Yuri Norstein’s Animation Top 20 (2003)

The great Russian animator Yuri Norstein (aka Yuriy Norshteyn, b. 1941)is widely admired in Japan by both mainstream and independent animatorsalike. His works The Hedgehog in the Fog (1975) and The Tale of Tales (1978) topped the LaputaTop 150 Japanese and World Animation poll done in 2003. His work is so beloved that even hisunfinished adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’sshort story The Overcoat entered thelist at #92. Norstein himselfparticipated in the 2003 poll and his picks are listed below.

But first, a bit of backgroundinformation:

Yuri Norstein has close ties to the Laputa International Animation Festival. The festivalbegan in 2000 and semi-annually presents the Yuri Norstein Award (ユーリ・ノルシュテイン大賞) – with, I believe, Norsteinhimself acting as the head of the jury. The prize was jointly awarded in its inauguralyear to Hiroyuki Tsutita for hisfilm Mutate and to Hiroshi Okuda for Prisoner. Oscar-winner animatorKunio Katō won the Yuri NorsteinAward twice: first in 2001 for The Apple Incident and again in 2004 forThe Diary of Tortov Roddle. HosokawaSusumu won the award in 2005 for Demonsand Yusuke Sakamoto won in 2006 for The Telegraph Pole Mother. In 2008, the award was given to anon-Japanese for the first time. Latviananimator Vladimir Leschiov took theprize for Lost In Snow. It was my understanding that the award wouldbe given out again in 2010, but I have been unable to find any evidence of thishappening – though they did show a retrospective of Norstein’s works at thefestival that year. The next festivalwill have an activist theme as they put out a call for “Fukushima Animation”last autumn. It is unclear when the 11^thfestival will take place.

2007 saw the establishment of the Laputa Art Animation School – a “smallschool” where they teach the art of making animation by hand (puppet, cutout,drawn, etc.). The school creation iscredited to Norstein’s insistence that Japan needed its own school of animationin the vein of the great Eastern European centres for training animators. The school even uses Norstein’s iconichedgehog as their logo. At Laputa,indisputed masters of the art of animation including Fumiko Magari and Sumiko Hosaka –puppet masters who worked for TadanariOkamoto and Kihachirō Kawamoto –and the avant-garde legend Yōji Kuriteach students the tricks of the trade.

There are no surprises in Yuri Norstein’s top 20. He lists a cross-section of some of the verybest in world animation with nods to both early animation pioneers (LadislawStarewicz, Alexandre Alexeieff, Claire Parker, Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, NormanMcLaren, David Hand, Jiří Trnka) and terrific contemporary work (Nick Park,Aleksandr Petrov, Michael Dudok de Wit). He even gives a nod to his Japanese hosts in recognizing the work ofOsamu Tezuka and Kihachirō Kawamoto. Ifyou were teaching a course on world animation of the 20^th century andcould only show 20 films – this list would suit nicely. Though you would be hard-pressed to find acopy of Frantisek Vystrcil’s The Place inthe Sun.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012