Plasticine Crow
Encyclopedia
Plasticine Crow is a 1981 Soviet clay animation
by Aleksandr Tatarskiy
(T/O Ekran studio). Animation divided into three independent parts (Picture, Game and But maybe, but maybe...).
and portrait
.
Lyrics for the first part were composed by Alexander Kushner
.
Lyrics for the second part were composed by Ovsey Driz. Performed by Leonid Bronevoy
.
's fable The Crow and the Fox, and who are trying to remember it on the fly.
Thus, instead of the crow from Krylov's story, a dog appears, and then a cow, and even a Hippopotamus! The original fox is also replaced by an ostrich and then by a street cleaner.
At the end of the entirely distorted fable, a distorted moral is given: Don't stand and don't jump, don't sing and don't dance where the is construction in progress or hanging heavy load. (This is a pun on the two common Russian danger signs - "Don't stand under heavy load" and "Beware! Construction works in progress!").
Lyrics for the third part were composed by Eduard Uspensky.
saved it by showing "The Crow" in one of the releases of their "Kinopanorama" in contrary to the Soviet censors.
Clay animation
Clay animation or claymation is one of many forms of stop motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually Plasticine clay....
by Aleksandr Tatarskiy
Aleksandr Tatarskiy
Aleksander Mihailovich Tatarskiy was a Soviet/Russian animation film director, script writer and producer, animator and an artist of Ukrainian origin...
(T/O Ekran studio). Animation divided into three independent parts (Picture, Game and But maybe, but maybe...).
Picture
This first part tells kids about the three painting styles - landscape, still lifeStill life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
and portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
.
Lyrics for the first part were composed by Alexander Kushner
Alexander Kushner
Alexander Semenovich Kushner is a prominent Russian living poet from Saint Petersburg.- Biography :Kushner was born in Leningrad into a Russian-Jewish family; his father was a military engineer. He graduated from Herzen University, and later, between 1959 and 1969, taught Russian literature....
.
Game
This part narrates about the children game where the player periodically opens and shuts his eyes. Every time the player opens them he's amazed as the new details appear.Lyrics for the second part were composed by Ovsey Driz. Performed by Leonid Bronevoy
Leonid Bronevoy
Leonid Sergeyevich Bronevoy is a Nika Award-winning Soviet and Russian actor. Though primarily a stage actor, known for his work in the Lenkom Theatre, Bronevoy also makes occasional appearances in movies...
.
But maybe, but maybe...
This part is sung by storytellers who have forgotten the details of KrylovIvan Krylov
Ivan Andreyevich Krylov is Russia's best known fabulist. While many of his earlier fables were loosely based on Aesop and Jean de La Fontaine, later fables were original work, often satirizing the incompetent bureaucracy that was stifling social progress in his time.-Life:Ivan Krylov was born in...
's fable The Crow and the Fox, and who are trying to remember it on the fly.
Thus, instead of the crow from Krylov's story, a dog appears, and then a cow, and even a Hippopotamus! The original fox is also replaced by an ostrich and then by a street cleaner.
At the end of the entirely distorted fable, a distorted moral is given: Don't stand and don't jump, don't sing and don't dance where the is construction in progress or hanging heavy load. (This is a pun on the two common Russian danger signs - "Don't stand under heavy load" and "Beware! Construction works in progress!").
Lyrics for the third part were composed by Eduard Uspensky.
Censorship
The Soviet censorship wanted to decline the film because they saw it as "ideological nonsense". Xeniya Marinina and Eldar RyazanovEldar Ryazanov
Eldar Aleksandrovich Ryazanov is a Soviet/Russian film director whose comedies, satirizing the daily life of the country, are very famous throughout the former Soviet Union....
saved it by showing "The Crow" in one of the releases of their "Kinopanorama" in contrary to the Soviet censors.
Interesting facts
- Creation of the film required about 800 kg of soviet plasticine. Because of a withered colors the plasticine was dye-colored.
- The music in the third part of the film was intended to sound in the ordinary tempo, but its total length appeared to be longer than the animation created (8 minutes instead of 5). While Tatarskiy was in doubt the voices arrived. Then the genius decision came when Tatarskiy remembered how the gramophone-recorded voice of LeninVladimir LeninVladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
was restored by varying speed of phonation. He griped the recording to the necessary length (5 min) and the song acquired its recognisable sounding.
External links
- Plasticine Crow at Animator.ruAnimator.ruAnimator.ru is a Russian website chronicling the films, people and studios of the animation industry in Russia, the former Soviet Union and the CIS. It also includes a forum, a news block, a photo-gallery and an animators labour exchange...
- Translation into English of the song from the third part