Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales: An Animator's Journey

Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales: An Animator's Journey

Widely acclaimed as the best animated film of all time, Tale of Tales is a poetic amalgam of Yuri Norstein's memories of his past and hopes and fears for the future: his post-war childhood, remnants of the personal tragedies of war, the little wolf character in the lullaby his mother used to sing, the neighbors in his crowded communal flat, the tango played in the park on summer evenings, and the small working-class boy's longing to emerge from the dark central corridor of the kommunalka into a luminous world of art and poetry. In Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales: An Animator's Journey , Clare Kitson examines the passage of these motifs into the film and delves into later influences that also affected its genesis. More than merely a study of one animated film or a biography of its creator, Kitson's investigation encompasses the Soviet culture from which this landmark film emerged and sheds light on creative influences that shaped the work of this acclaimed filmmaker. "Clare Kitson has written an exemplary book . . . The tale she tells sheds light on the origins and makings of the images, on their relation to Norstein's life and to Russian culture, to other works of art (poems and paintings) and to the troubled culture of censorship. She illuminates, and deepens the mystery, leaving the power of the images intact and strengthened, which is what good criticism should do."―A.S. Byatt, The Guardian (U.K.) In June 2002 the Zagreb Animation Festival published the results of an international, four-year poll to establish the best animated film of all time. The winner was not Japanese anime , Disney, or Wallace and Gromit, but a 1979 film by Russian animator Yuri Norstein. Yet when Tale of Tales was first delivered to Goskino, the body then responsible for all Soviet cinema activity, it had caused consternation. How, in a system still geared to the principles of Socialist Realism, where all studios' script departments have teemed with KGB informants, had they ended up with this poetic, impressionistic amalgam of Norstein's memories? This book examines the passage of childhood memories into the film: the personal tragedies of war, the little wolf character in the lullaby Norstein's mother used to sing, the neighbors in his crowded communal flat, the tango played in the park on summer evenings. But it also looks into other influences traceable in the film: anti-Semitism under Stalin, Kruschev's Thaw, a spell in a furniture factory, seven years as an animator on other directors' often pedestrian films, and a violent clash with the authorities over his debut film. It also offers a glimpse of the troubled production of the Tale of Tales and the decisive roe played by the "mafia of decent folk," Moscow's wily intelligentsia. Clare Kitson is a former programmer for the National Film Theatre in London and for BBC Channel 4. She has been researching Yuri Norstein and his work for over two decades.