of Les allumettes animées [Animated Matches] (1908) by Emile Cohl, Starewicz decided to re-create the fight through stop-motion animation: by replacing the beetles' legs with wire, attached with sealing wax to their thorax, he is able to create articulated insect puppets. The result was the short film Lucanus Cervus (1910), apparently the first animated puppet film with a plot and the natal hour of Russian animation.

In 1911, Starewicz moved to Moscow and began work with the film company of Aleksandr Khanzhonkov

Aleksandr Khanzhonkov

Aleksandr Aleksejevich Khanzhonkov was Russia's first cinema entrepreneur. He produced Defence of Sevastopol, Russia's first feature film, and Ladislas Starevich's ground-breaking puppet animations....

. There he made two dozen films, most of them puppet animations using dead animals. Of these, The Beautiful Leukanida (premiere - 1912), a fairy tale for beetles, earned international acclaim (one British reviewer was tricked into thinking the stars were live trained insects), while The Grasshopper and the Ant (1911) got Starewicz decorated by the czar. But the best-known film of this period, perhaps of his entire career, was Mest' kinematograficheskogo operatora (Revenge of the Kinematograph Cameraman, aka The Cameraman's Revenge) (1912), a cynical work about infidelity and jealousy among the insects. Some of the films made for Khanzhonkov feature live-action/animation interaction. In some cases, the live action consisted of footage of Starewicz's daughter Irina. Particularly worthy of note is Starevich's 41-minute 1913 film The Night Before Christmas
The Night Before Christmas (1913 film)
The Night Before Christmas is a 1913 silent film made in the Russian Empire by Ladislas Starevich, based on the tale of the same name by Nikolai Gogol...

, an adaptation of the Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...

story of the same name. The 1913 film Terrible Vengeance won the Gold Medal at an international festival in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

in 1914, being just one of five films which won awards among 1005 contestants. http://books.interros.ru/index.php?book=mult&id=01

During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Starewicz worked for several film companies, directing 60 live-action features, some of which were fairly successful. After the October Revolution

October Revolution

The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

of 1917, the film community largely sided with the White Army and moved from Moscow to Yalta

Yalta

Yalta is a city in Crimea, southern Ukraine, on the north coast of the Black Sea.The city is located on the site of an ancient Greek colony, said to have been founded by Greek sailors who were looking for a safe shore on which to land. It is situated on a deep bay facing south towards the Black...

on the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

. After a brief stay, Starewicz and his family fled before the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

could capture the Crimea

Crimea

Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...

, stopping in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

for a while before joining the Russian émigrés in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. There, they formed a company in the remains of Georges Méliès

Georges Méliès

Georges Méliès , full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest cinema. He was very innovative in the use of special effects...

' old studio. At this time, Władysław Starewicz changed his name to Ladislas Starevich, easier to pronounce in French. He made one animated film for this studio, The Scarecrow, before the operation was wound up, with most of the Russians joining the Berlin

Cinema of Germany

Cinema in Germany can be traced back to the late 19th century. German cinema has made major technical and artistic contributions to film.Unlike any other national cinemas, which developed in the context of relatively continuous and stable political systems, Germany witnesses major changes to its...

or Hollywood

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

studios.

After World War I

Wishing to remain independent, Starevich moved to Fontenay-sous-Bois

Fontenay-sous-Bois

Fontenay-sous-Bois is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-Name:The name Fontenay was recorded in the Middle Ages as Fontanetum, meaning "the springs", from Medieval Latin fontana .The commune was known alternatively as Fontenay-les-Bois ,...

and started on a series of puppet films that would last for the rest of his life. In these films he was assisted first by his wife France Starevich and later by his daughter Irina (who had changed her name to Irène). The first of these films was Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi (The Frogs That Demand a King, aka Frogland [US]) (1922), probably the closest Starevich ever came to political commentary in his French films. Following Aesop

Aesop

Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...

's fable of the frogs who demand a king from the god Jupiter and are disappointed by the results, the film shows a clear preference not for the pre-monarchial

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...

or decadent democracy

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

(which would likely be the slant of an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

or French

France

film), but for King Log's form of libertarian

Libertarianism

Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

government.

During the years at Fontenay-sous-Bois, the Stareviches made two dozen films. Among the most notable are La Voix du rossignol (The Voice of the Nightingale) (1923), a hand-tinted film (some sources say Prizma

Prizma

The Prizma Color system was a technique of color motion picture photography, invented in 1913 by William Van Doren Kelley and Charles Raleigh. Initially, it was a two-color additive color system, similar to its predecessor, Kinemacolor...

color) starring the young "Nina Starr" (Janina Starevich) and the naturalistic nightingale

Nightingale

The Nightingale , also known as Rufous and Common Nightingale, is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae...

who convinces her to free him, and Fétiche Mascotte (Duffy the Mascot, aka The Mascot, aka Puppet Love, aka The Devil's Ball) (1934), a long and strange story about a loving dog puppet who practically goes through Hell to get an orange to a girl dying of scurvy

Scurvy

Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...

, selected by Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam

Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...

as one of the ten best animated films of all time. La Voix du rossignol was awarded the Hugo Riesenfeld Medal

Hugo Riesenfeld

Hugo Riesenfeld was a Jewish Austrian-American composer. As a film director, he began to write his own orchestral compositions for silent films in 1917, and co-created modern production techniques where film scoring serves an integral part of the action...

for being the "most novel short subject motion picture in the USA during the year 1925".

Often mentioned as being among his best work, The Tale of the Fox
The Tale of the Fox
The Tale of the Fox was stop-motion animation pioneer Ladislas Starevich's first fully animated feature film. It is based on the tales of Renard the Fox. Although the animation was finished in Paris after an 18-month period , there were major problems with adding a soundtrack to the film...

was also his first animated feature. Although most of the production took place in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

from 1929–1931, it was finally released in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

in 1937

1937 in film

The year 1937 in film involved some significant events, including the Walt Disney production of the first full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.- Events :*April 16 - Way Out West premieres in the US....

and in France

France

in 1941. It was the third animated feature film

Feature film

In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

to have sound, after Quirino Cristiani

Quirino Cristiani

Quirino Cristiani was an Argentine animation director and cartoonist, responsible for the world's first two animated feature films as well as the first animated feature film with sound, even though the only copies of these two films were lost in a fire...

's Peludópolis (1931

1931 in film

-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:*Best Picture: Cimarron - MGM*Best Actor: Lionel Barrymore - A Free Soul*Best Actor: Wallace Beery - The Champ*Best Actor: Fredric March - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...

) and The New Gulliver
The New Gulliver
The New Gulliver is a Soviet stop motion-animated cartoon, and the first to make such extensive use of puppet animation, running almost all the way through the film . The film was released in 1935 to widespread acclaim and earned Ptushko a special prize at the International Cinema Festival in Milan...

(1935

1935 in film

-Events:*Judy Garland signs a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .*Seven year old Shirley Temple wins a special Academy Award.*The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment started in order to educate the Bantu peoples.-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:...

) from the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

.

Starevich introduced sound and color into his puppet films as soon as they became available. He kept every puppet he made, so stars in one film tended to turn up as supporting characters in later works (the frogs from Grenouilles qui demandent un roi are the oldest of these).

Vladislav Starevich died on 26 February 1965, while working on Comme chien et chat (Like Dog and Cat). It was left unfinished out of respect. He was one of the few European animators to be known by name in America before the 1960s, largely on account of La Voix du rossignol and Fétiche Mascotte (The Tale of the Fox was not widely distributed in the US). His Russian films were known for their dark humor, probably an inevitable consequence of the choice of dead beetles and grasshoppers as subjects. Once he switched to using more ordinary puppets for his French films, his work became more lyrical. However, the fact that he was working independently had the negative effect that the films are sometimes considered too long, too lyrical, and too uncommercial. The films are united, however, by their wild imagination.

Films directed in Kaunas, Lithuania (1909–1910)

(with original titles in Polish)

Nad Niemnem (1909) - Beyond the River Nemunas
Zycie Ważek (1909) - The Life of the Dragonfly
Walka żuków (1909) - The Battle of the Stag Beetles
Piękna Lukanida (1910) - The Beautiful Lukanida

These films are currently considered lost

Lost film

A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...

Films directed in Russia (1911-1918)

(with original titles in Russian)

Miest Kinomatograficheskovo Operatora (1911) - The Cameraman’s Revenge
Rozhdyestvo Obitatelei Lyesa (1911) - The Insects' Christmas
Strekoza I Muravei (1911) - The Ant and the Grasshopper
Aviacionnaya Nedelya Nasekomykh (1912) - Insects' Aviation Week
Strashnaia Myest (1912) - The Terrible Vengeance
Noch' Pered Rozhdestvom (1912) - The Night Before Christmas
Veselye Scenki Iz Zhizni Zhivotnykh (1912) - Amusing Scenes from the Life of Insects
Puteshestvie Na Lunu (1912) - A Journey to the Moon
Ruslan I Ludmilla. (1913) - Ruslan and Ludmilla
Snegurochka. (1914) - The Snow Maiden
Pasynok Marsa (1914) - Mars’s Stepson
Kayser-Gogiel-Mogiel (1914) - Gogel-Mogel General
Troika (1914) - Troika
Fleurs Fanees 1914 - Faded Flowers
Le Chant Du Bagnard (1915) - The Convict's Song
Portret (1915) - (May Be Produced By The Skobeliew Committee) - The Portrait
Liliya Bel'gii (1915) - The Lily of Belgium
Eto Tyebye Prinadlezhit (1915) - It’s Fine for You
Eros I Psyche (1915) - Eros and Psyche
Dvye Vstryechi (1916) - Two Meetings
Le Faune En Laisse (1916) - The Chained Faun
O Chom Shumielo Morie (1916) - The Murmuring Sea
Taman (1916) - Taman
Na Varshavskom Trakte (1916) - On the Warsaw Highway
Pan Twardowski
Pan Twardowski
Pan Twardowski , in Polish folklore and literature, is a sorcerer who entered a pact with the devil, similar to the figure of Faust in German literature. Like Faust, Pan Twardowski sold his soul in exchange for special powers – such as summoning up the spirit of Polish King Sigismund...

(1917) - Mister Twardowski
Sashka-Naezdnik (1917) - Sashka the Horseman
K Narodnoi Vlasti (1917) - Towards People’s Power
Kaliostro (1918) - Cagliostro
Yola (1918) - Iola
Wij (1918) - Vij
Sorotchinskaia Yarmaka (1918) - The Sorotchninsk Fair
Maiskaya Noch (1918) - May Night
Stella Maris (1918) - Starfish

Films directed in France (1920–1965)

(with original titles in French)

Dans les Griffes de L'araignee (1920) - In The Claws of the Spider
Le Mariage de Babylas (1921) - Babylas’s Marriage
L'epouvantail (1921) - The Scarecrow
Les Grenouilles qui Demandent un Roi (1922) - Frogland
La Voix du Rossignol (1923) - The Voice of the Nightingale
Amour Noir et Blanc (1923) - Love In Black and White
La Petite Chanteuse des Rues (1924) - The Little Street Singer
Les Yeux du Dragon (1925) - The Eyes of the Dragon
Le Rat de Ville et le Rat Des Champs - (1926) The Town Rat and the Country Rat
La Cigale et la Fourmi (1927) - The Ant and the Grasshopper
La Reine des Papillons (1927) - The Queen of the Butterflies
L'horloge Magique (1928) - The Magic Clock
La Petite Parade (1928) - The Little Parade
Le Lion et le Moucheron (1932) - The Lion and the Fly
Le Lion Devenu Vieux (1932) - The Old Lion
Fetiche Mascotte (1933) - The Mascot
Fetiche Prestidigitateur (1934) - The Ringmaster
Fetiche se Marie (1935) - The Mascot’s Marriage
Fetiche en Voyage De Noces (1936) - The Navigator
Fetiche Chez les Sirenes (1937) - The Mascot and the Mermaids
Le Roman de Renard
The Tale of the Fox
The Tale of the Fox was stop-motion animation pioneer Ladislas Starevich's first fully animated feature film. It is based on the tales of Renard the Fox. Although the animation was finished in Paris after an 18-month period , there were major problems with adding a soundtrack to the film...

(1930–1939) - The Tale of the Fox
Zanzabelle a Paris (1947) - Zanzabelle in Paris
Fleur de Fougere (1949) - Fern Flowers
Gazouilly Petit Oiseau. (1953) - Little Bird Gazouilly
Gueule de Bois (1954) - Hangover
Un Dimanche de Gazouilly (1955) - Gazouilly’s Sunday Picnic
Nez au Vent (1956) - Nose to the Wind
Carrousel Boreal (1958) - Winter Carousel
Comme Chien et Chat (1965) - Like Dog and Cat

A documentary about Starevich was made in 2008.

External links

www.afterpartiesdays.com The website of the movie "After Parties Days Are Ending Too", winner 2009 of the Ladislas Starewitch Award (5mn30) and directed by a French young director, Lou BEAUCHARD- Best Film of Animation 2010/ Columbia Gorge International Film Festival (Vancouver/Oregon)
The Cameraman's Revenge can be viewed at the Internet Archive
Fétiche Mascotte (1934)at the Internet Archive
Ladislas Starewich Biography - part of "Animation Heaven and Hell", by Tim Fitzpatrick. Website also includes a few video clips.
Tribute to Starewitch - made by his granddaughter
Entomology and Animation: A Portrait of an Early Master Ladislaw Starewicz (May 2000 6-page article from Animation World Magazine)
Starevich at UbuWeb (view some of his early films) Biography (with many pictures)
Irene Starevich at IMDB
creative documentary "The Bug Trainer" about L. Starewitch

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