Jiří Trnka (; 24 February 1912 – 30 December 1969) was a Czech puppet-maker, illustrator, motion-picture animator and film director.

In addition to his extensive career as an illustrator, especially of children's books, he is best known for his work in animation with puppets, which began in 1946. Most of his films were intended for adults and many were adaptations of literary works. Because of his influence in animation, he was called "the Walt Disney of Eastern Europe", despite the great differences between their works. He received the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal for illustrators in 1968, recognizing his career contribution to children's literature.

Career as animator

Beginnings

After graduating from the Prague School of Arts and Crafts, Trnka created a puppet theater in 1936. This group was dissolved when World War II began, and he instead designed stage sets and illustrated books for children throughout the war. Several years later, at the end of World War II, he founded with Eduard Hofman and Jiří Brdečka the animation studio Bratři v triku|. He began his activity in the study of animation by making some 2D animated short films: (Grandfather Planted a Beet, 1945); (Animals and Bandits, 1946), which was awarded at the 1st Cannes Film Festival, just one year after he had begun working in films, although only in the prologue that precedes the story itself. The puppets and sets are significantly different from the previous film, given the setting of an idealized imperial China. Cisaruv Slavik| also won numerous awards at international festivals across Europe and the United States.

During 1949, Trnka also made three short films with animated puppets: (Story of a Bass, or Novel with Bass), adapted from a story by Anton Chekhov; (The Devil's Mill), based on a Czech fairy-tale, and (Song of the Prairie), a western parody loosely based on Stagecoach (known in Trnka's country as The Diligence) by John Ford.

The following year he produced his third feature animation with puppets, Bajaja (film)| (The Prince Bayaya, 1950), based on two stories by writer Božena Němcová|. Set in a fantastical medieval time, it is the story of a farmer who succeeds in becoming a knight, defeats a dragon, and wins the love of a princess.

1950s

During the first half of the next decade, Trnka experimented with new techniques in his short animations. He returned to the cartoon (The Golden Fish, 1951), and animated shadow puppets in (1953). In (The Merry Circus, 1951) he used a technique that involved stop-motion with two-dimensional paper cutouts. He neglected, however, the production of any animated feature-length puppet film. Apparently, for a time he had the idea of making a film about Don Quixote, but the project was not well received by the Czechoslovak authorities. In 1953 he premiered (Old Czech Legends, 1953), his quarter-length movie. As with , his first feature, is structured in seven episodes that tell the legendary history of the Czech people. The film is adapted from a work by Alois Jirásek (1851-1930), then a popular author among the Czech youth, and has an obvious patriotic tone.

In the same vein of exploring the classics of Czech literature, Trnka in 1955 faced the challenge of adapting to the screen a work immensely popular, the anti-war satire of Jaroslav Hašek (The Good Soldier Švejk). At that time there already existed film adaptations of this work made using real actors, but Trnka was the first to make an animated film about the character. For the construction of the puppets, Trnka was inspired by the illustrations for the original book made by Josef Lada, which in the popular imagination were closely associated with the characters of Hašek. This humorous film is divided into three episodes, which tell the grotesque adventures of Švejk during World War I. It received several awards at international festivals.

In 1959 he made his last feature film: (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1959), adapted from one of the most famous works of William Shakespeare. Trnka had previously illustrated this book so he knew it well. In his adaptation he gave focus not only to the images, but also to the music of Václav Trojan, and strove to give the film an air of ballet, for which he hired a renowned dancer as an adviser. The puppets used in the film were not constructed of wood, but of a specially-made plastic, which allowed for a more detailed modeling of faces. Although it did not escape some criticism, was a resounding international success and is recognized as one of Trnka's masterpieces.

1960s

thumb|upright|Grave of Jiří Trnka at the Central Cemetery in Plzeň

Over the next decade, the filmmaker made only a few short films, which were progressively in a pessimistic tone. The first was (The Passion, 1962), the story of a young man passionate about his motorcycle. He followed that same year with (Cyber Grandma), a satire on the increasing importance of technology in everyday life. (The Archangel Gabriel and Ms Goose, 1964), set in medieval Venice, adapts one of the stories of the Decameron by Boccaccio.

He considered his greatest work to be the short (The Hand, 1965), his last film. In the words of Bendazzi, Ruka is "a kind of hymn to the creative freedom raging." In short, it is about a sculptor visited by a huge hand, which seeks the completion of a sculpture of itself. By rejecting the imposition, the artist is constantly pursued by the hand, ending with induced suicide and the hand officiating at his funeral. is considered a protest against the conditions imposed by the Czechoslovak communist state to artistic creation, and even some have seen in it an anticipation of the so-called Prague Spring. Although the film initially had no problems with censorship, after his death copies were confiscated and banned from public display in Czechoslovakia for two decades.

Death

Jiří Trnka died of complications from a heart condition in 1969, when he was only 57 years old, in Prague. His funeral, held in Plzeň, was a large public event.

Animation techniques

Throughout his career, Trnka experimented with different animation techniques, from traditional cartoons in his first shorts to animation with shadow puppets. However, his preferred method, and that which gave him worldwide fame, was stop-motion puppet work. His carved puppet characters were animated in complex sets with an expressive use of lighting. In this manner he was able to realize the dream of Czech baroque sculptors to set their sculptures in motion. Of puppet films, Trnka said:

The scripts of the films were also Trnka's own work, who often used works of Czech authors (many of them related to popular folklore), as well as classics of world literature, such as Chekhov, Boccaccio, and Shakespeare. On some scripts, he collaborated with Jiří Brdečka.

In Trnka animated films, the music also had an important role. In all his films and several of his short films, the composer of the music was Václav Trojan (1905–1983).

Filmography

Short films

  • (My grandfather planted a beet, January 1, 1945). Cartoon.
  • (Springman and the SS, December 20, 1946). Cartoon.
  • (The Gift, September 12, 1947). Cartoon.
  • (Animals and Bandits, September 12, 1947). Cartoon.
  • (Story of a Bass, January 1, 1949).
  • (The Devil's Mill, January 1, 1949).
  • (Song of the Prairie, 1949, with Jiří Brdečka and freely based upon his theatre play "Limonádový Joe").

</references>

  • Jiri Trnka — Walt Disney Of The East!
  • Jiri Trnka: an artist who turned puppets into film stars <!-- these two should be used as formal sources -->
  • Jiri Trnka · Puppet Animation Master (documentary, 1967) on Internet Archive
  • Legends of Old Bohemia (one of the many illustrated by Trnka) on Amazon