The magician of early animation: Ladislas Starevich

Saturday, January 31, 2009

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This is a tough one to decide whether he is Lithuanian, Polish or Russian, but I was very happy to find out that the first animated puppet film was made in my native country. Vladislavas Starevičius/Władysław Starewicz/Владислав Старeвич/Ladislas Starevich made the first animation film 'Lucanus Cervus' (1910) using carcasses of dead beetles. If Wikipedia doesn't lie, after emigrating to France he formed a company in the remains of Georges Méliès' old studio. Whether it was Méliès' aura or not, Starevich is hailed as the magician of early animation

This is his 1913 film 'Dragonfly and ant' (Стрекоза и муравей), made after moving to Moscow from Kaunas.



Last year independent production company Era Films (based in Vilnius, Lithuania) made a creative documentary on this magician of early animation 'The Bug Trainer' (ironically, at the time I was writing this post some bug hit Google search and I had to switch to Yahoo for a while). As my previous professor in Vilnius University Skirmantas Valiulis says in the documentary, people used to believe he was training bugs...

Directors: Donatas Ulvydas, Linas Augutis, Marek Skrobecki. Looking forward to see it.

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Lina

1 Response to "The magician of early animation: Ladislas Starevich"

Anonymous said :
February 2, 2009 at 3:11 PM
Starevicz's work has amazed me ever since I came across it, quite by accident, some years ago. The great UBU hosts a couple of his better short films, but The Mascot remains my favourite. He was well ahead of his time, both thematically and technically, and though he's cited as a key influence by some leading modern animators, he still seems relatively unknown to the general public. Thanks for your post!

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