Karel Zeman
{{for|the Italian football coach|Karel Zeman (football manager)}}
{{Short description| Czech Filmmaker}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Karel Zeman
| image = Karel Zeman (Czech filmmaker).jpg
| image_size = 250px
| alt = Karel Zeman
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1910|11|3|df=y}}
| birth_place = Ostroměř, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (present-day Czech Republic)
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1989|4|5|1910|11|3|df=y}}
| death_place = Gottwaldov, Czechoslovakia
| restingplace =
| restingplacecoordinates =
| other_names =
| occupation = Film director, animator
| years_active =
| spouse =
| partner =
| children = Ludmila Zeman{{cite web|url=http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/read-up-on-it/015020-6061-e.html |title=Archived - Ludmila Zeman |publisher=Library and Archives Canada|date=2002-09-25|access-date=2013-02-07}}
| parents =
| website =
| awards = {{ubl|1970 National Artist|1980 Order of the Republic{{cite news|title=Havlin presents award, Husak letter to artist|url=http://iw.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive?p_action=doc&p_theme=fbisdoc&p_topdoc=1&p_docnum=1&p_sort=YMD_date:D&p_product=FBISX&p_docid=1244772906807590&p_text_direct-0=document_id=%28%201244772906807590%20%29&p_nbid=R5CD53IMMTM3MTMwODE4NS43NDE3Mjc6MToxMDoxMzAuNzEuMC4w|access-date=15 June 2013|newspaper=Daily Report: Eastern Europe|date=4 November 1980|agency=Foreign Broadcast Information Service|page=D6}}{{Dead link|date=February 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}}}
}}
Karel Zeman (3 November 1910 – 5 April 1989) was a Czech film director, artist, production designer and animator, best known for directing fantasy films combining live-action footage with animation.{{cite book|last=Hames|first=Peter|title=Czech and Slovak Cinema: Theme and Tradition|year=2009|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|location=Edinburgh|page=188}} Because of his creative use of special effects and animation in his films, he has often been called the "Czech Méliès".{{cite web|last=Wellner-Pospisil|first=Michael|title=Le Méliès tchèque|url=http://www.festival-larochelle.org/festival-2002/karel-zeman|publisher=Festival International du Film de la Rochelle|access-date=15 June 2013|language=fr|year=2002|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208063617/http://www.festival-larochelle.org/festival-2002/karel-zeman|archive-date=8 December 2015|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|title=Hommages et rétrospectives 2010: Karel Zeman|url=http://www.premiersplans.org/festival/2010/en/retrospectives-zeman.php|publisher=Angers European First Film Festival|access-date=15 June 2013|year=2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208071340/http://www.premiersplans.org/festival/2010/en/retrospectives-zeman.php|archive-date=8 December 2015|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|title=Journée des enfants: Projection du film Sindbad de Karel Zeman|url=http://www.cinema-tout-ecran.ch/2002/prog/enfants.html|publisher=Cinéma Tout Écran|access-date=15 June 2013|language=fr|year=2002|archive-date=3 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131103225104/http://www.cinema-tout-ecran.ch/2002/prog/enfants.html|url-status=dead}}
Life
Zeman was born on 3 November 1910 in Ostroměř (near Nová Paka) in what was then Austria-Hungary.{{cite journal|first=Markéta|last=Nováková|journal=Ahoy: Newsletter of the Czech Center New York|date=March–April 2001|title=The Fabulous World of Karel Zeman|volume=6|issue=2}} Published online: {{cite web|title=The Fabulous World of Karel Zeman|url=http://www.j-verne.de/verne_zeman_engl.html|work=Jules Verne: Andreas Fehrmann's Collection|access-date=2 September 2012}} At his parents' insistence, he studied business at high school in Kolín.{{cite web|title=Biography: Karel Zeman|url=http://www.muzeumkarlazemana.cz/en/biography/biography|publisher=Muzeum Karla Zemana|access-date=1 September 2013|year=2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305033947/http://www.muzeumkarlazemana.cz/en/biography/biography|archive-date=5 March 2016|url-status=dead}} In the 1920s, he studied at a French advertising school, and worked at an advertising studio in Marseilles until 1936.{{cite web|last=Richter|first=Václav|title=Karel Zeman: le centenaire du magicien du cinéma tchèque|url=http://www.radio.cz/fr/rubrique/faits/karel-zeman-le-centenaire-du-magicien-du-cinema-tcheque|publisher=Radio Prague|access-date=15 June 2013|language=fr|date=20 May 2010}} It was in France that he first worked with animation, filming an ad for soap. He then returned to his home country (by now the First Czechoslovak Republic, known as Czechoslovakia), after visiting Egypt, Yugoslavia, and Greece. Back in Czechoslovakia, Zeman advertised for Czech firms like Baťa and Tatra. In 1939 he attempted to make an extended stay in Casablanca, but was barred by the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia established by Nazi Germany; unable to get the necessary papers in time, Zeman was required to remain in his home country during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.
During the war he worked as a head of advertisement at Dům služeb in Brno. Film director Elmar Klos came to Brno to film a newsreel about window-dressing competition, which Zeman won. Klos offered Zeman a job at Zlín's animation studio. After some consideration (his wife and children were already established in Brno), Zeman accepted the job in 1943. At the studio, Zeman worked as an assistant to the pioneering animator Hermína Týrlová, and in 1945 he became the director of the stop-motion animation production group.Hames, p. 196 The same year, in collaboration with Bořivoj Zeman, he made his first short film, Vánoční sen ("A Christmas Dream"). The short, which combined animated puppets with live-action footage, marked the beginning of Zeman's experiments with new techniques and genres.{{cite book|last=Sadoul|first=Georges|title=Dictionary of Film Makers|year=1972|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=0520018648|page=286|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PvsZikRu-hAC&pg=PA286|author-link=Georges Sadoul|access-date=1 September 2013}}
Zeman then went on to solo work, including a series of satirical cartoon shorts starring a puppet called Mr. Prokouk; the series was a wide success and the character became a Czech favorite. A bet Zeman accepted, challenging him to discover a method of working with glass in animation, led to the unusual short Inspirace ("Inspiration," 1948), which tells a wordless, poetic love story using animated glass figurines. Zeman then went on to the half-hour film Král Lávra (1950), based on the satirical poem by Karel Havlíček Borovský; the film won a National Award. In 1952, Zeman completed his first feature film, Poklad ptačího ostrova ("The Treasure of Bird Island," 1952). It was based on a Persian fairy tale and took its visual inspiration from Persian paintings, combining multiple animation techniques in two- and three-dimensional space.
File:Fabworldofjulesverne.jpg]]
It was in 1955, however, that Zeman began the work for which he is best known: six feature films designed artistically to combine live-action and animation techniques. These were:
- Cesta do pravěku (1955), inspired by Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth and the paintings of Zdeněk Burian. In 1966 a partly re-filmed US version was released as Journey to the Beginning of Time.
- Vynález zkázy (1958), based on Verne's Facing the Flag, and filmed to emulate the original illustrations for Verne's novels
- Baron Prášil (1961), celebrating the legendary Baron Munchausen and the engravings of Gustave Doré
- Bláznova kronika (1964), a satire of the Thirty Years' War, suggested by the drawings of Matthäus Merian{{cite journal|last=Polt|first=Harriet|title=The Czechoslovak Animated Film|journal=Film Quarterly|date=Spring 1964|volume=17|issue=3|pages=38|jstor=1210908|doi=10.2307/1210908}}
- Ukradená vzducholoď (1966), inspired by the Verne novels Two Years' Vacation and The Mysterious Island, the Art Nouveau style, and the 1891 Prague Centennial Exhibition{{cite web|url=http://www.muzeumkarlazemana.cz/en/film-club-of-karel-zeman/ukradena-vzducholod-the-stolen-airship|title=The stolen airship|publisher=Karel Zeman Muzeum|access-date=20 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170702084301/http://www.muzeumkarlazemana.cz/en/film-club-of-karel-zeman/ukradena-vzducholod-the-stolen-airship|archive-date=2 July 2017|url-status=dead}}
- Na kometě (1970), an anti-war fantasy based on Verne's Hector Servadac
He was a member of the jury at the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival in 1961{{cite web|url=http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1961 |title=2nd Moscow International Film Festival (1961) |access-date=2012-11-04 |publisher=Moscow International Film Festival |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116210653/http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1961 |archive-date=2013-01-16 }} and at the 7th Moscow International Film Festival in 1971.{{cite web|url=http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1971 |title=7th Moscow International Film Festival (1971) |access-date=2012-12-22 |publisher=Moscow International Film Festival |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140403094201/http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1971 |archive-date=2014-04-03 }} The Czechoslovakian government awarded him the title of National Artist in 1970.{{cite news|title=Karel Zeman: Animated fantasy in the Czech cinema|newspaper=The Times|date=10 April 1989|page=16}}
After his live-action films, Zeman experimented with more classical forms of animation, beginning with seven shorts about Sinbad the Sailor which were then expanded into the feature film Pohádky tisíce a jedné noci (1974).{{cite web|title=A Thousand and One Nights (1974) - Connections|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072004/trivia?tab=mc&ref_=tt_trv_cnn|publisher=IMDb|access-date=16 June 2013}} His final films were Čarodějův učeň (1977), from the novel The Satanic Mill by Otfried Preußler, and Pohádka o Honzíkovi a Mařence (1980). On 3 November 1980, in celebration of Zeman's seventieth birthday, President Gustáv Husák awarded him the Order of the Republic.
Zeman died in Gottwaldov (present-day Zlín) on 5 April 1989, a few months before the Velvet Revolution.
Legacy
Zeman's works were influential to the Czech animator Jan Švankmajer,{{cite book|last1=Harper|first1=Graeme|last2=Stone|first2=Rob|title=The unsilvered screen: surrealism on film|year=2007|publisher=Wallflower Press|location=London|page=61|isbn=9781904764861|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wmM0INDGezgC&pg=PA61}} as well as to the filmmaker Terry Gilliam,{{cite book|last=Zipes|first=Jack|title=The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films|year=2011|publisher=Routledge|location=New York|page=43|isbn=9780203927496|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UKNaTwDWD_kC&pg=PA43}} who said of Zeman: "He did what I'm still trying to do, which is to try and combine live action with animation. His Doré-esque backgrounds were wonderful."{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8eDE0hce0kEC&pg=PA132|title=Terry Gilliam: Interviews|last=Gilliam|first=Terry|publisher=Jackson University Press|year=2004|isbn=9781578066247|location=Mississippi|pages=132–3}} The filmmaker Tim Burton described Zeman's creative process as "extremely inspirational" to his own work, and identified Zeman and the animator Ray Harryhausen as his influences "in terms of doing stop motion and a more handmade quality … Karel Zeman did that amazingly."{{cite news|last=Willoughby|first=Ian|title=Karel Zeman's work inspirational, says director Tim Burton on eve of Prague art show|url=http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/karel-zemans-work-inspirational-says-director-tim-burton-on-eve-of-prague-art-show|access-date=6 April 2014|newspaper=Radio Prague|date=27 March 2014}} Harryhausen himself also spoke in interviews of his admiration for Zeman,{{cite news|last=O'Neill|first=Phelim|title=Ray Harryhausen: the father of fantasy film-making|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/nov/01/ray-harryhausen-father-fantasy-film|access-date=2 September 2013|newspaper=The Guardian|date=1 November 2012}} and the films of the director Wes Anderson have included homages to Zeman's works.{{cite web|title=Focus: Karel Zeman|url=http://www.barbican.org.uk/animate/what%27s-on/focus-karen-zeman|work=Animate the World|publisher=Barbican Centre|access-date=6 April 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304052100/http://www.barbican.org.uk/animate/what's-on/focus-karen-zeman|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=dead}}
The film historian Georges Sadoul identified Zeman as having "widened the horizons of the eighth art, animation," adding:
{{bq|He is justly considered Méliès's successor. He undoubtedly brings the old master to mind, not only because he is an artisan impassioned by art, creating his "innocent inventions" with infinite patience rather than with large budgets, but also because of his ingenuous and always ingenious fantasies. Less intellectual than Trnka, but nonetheless his equal, he has great zest and a marvelous sense of baroque oddities and poetic gags.}}
On the occasion of an animation exhibition in 2010, curators at the Barbican Centre said of Zeman: "although his influence outweighs his global fame, he is unarguably one of the greatest animators of all time."
File:Karel Zeman museum 2019 - 2.jpg
In 2012 a museum dedicated to Zeman and his work, the Muzeum Karla Zemana, opened near the Charles Bridge in Prague.{{cite web|last=Velinger|first=Jan|title=Visionary filmmaker Karel Zeman|url=http://www.radio.cz/en/section/special/the-work-of-visionary-filmmaker-karel-zeman-and-his-daughter-ludmila-acclaimed-childrens-book-author-illustrator|publisher=Radio Prague|access-date=15 June 2013|date=26 December 2012}}
Filmography
=Feature films=
class="wikitable sortable"
!Year | Original Czech title | Standard English title | US release title |
1952 | Poklad ptačího ostrova | The Treasure of Bird Island | N/A |
1955 | Cesta do pravěku | Journey to Prehistory | Journey to the Beginning of Time |
1958 | Vynález zkázy | Invention for Destruction | The Fabulous World of Jules Verne |
1962 | Baron Prášil | Baron Munchausen | The Fabulous Baron Munchausen |
1964 | Bláznova kronika | A Jester's Tale | War of the Fools{{cite book|title=War of the fools (Film, 1964)|publisher=WorldCat|oclc=43996060}} |
1967 | Ukradená vzducholoď | The Stolen Airship | N/A |
1970 | Na kometě | On the Comet | On the Comet |
1974 | Pohádky tisíce a jedné noci | Tales of 1,001 Nights | Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor |
1977 | Čarodějův učeň | Krabat — The Sorcerer's Apprentice | N/A |
1980 | Pohádka o Honzíkovi a Mařence | The Tale of John and Mary | N/A |
=Short films=
class="wikitable sortable"
!Year | Original Czech title | English title | Notes |
1945 | Vánoční sen | The Christmas Dream | Released in the US as A Christmas Dream |
1946 | Křeček | The Hamster | |
1946 | Podkova pro štěstí | Horseshoe for Luck | The first Mr. Prokouk film{{cite web|title=Pan Prokouk: Podkova pro štěstí|url=http://www.csfd.cz/film/10119-pan-prokouk-podkova-pro-stesti/|work=Česko-Slovenská filmová databáze|access-date=16 June 2013}} |
1947 | Pan Prokouk ouřaduje | Mr. Prokouk, Bureaucrat | |
1947 | Brigády | Voluntary work | The third Mr. Prokouk film |
1947 | Pan Prokouk v pokušení | Mr. Prokouk in Temptation | |
1948 | Pan Prokouk filmuje | Mr. Prokouk Filming | |
1948 | Inspirace | Inspiration | |
1949 | Pan Prokouk vynálezcem | Mr. Prokouk, Inventor | |
1950 | Král Lávra | King Lávra | |
1955 | Pan Prokouk, Přítel zvířátek | Mr. Prokouk, Friend of the Animals | |
1958 | Pan Prokouk detektivem | Mr. Prokouk, Detective | |
1959 | Pan Prokouk akrobatem | Mr. Prokouk, Acrobat | |
1971 | Dobrodružství námořníka Sindibáda | Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor | |
1972 | Druhá cesta námořníka Sindibáda | The Second Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor | |
1973 | V zemi obrů. Třetí cesta námořníka Sindibáda | In the Land of Giants (the third voyage) | |
1973 | Magnetová hora. Čtvrtá cesta námořníka Sindibáda | The Magnet Mountain (the fourth voyage) | |
1973 | Létající koberec. Pátá cesta námořníka Sindibáda | The Flying Carpet (the fifth voyage) | |
1974 | Mořský sultán. Šestá cesta námořníka Sindibáda | The Sultan of the Sea (the sixth voyage) | |
1974 | Zkrocený démon. Sedmá cesta námořníka Sindibáda | Taming the Demon (the seventh voyage) |
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{Sister project links|s=no|wikt=no|n=no|v=no|b=no}}
- {{IMDb name|id=0954724|name=Karel Zeman}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20160513160833/http://www.film.org.pl/prace/karel_zeman.html Karel Zeman filmography] {{in lang|pl}}
- [http://kultura.sme.sk/c/5019919/karel-zeman-genius-animovaneho-filmu.html Karel Zeman: Genius of Animated Film] at SME.sk {{in lang|sk}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20070206000611/http://darkstrider.net/gallery2a.html Gallery of Czech stop-action animation] including clips from The Fabulous World of Karel Zeman.
- [http://moviemorlocks.com/2007/03/24/a-strange-introduction-to-karel-zeman-the-czech-visionary/ A Strange Introduction to Karel Zeman: The Czech Visionary (TCM Movie Morlocks)]
- [https://karelzemanmuseum.org/ Website of the Karel Zeman Museum]
{{Karel Zeman}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zeman, Karel}}
Category:People from Jičín District
Category:People from the Kingdom of Bohemia
Category:Stop motion animators
Category:Czechoslovak film directors
Category:Czech animated film directors