Jiri Trnka - Filmmaker

In my previous post I talked about Jiri Trnka's wonderful book illustrations, but he is probably (rightly) better known as a maker of stop-frame animated films. One of my favourites is shown above - The Hand, (click on the arrow to watch the video). Trnka is perhaps better known for his adapatation of A Midsummer's Night's Dream or the Hans Christian Anderson story The Emperor's Nightingale, but this, his last film, shows the power of puppets and animation in the hands of a master to speak of important things. The film is a powerful allegory on totalitarianism and the artist, it is sad but amusing. Perhaps the best indication of its power is the fact that it was banned by the then Communist government.

When we first visited Prague, my husband, son and I went to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in the Trade Fair Palace. This is a gallery that is often missed by tourists. It is slightly off the visitors' beaten path and I don't think people from the western part of Europe and the US really appreciate the importance of the contribution made by Czech artists to modern art, we certainly didn't before we went through the doors of the Trade Fair Palace. One of the great things about the museum is that it mixes applied and high arts, hence there is a section devoted to Trnka, including a set from one of his films. It was one of the highlights of the museum for us, especially for our son. Now years later our son is in his final year at film school and over the summer vacation a set was built on our dining room table. Jiri Trnka was partly responsible for that.

Beginning - the puppeteer

A few days ago I talked about an exhibition of puppets I organised at Liverpool nearly 20 years ago and how it was one beginning to the journey that led me to Cesky Krumlov and the Czech Republic. Well, although it is true that puppets generally are something of a common theme with the Czechs, that exhibition had a special importance in my journey.

I approached quite a number of television and film puppeteers for exhibits - these were days before the arrival of emails and so the approach took the form of a letter. Any way I got a phone call in response from one puppeteer. Of course I could borrow some puppets, she even had some scenery if that would help. But she wasn't sure what I would want anything said the puppeteer with a soft, low, Czech accent. Perhaps I could come round to her flat and look at them - she lived only a few miles away from my home in London.

And so it was that I found myself climbing up the cast-iron external staircase of a large Victorian house. At the top of the stairs I rang the doorbell and waited. The door opened, I was greeted and invited in. I descended a few steps in to the reception area, on one side was a set of what I recognised as old Czech marionettes, on a table was a nutcracker in the form of a soldier. On the walls was an array of prints and paintings, and a large Mexican embroidary. I was shown into the main room and waited whilst the puppeteer disappeared to find the puppets. The room was light and airy with large windows overlooking a park. A centre piece of the room was a grand piano with sheet music, beside the door was a plant hung with hand-painted Czech easter eggs. On the bookcase was an eclectic range of books - on Jung, books of fairytales, film and a number of books in Czech.

The puppeteer came back carrying some wonderful characterful black-light theatre puppets - wasn't sure that I would want them, I wanted everything including the scenery and I told her so. She grinned and asked if I would like some tea. Two mugs of dark (very British) tea arrived and we started to talk. We have been talking and drinking tea together ever since.

Another Beginning - Puppets 1

1988 - a street in Liverpool, the press are waiting. Then a limousine pulls up outside a rather nondescript warehouse and the press photographers start snapping the car's occupants. The occupants are Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. They smile and wave, but they do not get out of the car. They can't, they don't have any legs. They are Spitting Image puppets. Inside the warehouse I have organised an exhibition of television and film puppets and this is a publicity stunt.

Although Reagan and Gorbachev were the architects of glasnost, which a year and a bit later led to the Velvet Revolution and the opening of the Czech lands to us westerners, that is not why I consider this to be a beginning. The exhibition contained a huge range of puppets - Sooty, Parker from Thunderbirds, Postman Pat, Cosgrove Hall's "The Reluctant Dragon", Muffin the Mule, to name but a few. Before having my son earlier in the year I had worked as the manager of the Puppet Centre, the national centre for the puppeteer's art. And so I had had the pleasure of working with some of Britain's finest puppeteers.

I loved and still love puppetry - I loved the way you can do extraordinary things with puppets. Puppetry is a place where art meets theatre meets film meets magic. Now, any visitor to Cesky Krumlov or Prague will tell you that puppetry is part of life in the Czech Republic. Somehow there is something in the Czech soul that responds to puppets and the same is true of mine. There are two puppet museums in Cesky Krumlov and puppets with various standards of execution can be bought in many of the gift shops in the town. But that is not the only reason I consider the Liverpool exhibition to be a beginning of my journey towards Czecho.