Une nuit sur le mont chauve (1933)
**** (out of 4)
Also known as A NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN, this pinscreen short from Claire Parker and Alexandre Alexeieff is so wonderful and so ground-breaking that their names deserve to be remembered right up there with Walt Disney. If you think that's too much praise then I'm going to guess that you haven't seen this film. It took eighteen months to complete and you can tell that by the images on the screen.
Pinscreen animation is the use of a screen with moveable pins. Just the thought of making animation like this boggles my mind but UNE NUIT SUR LE MONT CHAUVE does a masterful job of it and it's really hard to believe that this here was made in 1933. It's amazing how wonderful the images look and in fact you could argue that they're much better than a lot of what we see today. The earlier portion of the film deals with a lot of dark subjects and it's perfectly put to the music of Mussorgsky. As great as that looks, I was even more impressed with the later part of the film where there are a lot more whites used. Just check out the sequence with the white horse.
**** (out of 4)
Also known as A NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN, this pinscreen short from Claire Parker and Alexandre Alexeieff is so wonderful and so ground-breaking that their names deserve to be remembered right up there with Walt Disney. If you think that's too much praise then I'm going to guess that you haven't seen this film. It took eighteen months to complete and you can tell that by the images on the screen.
Pinscreen animation is the use of a screen with moveable pins. Just the thought of making animation like this boggles my mind but UNE NUIT SUR LE MONT CHAUVE does a masterful job of it and it's really hard to believe that this here was made in 1933. It's amazing how wonderful the images look and in fact you could argue that they're much better than a lot of what we see today. The earlier portion of the film deals with a lot of dark subjects and it's perfectly put to the music of Mussorgsky. As great as that looks, I was even more impressed with the later part of the film where there are a lot more whites used. Just check out the sequence with the white horse.