Oddball Films and guest curator Landon Bates
bring you Fairy Tale Frenzy, a lovely jumble of fairy tales as
interpreted for the screen. This
program, a kaleidoscope of colors and textures, comprised of classic tales, and
some fresh lesser-known ones, is sure to bring out your inner kid. We’ll begin with the wonderfully weird Czech
animation Cecily (1970’s), the story of a girl whose ears, pulled continually
by her grandmother as punishment for bad behavior, stretch to the size of
sails, doubling as wings that will carry her far away from her previously drab
and ordinary life. King Midas and the Golden Touch (1946)
is a puppet-filled parable that warns against the dangers of greed, as the king
abuses his newfound ability to turn anything he touches to gold. A Chairy Tale (1957), a crazy sort
of comic ballet, with a sitar score by Ravi Shankar, involves a boy who may not
sit in a chair until the chair first sits on him. The Owl and the Lemming (1971), a
stop-motion animation with traditional Eskimo chanting music, tells of an owl
who falls prey to flattery, letting his dinner elude him. The Thieving Magpie (1967), an Italian
animation by Emmanuel Luzzati, set to Rossini’s famous overture, shows what
happens when birds revolt against their hunters. And, lastly, we’ll conclude the evening with
three exquisitely elegant silhouette films by Lotte Reiniger: The
Magic Horse, The Frog Prince, and Puss n’ Boots (1953-54). This evening of fairy tale fun is not to be
missed.
Date: Friday,
November 30th, 2012 at 8:00pm
Venue:
Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission:
$10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to programming@oddballfilm.com or (415)
558-8117
“One day you will be old enough to
start reading fairy tales again.”
- C.S. Lewis
Featuring:
Cecily
(Color, 1970’s)
In this surprising Czech animation, the eponymous
Cecily is a little girl with big dreams of becoming a singer. Her grumpy grandmother, however, is less than
encouraging, tugging on Cecily’s ears whenever displeased with her behavior. Such incessant ear-pulling eventually stretches
the little girl’s ears to the size of sails, and little Cecily takes to the
sky, Dumbo-like, to realize her dreams elsewhere. She lands in the jungle, adopted by an
assortment of animals, and starts a band.
King Midas and the Golden Touch (Color, 1946)
In this tale of obsession,
when granted a single wish, the avaricious King Midas chooses the power to turn
whatever he touches to gold. The king’s
initial delight is unbounded as he tries out his new ability at the breakfast
table, touching first the tablecloth and then a short-stack of pancakes, with
dazzling results. But, as ordinary
objects are transfigured into golden ones, so Midas’s ecstasy dissolves into
horror, when he touches the hand of his own daughter, rendering her statuesque. This tale is brought to life with wonderful
puppetry animation.
A Chairy Tale (B&W, 1957)
A young man seeks a place to
sit while reading, a simple enough problem with an equally simple solution: there
is an empty chair conveniently nearby.
Yet, when the man attempts to sit, he finds himself floor-bound; the chair
has eluded him. He tries again, and
again the chair moves. The most basic of
actions turns into an all-out battle of wills, chair and boy tumbling in a
frenzied blur across the floor. Directed
by experimental filmmaker Norman McClaren, with a sitar score by the imminent
Ravi Shankar punctuating the comically exaggerated physical movements, this
Buster Keaton-like ballet won British Film Academy and Venice International
Film Festival awards when it came out in 1957.
The Owl and
the Lemming: an Eskimo Legend (Color, 1971)
A hungry owl, Ookpik, spies a plump, sleeping
lemming, a potential feast for his family.
He captures the lemming, who readily surrenders but then encourages
Ookpik to indulge in a sort of victory dance, praising the owl as the finest
dancer in all the land. The owl proceeds
to get drunk on his vanity, losing himself in his dance and providing his prey
with the perfect opportunity for escape.
This stop motion animation, touching on the dangers of flattery, employs
a beautiful sunset backdrop, whose smooth curves undulate slightly, which, combined
with a serene score of Eskimo chanting, creates a subtly hypnotic
atmosphere.
The Thieving Magpie (Color, 1967)
In this Italian animation, three kings who tire of war
turn to recreational bird hunting, sweeping the skies with barrages of arrows, and
sending countless birds plummeting to their demise. One wily magpie, however, manages to evade
the kings and, in turn, terrorize them with his antics, eventually amassing an
army of bird troops to avenge themselves against the killer kings. Directed by Emmanuelle Luzatti, this film
received an Academy Award nomination.
These three animated adaptations of several of the
most classic fairytales are this program’s main course. Unmatched in their imaginative innovation, Lotte
Reiniger’s use of silhouetted cutouts seems the perfect medium for bringing to
life these whimsical tales. Ornate and
elegant, these three shorts alone are easily worth admission.
Curator’s Biography:
Landon Bates is a UC Berkeley graduate of English
Literature, has worked on several documentary film projects, is the drummer for
the post-punk duo Disappearing People, and is a cinephile whose devotion to
movies knows no bounds.