Cinematic Poetry: A study of Yuri Norstein`s `Tale of Tales`. Ana

Cinematic Poetry: A study of Yuri Norstein’s ‘Tale of Tales’.
Ana Maria Caro Sabogal1
October 2012
1
Beneficiaria COLFUTURO 2011
Introduction
Looking back on my childhood, I remember that I loved cartoons American and Japanese
cartoons, but I’m sure that if I’d grown up watching films made by animators like Yuri Norstein,
my way of seeing animation, arts and cinema would be completely different. My mother was the
first person to took me to the cinema. We watched a Steven Spielberg E.T . I was four years old
and it is hard to remember the film but she said I did not cry but I was hypnotised for the space
creature and the magic of this film. My father introduced me to animation. We would watch all of
the Disney films, like The Lion king or 101 Dalmatians make me develop a taste to draw animals
and become interested in movement and character design. On television I enjoyed watching
Tom and Jerry from the Hanna/Barbera studio, with their comic violence and never­ending
rivalry between cats and mouse. I enjoyed the music and the sounds and they made me realise
that animation could be fun. My father with his Beta Machine, technologic advance in the 80’s
used to record a lot of episodes of this series and my brother we played it over and over again.
Now, when I look at these animations again I am interested very interested how dark sometimes
were, but when I was a kid being mean was equal to fun. I feel very thankful to him for making
me watch all of these cartoons over and over again, helping me to develop a real passion for
animation.
I define animation as a process of bringing to life still frames in a consecutive time. For me this
process is like an act of magic; the frames move in time creating a new world completely
different to that of live action. When animation is non­narrative, it is considered to be abstract or
experimental. But for me the combination of these images, along with the music and sound still
create an emotional narrative for the audience. We automatically make relationships between
the images that we see and our own personal memories and experiences – and along with the
rhythm, this helps to make a very particular narrative and emotional experience. For me, it is like
a poem, in which the audience is totally involved, interpreting the film – feeling and thinking
hopefully the way the animator intended.
I cannot deny that Walt Disney had a huge impact on my decision to become an animator
(hopefully for the rest of my life). But certainly when I watched Tale of tales by Yuri Norstein I was
sure that I wanted to be a storyteller, a poet and to create like he did. I have watched Tales of
Tales with my tutors during my second year at University. That time, I was trying to chose
between cinema and illustration. When I saw this film I realised I wanted to be an animator, I fall
in love with the technique, with the delicate visuals and the creativity and sweetness of each
character.
Tale of Tales is a visual poem. The non­ conventional narrative and the inherent poetry in it,
reaches an emotional depth that made me wonder about the close relationship between poetry
and animation ­ and how this union affects the reader and the audience. This dissertation is
about Norstein and his point of view of poetry and animation, understanding his opinions through
an interview that I did with him. During this interview I learned more about his perspective of
poetry in his animation, Tale of Tales.
Poetry expresses feelings and ideas using style and rhythm. Animation can go anywhere and
achieve anything with design and timing. Our minds can go everywhere ­ exploring colours,
images, characters – all of which have an emotional quality – that affects the person whose
mind they have entered. The animator shapes those colours, images, characters etc into a form
that expresses something, that works for them. In this way, poetry and animation have very
many similarities. Both of them have no boundaries when it comes to imagery.
There is also the similarity of rhythm and timing. In animation you need to calculate each frame,
you need to think not only about the action, but about what the character’s are thinking and how
they are acting. For me there is no rule that defines exactly how many frames I should use, but
there is a style, there are pauses, there are rhythms. Similarly, poetry is rhythm; when the poet
chooses to use his words and enriches them with rhythm and movement. Every change of
rhythm has to be done for a reason – whether it is to build up excitement, create a slow
meditation or a staccato, juddering effect on the reader or viewer. So, therefore, timing is
absolutely key to both animation and poetry.
As Norstein has said in my interview : “Animation is very economical and has strong images, like
poetry. They both have a strong sense of rhythm. A poem is not a poem if it doesn’t have
rhythm... Even a prose poem must have its rhythm. For me animation is cinematic poetry. The
connection between sound, music and animation and the extent of their relationship gives
emotional depth.”2
Or course there are many examples of short animation films that have been based on poems –
poetry is for me a perfect inspiration to make the animation fly­ Winter Days directed by
Kihachiro Kawamoto. Based on one of the Renku (collaborative linked poems) from 1684 from
the Japanese poet Basho. It was a collaborative creation created independently by 35 different
animators for each of the 36 stanzas. Norstein was part of this project as an special guest
opening this beautiful piece. Chikusai is running around listening carefully the trees, meets
Bashō. He is amazed, but it's fun to see that Basho is collecting bugs as a layer is rotated like
yours. He gives his own hat to Basho (which has a huge hole in the top) and leaves. Suddenly
the wind picks up and blows the hat away. Chikusai is chasing the hat and manages to catch it,
but then shrugged lets go and lets you fly wherever the wind will take. Meanwhile, Basho moves
slowly and laboriously against the wind, one hand in the hat to avoid it to fly away again. Just in
words sounds very playful and perfect for animation. Norstein made this opening a very creative
and peaceful animation. Every leaf is animated with a purpose and we definitely can feel the
atmosphere of the place. The characters move around of the space almost like a dance
between the leafs, characters and space. Just like a poem being tell with rhythm and joy. It
achieves his particular effect on the audience.
All Norstein’s works interlaced with this particularly style, that focus in make this worlds part of
2
Interview with Yuri Norstein, June 2012, London­Moscow.
our minds , leading us to different feelings and emotions. Here the relationship between two arts
that can condensed and melt each other. Tale of Tales represents for me this collaboration and
makes me see this film like a poem in movement.
CHAPTER 1.
Yuri Norstein
Yuri Norstein is widely regarded as one of the most innovative animators of all time, a legendary
Russian Animator born in 1941. his family were evacuated during second world war and taken to
Moscow in 1943. Having studied at art school, Norstein did a two­year course attached to the
state animation studio, Soyuzmultfilm, where he got a full time work in 1961. Norstein had little
interest in the type of cartoons being produced there, but he discovered the films and writings of
Sergei Eisenstein, which had a profound influence on him and inspired his own personal
ambitions. At the studio, he met his wife and creative partner, Francesca Yarbusova, both
collaborated on many of his films.
Norstein worked as an animation artist in around 50 films before directing his first film in 1967,
the little seen 25th, the First Day, showing his passion for the avant ­garde painting and
discovering how animation is a plastic time.
Tale of Tales
Yuri Norstein made Tale of Tales (1979) and produced for the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow. It
has received the title of greatest animated film of all times in different festivals for the magic and
the atmosphere that this film could transmit to different kind of audience. Yuri Norstein, an
animator of poetry with cel characters, detailed backgrounds, sound and music. The animated
films of this artist create such an expressive and deep environment that it makes the storytelling
almost transparent ­ the emotions of the film connect immediately to the viewer. It is like reading
a poem, or watching a poem on the screen.
Technically it is executed using multi­layered, and lit cut out animation. The character design is
“simple”. It is the necessary parts of the body from the different angles. A cut out puppet with a
beautiful face without make it over detailed. A basic design that for some people looks “not as
amazing” as Disney. I heard a couple of times friends saying that Norstein’s animations are
boring or ugly. But the way it is full of a real culture and originality full of precise details from an
artist that cares to express all of this memories. Norsteins said “you make the texture, you
smear it with some water ­colour and you scratch over the celluloid and that’s all” 3 These
characters can transmit through their eyes nostalgia, honestly and a certain cuteness with
subtle movements can express all the emotions. Animation is not about moving everything at the
same time, it is about timing about holding ...and for me holdings are silences. The quiet
moments where the image puts you in a state of mind of understanding the situations and the
characters, a subtle move makes the story believable and hearted. The little grey Wolf in Tale
of tales it is an example of little movements and expressionist eyes, with an absolute patience
moves around very carefully. Making us have a connection and feelings for him or with him. Not
only the little simple details give him some life but I think the simplicity let us focus in what is
really important for the story. Sometimes when films has less money to be produce, let the
director can focus and express all the need it without the fuss. Without forgetting the important
details of the visuals and make the audience fall in love for the scenery.
The story starts with this lullaby, popular in Russia.
Baby baby rock­a­bye
3
From an unpublished manuscript by Yuri Norstein distilling his lectures on animation. Translated by
Natasha Synessios.
On the edge you mustn’t lie
Or the little grey wolf will come
And will nip you on the tum
Tug you off into the wood
Underneath the willow­root4
And then finishes with the same song. Like a circular story, an eternal memory. Like a poem that
you can read lots of times. Despite the fact I come from another country, Colombia. Its hard to
have a direct connexion with this film, not being able to have a real contact or growing up in
Russia. The constant reference to elements of popular culture, images and everyday life.
Important moments of the Second World War, condition a feeling rather than specific, cryptic.
Every time that I see the film, I try to understand and sometimes to decode symbols, but its a
piece so full of emotions that if I try to look for so many specific reason and looking for the
explanation and sense. Then the film feels heavy and some suffocation and forgetting about the
purpose of the film. Which I think Norstein was looking for some connection with the images and
all of the personal memories and experiences that all of us we have. No matter where we are.
We always will find some similarities of our past. And in the end I am able to relate my own
experience with a film like Tale of Tales that became universal. No matter where the viewer is
from.
This film requires us to speculate, giving us different paths to choose what to feel or how to
relate to with him. Metaphors and symbols like this little grey wolf who is based in a story for
children and then transfer to this reality in the film. Maybe is about the connection between
4
Translation by Gaby and Vitaly. Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales. An Animator’s Journey. Clare Kitson p.12
reality and magic is broken. A metaphor of how exists nostalgia for the magic childhood in sad
Russia back on the days. When the war were separating families. And the children were
between games and the cruel reality where parents were leaving for war. Abandon them and
forcing them to face reality and leave behind all of that fantasy land. The little grey wolf for me,
represent in Tale of Tales this personal stories, this feelings of looking back to the past and trying
to connect with magic.
Norstein used the elements of the song of the beginning like a narrative or different elements in
the film. The little grey wolf looks very sweet and not evil. But the song express a way to scared
the kids to make them go to bed if not something bad is going to happen. Represents for me the
fear that we create inside for stories that makes be a “good kids” but in the film maybe represent
the fear of the wolf of being forgotten. The memories of the childhood being forgotten. In the end
the wolf is not that bad character. He look after of the little baby very nervous but sweet in the
end.
The film has so many poetic elements. The animation moves with the music saying with very
delicate ways about personal stories. It is a nostalgia for the past and I see it like a celebration of
the past and things that are not be forgotten because they make us who we are.
For example another symbol or link in this film that Norstein gives away to be interpreted is
when the little grey Wolf observes the baby and next to it in the table is an empty piece of paper
that glows...One of the main characters is a poet, and he wanders around in different scenes,
This paper is glowing waiting for be used. My personal interpretation is this piece of paper is
suggesting and waiting for a personal story that should be written there. Expecting for the future
to happen.
Norstein creates a world where everything converges, every idea is in our minds and the poems
and the songs are making a united world. Every image make sense. Every leaf flying
transporting us to different spaces giving continuity to all the moments. Music, animation, poem
and sounds, are having a dialogue and listen to each other to express a need to make all of
different moments just a big world of memories, a poem of nostalgia for the past.
Yuri Norstein went through a very long process to develop the script and make his film. It is about
memory. But it was a very complicated process and difficulties to complete the ideal script from
the studio. He decided to collaborate writing the film with Lyudmila Petrushevskaya. Whereas
Yuri Norstein had clear that the idea or the story was so much better coming from the
storyboard. However with the script the poetry can be lost. Leaving out the possibility of being
consider a narrative film. I think Poetry or abstract images lead us all the time. The artist, poet or
filmmaking is all the time trying to lead us from one images to the other or emotion to the other
ones. Leaving sometimes the azar of picking of the audience what to feel but indeed narration,
and that starts when the audience decide where to start.
After a long process, a unique animation film emerge but this animation was not like the other
animation. Full of strong memories of the Soviet Union and all the suffered on the eastern front
during World War II. A film where the narrative is not in a chronological order. Where variety of
characters and places make it quite complicated to be called a film of “animation for children”.
But like I mentioned before I think if I had the opportunity to watch a film like that when I was a
child probably I would be way different. Why? I think growing up watching this makes your
sensibility for the arts better but specially to learn to feel emotions in the film, making people
analyze properly. I like films when I can think and understand what just happen." I don't want to
have everything cut and paste in my brain like a piece of cake. Although children do respond to
Tales of tales maybe not like adults, Yuri Norstein says: “ It seems to me that if a child has
imagination, and if he gets involved in the action, then he’s able to live the film in his own way.
He’ll tell the story in his own way, and maybe it won’t be at all what the film’s really about. All that
matters is that he experiences it. And that’s the most important thing for any viewer, adult or
child, watching a film. And that doesn’t only apply to film it also applies to paintings, poetry.”5
Animation is a big field that can be used to talk about anything for children or for adults.
Nevertheless it is a media where a poem, a story, a song, a paint can be interpreted.
Norstein opened the doors about what is animation for me. Particularly in Tales of tales. A visual
poem to read and interpret in different ways, put all of this in little theaters and scenarios, going
further for an illustration in a book, allowing the movement go everywhere. Russian places,
woods or gardens, where the passing time is represented by colors and light. I'm not from
Russia or even Europe, coming from a very different country as Colombia, we did not get
5
Interview with Yuri Norstein, June 2012, London­Moscow.
involved in the history of wars like Europe and USA or the simple fact that we don't have
seasons can change completely our day life. When I watched this film even though it was so
many full of details from another country far away. I separated all of that “ historical information”
and I just followed scene by scene. I related so many things with my personal life. Because this
is the meaning of this film: memories. And it did work in my brain putting to me in a reality near to
the nostalgia and the memories of the world we touch. I just related with personal stories. In the
end, all of us are made of memories and similar human experiences.
The Changing Rhythm of ‘Tale of Tales’.
The pace and the rhythm of Tale of tales, based in cycles in such way that this repetition invokes
affection and nostalgia. The film starts and finish with the same image of the baby drinking milk
from the breast of his mother. He is staring at the little wolf almost falling asleep. Suggesting a
whole sequence of opening dreams and memories. As well, the repetition of some elements, like
the tree with the falling leaves, or the table set and the wind moving the tablecloth, the dancing of
the couples and the signs of war. All of these repeated images are in different moments of the
film with different music and quick pace, transmitting every time something different like
nostalgia or sadness.
Some of the animated actions are very simple and subtle, but this doesn’t mean less impact of
emotions. The simplicity, makes the image empty and the audience feels anxiety and a little bit of
loneliness or complete calm. The rhythm of the film is very important to make this sensations
become part of the story and all of this gloomy moments needs the time to be understand and
relate with the viewer. For example in the end of the film when the poet is leaving, he walks slow.
He hesitates but then the camera moves on with him and he see him disappear in the horizon.
Without the pulse and the tempo of these images, camera movement and timing of the edit the
film became flat and simple. But this make it very emotional, giving us enough time to think and
let our minds interpret the film in different ways.
The protagonist. The wolf who can jump to the different memories. Cutting to different moments
of time. Bringing us to different places probably based in the memories, that makes us relate
with the feeling of sad and curious for this uninhabited places. The beginning is lead for the
Lullaby. That makes us feel more visually romantic and nostalgic. Feeling that the animation and
the pace of the film is very slow and nothing really happens apart from very subtle movement in
the animation. Makes the images more contemplative.
Every cut and every camera movement is there for a specific reason. The cutting of the film
varies between very slow and when needs to be emotionally fast, goes violent. For example the
editing of the moment when the little wolf runs away with the baby. The cutting is fast and giving
us a little bit of despair. Like flash moments just allowing us to see different glimpses of where
the little grey wolf is running. When the situations goes contemplative and the long shots stay
with us and the calm is there again.
The camera movement like zooms can help us to go deeply into the feelings of the characters.
As I said before, the animation could be minimalistic but a blinking could be essential for
understand or feel the soul of the character. In the scene when the couple is sitting on the bench.
And the drunk man broke his bottle of vodka. It is a quick camera zoom in in the face of the
woman. (Her eyes…not fully animated, but full of expression of sadness). We jump inside her
mind and we know exactly what she is thinking, and how she hold her comments inside. Not
being allow to say anything.
The sound and the music makes a big effect in Tale of Tales. For animation building sound and
music is completely a blank paper. Everything needs to be done and help the animation be a
believable world. Because the connection of all of this elements is going to gives us the
emotional depth. Norstein calculate every sound and every score for the film to make them
match and dance in the time like the memories. As well because is a film full of memories and
changing spaces it is very important to manage the silence “A pause, as in music, has profound
meaning. But the pause is always inhabited by the power of the previous mood, action, energies.
Sounds are, for me, the combining of natural sounds and abstract, musical sounds and to this
we must add the sound of the word.”6 Norstein refers to this pauses part of the story telling but
specially leading us and see the image. The sound for a film like Tale of Tales full of so many
details make us redirect our eyes to see little things. Sometimes the sound is very minimalistic
like the voice of the Little Grey Wolf, some of the words are clear like a human voice but the
sounds that we understand of the little creature without having specific words makes us feel
related and fall for it. For example when He sings to the little baby or is being desperate running
and looking after him. We understand how is feeling through his language.
The film goes down and calm again where is a silence or sad place. It could makes feel like
dreamy sequences. “visual breaks” or silence. Still moments where the rhythm of the editing
achieves the right feeling and atmosphere. The film finished going back to the beginning where
the baby is with the mom. And the lullaby joins in.
The power of the music is so important in his film. The rhythm of the film is based in the
6
Interview with Yuri Norstein, June 2012, London­Moscow.
melancholic music but as well in the magic moments when we change locations. Images very
different to each other. Talking about different memories. Colours and feelings are in up in down
in emotional level.
For me specifically one of the most dramatic scenes is where the couples are dancing, this for
me became very important moment, represents first the love between them but when the war
starts the man must leave, they vanish from the screen so quick, feeling almost like a violent
and a dramatic lose, leaving just emptiness. The suggestions that what’s going on could be a
little bit confusing but because of the violence of the cut makes us feel a bad taste in the mouth
letting us know that is something depressing is about to happen. We don’t necessary need to
know the story but for some universal reason everyone feels related. Traumatic moments.
Repetition (Leif motif) of some images again and again. Faster and slow. Back and forwards in
the time line. This repetition is like a lament, like in poetry when the poet try to express sadness
saying the same verse over and over again.
Where the couples are dancing and the
husbands are taken to war the music is
called the Last Sunday it was composed
by the Polish composer Jerzy
Petersburski in 1936, or even more
educated and worldly Russians,
nowadays, it is considered as the
“Russian national song". The song was
very successful and appeared in number of films. But in Tales of Tales makes me feel
completely part of this world. Makes me sad of thinking about losing part of my family, a father, a
husband or a brother. The sequences involving the dancers are most certainly an allegory for
Russia's involvement in World War Two. The vanishing male dance partners disappearing in the
distance, highlight the enormous human losses the Soviet Union.“There is always an association
between the reality of the image and the abstraction of the sound. And it has a very strong
effect. And it is because of this that music has extraordinarily strong abstract power. It doesn’t
give us concrete images. Painting and cinema give us concrete images. But music, with its
extraordinary abstract power, holds, in solution within itself, a real picture, in my opinion.”7 I love
every piece of music in the film, always focus and feeling of reality, although this piece of music
Last Sunday made me connect in some magic way and I feel for the different characters that are
related all the time.
The difference between lyrics and poems, is that lyrics needs the music on the top. But both of
them has the amusement of combination of words in harmonic way. Like this music and sound
hold together with the poetic images, making this magic world part of our personal stories,
memories and nostalgia.
CHAPTER 2.
Narrative or Abstract?
I’ve watched Tale of Tales so many times, in different moments and every time the film gives me
a very different feeling. It is a film with emotional depth. And I’m pretty sure that a big percentage
of people have a lot of difficulty understanding Norstein’s work. Why? Well maybe we are an
audience who are accustomed to the media holding our hands all the time, without giving us a
7
Interview with Yuri Norstein, June 2012, London­Moscow.
chance to think for ourselves. This a film with no clear narrative. You can only FEEL it. There is a
poetic nature in this film that achieves a wonderful effect on the mind of the audience. According
to Tan and Frida (Sentiment in Film Viewing) “Emotional responses are even more fundamental
to our interest in and enjoyment of movies or novels than our anticipation of what is going to
happen next and our eventual satisfaction at seeing a story through”8 I think this is true, and I
think that lack of clear narrative, as we recognise it, does not detract from the emotional power of
Tale of Tales; it works on a number of levels, but above all, it works on an emotional level that
has the power to move you.
An animator is creating a story with images. It is like a poet with animated words moving them
around the paper. Sometimes just a little wind or a drop of water opens a whole world of the
imagination. If the sound is not there is another experience, if the sound is higher or lower make
us feel different emotions. Poems drive you in a creative direction when you just have to leave
your mind follow ­The same with animation. You can just follow the lines and the sensations that
lead a journey. I think “Tale of tales” is a narrative and not an abstract film. I think is poetic and
Rhytmical. But sometimes it is put in the box of : a non­ narrative for ones who can not follow it
or consider it boring or too complicated.
The universal narrative structure in the cinematic arts refers to “The idea of 'a story' maybe
understood as a sequence of events, taking place over a particular period of time. These
narrative events are informed by a chain of cause and effects, both subtle and explicit, the
ultimate outcome of which is a specified moment of resolution. Such events may play out in a
8
Yellow Crocodiles and Blue Oranges: Russian Animated Film since World War II, David MacFadyen p. 43
number of ways­in a straightforwards linear progression,as a parallel series of related scenes,
as past events (memories, dreams etc) re­told in the present context or as implied off­screen
occurrences etc." 9 Paul Wells make a point with the story and the order should be follow.
Nevertheless Tale of tales is a film with narrative. Maybe not convencional like we are used to. I
have seen abstract films, based in poetry or a paint. It is about the movement and maybe is not
an specific character, but it is always a narration. I have done fabstract films and when I heard
people saying that’s is “ easier” then I think , Am I doing something wrong? Because I think
abstract requires a lot of planning and a lot of conceptual thinking to make the audience follow
an emotion, So? that is narrative because I'm leading them to the beginning to the end. Although I
don't want to interfere in the emotions all the time. For an animator, the storyboard is the script of
a writer.
Tale of tales is complicated for some people, maybe is the number of characters and the
interaction between them in the film, such as the poet on his journey, the little girl and the bull,
the dancers and the soldiers, and the little grey wolf who is in it several times. The wolf is leading
the film into different spaces like houses, woods, parks or memories of Norstein’s childhood.
Every image or place of the film, it is full of symbols that have nourished a lifetime of sublime
melancholy and wonder and memories of the childhood. The special flavor of this film is the
different rhythms and moods, changing place to place, reality to dreams, lead for music or
characters. It is the synopsis of life. There are many interpretations of this film, but is based on
their own situations of Norstein, left open to share some memories and create desires and
sorrows, we produce the pleasure of remembering. The image has all this fantasy­laden feature
9
Wells, P. (1998), Understanding Animation, Routledge, United Kingdom. p­68
Russian culture, full of magical realism where the characters made in different techniques such
as painting, cut out, collage, come to build an atmosphere totally nostalgic takes us through
different times, making us forget a story focusing on the narrative and poetic image that leads to
the remembrance and feeling himself. Thus becomes the animation that inspires me to develop
and understand the environment and the importance that should be given to those times, the
expression of characters and moments that only with magic can become powerful.
Animation has the potential to be very playful in its use of images – one image can morph into
another, the infinite possibilities of the imagination can be played out on screen. There are no
limits as to what can be created. “So it seems to me that both the cinema in general and
animation, in order to achieve the level of high art, needs not only to show the material world, to
relate to the material world, but to show that mystery that is still unknown to us. It’s unknown
even to the director who’s making the film, because he also cannot immediately open up the
mysterious and the abstract element that is beyond the outside, physical and real matter. That’s
very important.”10 Animation can this unknown mystery but at the same time narrative or
abstract has a purpose and Tale of Tales lead us to different situations and magical places,
with lullabies or melodies related with the time. It was taking us to another worlds. Making us
forget about the order or the rules. It was more important being there. I would say that every mini
stories, apart for driving us for different periods or places.But it seems to be a structure, an
emotional core, It was leading us with emotions about this characters in different places.
Thanks to the lucidity and palpable depth of feeling, making us stay and breath with the film. And
probably every time that I watch the film I will return with a fresh mind to discovered new things
that probably were invisible before in this alluring journey.
Chapter 3
10
Interview with Yuri Norstein, June 2012, London­Moscow.
Definition of Poetry and Animation. Yuri Norstein.
“For me animation is cinematic poetry.” 11 In Tale of tales the animation drive us for memories
and dreams, emerge from the fantasy of the little wolf. We navigate in each reality, like when
reads a poem it has more and more meaning, power and beauty start leaping out at you. This
animation make obvious a feeling of melancholy pattern: departures, death, childhood,
destruction, war, time lapses, burning, nostalgia of the natural cycles of life.
“Norstain loves poetry” “ He also feels that poetry, of all the arts, is the most closely related to
animation ­ to his own animation at least. He often compare the perfect animation script to a
Haiku , and has also likened the economy needed in putting together an animation sequence to
that required in composing a poem, because both media are highly condensed”12 . Poetry is an
imaginative appreciation of the experience expressed through meanings, rhythmic language to
make us evoke emotional responses. The words dance in the space like the frame on the time.
The relationship between this two medias make me think again in the process of animation. For
an animator, drawing the characters or approaching the storyboard is always thinking in the
11
12
Interview with Yuri Norstein, June 2012, London­Moscow.
Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales. An Animator’s Journey. Clare Kitson p.59
actions, in the movement of the character. Its the character run faster and then stops. We play
with the images and then the poet put some words around playing like we do. Looking for the
graceful moments and imaginary worlds to make us has an harmonious thoughts. Animation is
completely created from cero. “It’s exactly this childlike playfulness. Delight in imagination,
fantasy. Yes, animation is the art of transformation. It can be the transformation on the screen
or it can be another way. When a character remains and doesn’t transform on the screen but at
the same in our consciousness he takes on added depth. And there’s no comparison with the
character we saw at the beginning because he can stay the same as far as the way he is
depicted but when he goes through some particular stages, particular dramatic action, the
character is gradually completed by our imagination”13 We can create that imaginary spaces and
put them in visuals. Allowing the audience to follow wherever dot they want. “In general, for me
a film is the harmonious association of all its levels, all its spaces. A part of this harmonious
whole is the sound element of the film, which, it seems to me, gives energy and movement even
to a static image.”14 Music and sound join the image like one element. They can't live without
each other anymore but always choosing the right place to be. Animation could be already noisy
visually but sometimes needs the sound to pop out the reality and feel the depth of the spaces.
The silence in animation, became a dramatic moment in the image while everything has a
subtle movement, delicate rain, and water dropping in the first image of “ Tale of tales” we do not
listen the rain, but we are watching it. And inside our brain we are making an imaginary sound,
but is the music there to lead us through this fantastic world ready to start.
Poetry. When I read a poem allows me to go anywhere, but specially I like that everytime that I
come back could mean something new. I see the poetry a non conventional structure, if we are
comparing with film. I can read different parts of the poems and this ones are going to take me
13
14
Interview with Yuri Norstein, June 2012, London­Moscow.
Interview with Yuri Norstein, June 2012, London­Moscow.
different places “Norstein not only sees close parallels between the two arts, but surely the same
quandary faces the director of Non­narrative “ poetic” animated film and the poet, penning lofty
sentiments couched in not very plain language. “15 At the same time the poet uses such very
clear images. These images live with the poetry with colossal intensity, so that for me these are
bits of real life.
15
Yuri Norstain and Tale of Tales. An Animator’s Journey. Clare Kitson p.59