Film director Jan Schwankmaier: biography, filmography and interesting facts

Jan Schwankmeier is the representative of experimental cinema. In addition, he creates sculptures, tactile poems, collages. For those who are not familiar with the works of the director, it is worth noting that his work is extremely specific. He successfully combines animation with feature films, filling stories with his meaning.

From the article you can find out who helped him in making films, as well as get acquainted with the filmography of the director.

short biography

Jan Schwankmeier was born on 04/09/1934 in Prague. He is known as a Czech film director, as well as a screenwriter, animator, sculptor, artist.

His creative career began in 1950, when he studied at the Institute of Applied Arts. After that he continued his studies at the Academy of Arts (Prague), having chosen the specialization "puppet mastery".

He is the representative of experimental cinema. The direction of work is surreal. Each picture of the director became an event in the light of animation films.

Personal life

Jan Schwankmeier was married once. His wife Eva was six years younger than her husband. She died in 2005. Being a surrealist artist, Eve took an active part in the cinematographic activities of her husband. She was a designer and assistant director. In Soviet times, the pair secretly consisted of an underground group of surrealists.

The family had two children. Their son, Vaclav (17.10.1975), works as an animator and artist.

Work in the studio and the central themes in creativity

In 1983, Ian Schwankmeier founded his own studio in collaboration with producer Jaromir Callista, who was an associate of the director. They planned to create non-commercial films.

The building is located twenty-five kilometers from Prague in the town of Knovys, which is near Slani.

Jan Shvankmayer, whose full filmography consists of six full-length films and twenty-eight short films, has its unrivaled style. In short films he mixed plasticine animation with the methods of hyperrealism. His work has a great influence on the work of many geniuses in cinematography.

Central themes in creativity:

• fear;
• External manipulation;
• Fear of enclosed space.

Many critics believe that this is due to the personal phobias of the creator, as well as to life in socialist Czechoslovakia.

Filmography

The first film of his own, Ian Shvankmeyer, whose filmography is presented in the article, was shot in 1958. For his creative career, he was able to earn the reputation of an advanced animator of our time. After his first work in the cinema, he created short films almost nineteen years, until he moved on to the full-length movie.

List of some short works:

• "Dr. Johann Faust" (1958);
• "The game with stones" (1965);
• "Punch and Judy" (1966);
• "Sad", "Apartment" (1968);
• Don Juan (1969);
• "The Belfry" (1970);
• "The Fall of the House of Asherov" (1980);
• "Meat Love" (1988);
• "Food" (1992).

Of all the full-length paintings, I especially want to highlight three works that should be considered in more detail.

"Alice" (1988)

Schwankmeier Ian created his paintings in a surrealistic style. The same applies to "Alice". The film is still considered the most insane version of the work of Lewis Carroll. The picture with elements of animation and feature films is quite cruel and gloomy. It is difficult to call her a dreamlike dream - it is rather a painful hallucination.

From the book, the director took only the plot, when the girl chases the White Rabbit and finds herself in a wonderful world. When Alice violates the laws of this world that she does not understand, she returns to reality. The main part of the picture is the journey of the heroine. Only the world does not look like a fairy tale, but looks like hell with gloomy shades and eerie animals.

The heroine throughout the film is transformed into a doll several times, and then again becomes an ordinary girl. The director removed several heroes who were not important to his idea, for example, the Duchess and the Cheshire Cat. And at the end of the film the trial is not over Valet, but over the heroine. As the girl was called by the director Alenka, the film is often called "The Dream of Alenka".

Faust's Lesson (1994)

Schwankmeier Yang could not help creating a film about a poor doctor who sells his soul to Satan. The director puts the hero in Prague. There, the doctor finds a puppet theater and Goethe's book in the attic. He tries on the costume of Faust and suddenly appears in the laboratory of the alchemist.

The author of the painting combines the game of live actors with the use of puppets and animation. He reveals the essence of the neighborhood with the satanic world. The Faust of the Czech creator is deceived in his dream of Margarita, who turns out to be a wooden doll, and dies under the wheels of a car that no one manages. The horror is that Satan has no guise.

For his film Schwankmeier took the music of Johann Bach. He also supplemented the picture with links to old plays about Dr. Faust.

The work received six awards at various festivals in the categories "Best Film", "Best Actor".

"Sleepwalking" (2005)

Jan Shvankmayer, whose filmography and biography are discussed in the article, created a horror film. As a basis, he took the work of Edgar Poe under the title "Premature burial," supplementing him with references to the Marquis de Sade.

The plot takes place in France, where the young man after the funeral of his mother sees the same dream. In it everything begins with a knock at the door, which is rushed to open the towel and underwear of the hero. As a result, the orderlies rush into him, place him in a straitjacket. The hero, opposing, crushes everything in the room.

Once from a nightmare sleep, an old man awakens him, who turns out to be a Marquise. So a young man gets acquainted with his castle and those orgies that are held in it. The Marquis decides that he can get rid of attacks that happen to him if he is buried alive. With a young man after a similar procedure, a disruption occurred with terrible conduct. The Marquis advises the hero to be treated in a hospital for the mentally ill. The director of this hospital was a friend of the Marquis and a participant in their orgies.

In the hospital, the hero gets acquainted with the employee Charlotte, who tells that the real director of the hospital and his staff are imprisoned in the basement. And he organized all the Marquis with the help of insurrection. The hero decides to help Charlotte and releases the captives, who from long imprisonment lost their human appearance and overgrown with chicken feathers.

The real director takes revenge on his offenders, and the hero finds out that his method of treatment consists in terrible and cruel torture and mockery of the patients with whom the Marquis and his friends were. Charlotte turns out to be the mistress of the sadistic doctor, and the hero falls into his terrible dream with the orderlies in real life. The director demonstrates the bullying of patients with the help of animation on parts of live meat.

Followers

Jan Schwankmeier, whose films have great influence on many representatives of cinematography, has his followers. These include Christina Sedzhavski, as well as a friend and pupil of the Czech director Jiri Bart.