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Showing posts with label Italy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italy. Show all posts

13 July 2015

Fusako Yusaki: Master of Metamorphosis



Fusako Yusaki (湯崎夫沙子, b. 1937) is a Japanese clay animation pioneer.  Most of the early independent Japanese animators who came of age in the 1960s are men.  Women animators in this period were often behind the scenes working as inbetweeners and assistant animators and rarely took a directorial credit.  Yusaki is the exception to this rule, but she made her name not in Japan but in Italy.  Her works range from the abstract to narrative works – though many combine elements of both.  Using a colourful palette of clay, her works are defined by her use of metamorphosis.  Scenes flow seamlessly into one another in a very organic style. 


Interview with Yusaki at the  Ca' Foscari Short Film Festival this year: 



Yusaki was born in the city of Moji-ku, one of the five cities that merged to create the city of Kitakyūshū in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1963.  She graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from Joshibi University of Art and Design in 1960.  She then won a scholarship to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan in 1964 and has lived and worked in Milan ever since. 


She established her own independent studio – Studio Yusaki (スタジオ・ユサキ) – and is famous for her commercials and for her children’s television programming in collaboration with public broadcasters such as RAI (Italy’s public broadcaster) and the NHK.  Yusaki rose to fame in Italy in the 1960s for her popular series of clay animation advertisements for the liqueur Fernet-Branca (1968-1977), for which she won the Bagatto d’oro (the top prize for Italian commercials) in 1971. 

In the 1990s and 2000s, she became known for her sweet clay animation characters such as Peo (ペオ) the blue dog and the red and blue figures Naccio + Pomm (ナッチョとポム).  Naccio + Pomm have been released by the NHK in Japan as part of their Petit Petit Anime (プチプチ・アニメ) series for kids.    


Among her many honours, Yusaki has won a Bronze Lion from the Festival international de la créativité - Lions Cannes (1972) and the award for lifetime achievement from the Festival Internazionale del Cinema d'Arte in Bergano (2004).  She has been on the international juries at many festivals including Annecy (1989), Hiroshima (1990), Zagreb (2000), Espinho (2002), and Wissembourg (2003).

Yusaki continues to be very active on the animation scene, teaching workshops and participating in festivals as well as making films.  She teaches three-dimensional illustration at l’Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan and her films are part of the collection of the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.


Filmography

Animated Shorts – Claymation

1972  Pentalogia del mondo perduto 
1973  Ballata dell’omino stanco 
1974  Ominide
1975  Termituomo 
1983  Ama gli animali 
1984  Convergenza 
1986  Rotondo quadrato triangolo 
1988  Buongiorno 
1991  Stagioni senza parola  
1992  T.V.U.O.G. 
1998  Un giorno sì, un giorno no 
1998  Gioco di forme  
2000  Gioco di numeri 
2000  Gioco di colori 

Animated Series - Claymation

1989-90  Toki Doki – 13 x 2’  
1992-4  Talpy – 60 x 1’
1997  Peo plastilina – 13 x 30”  
1997-9  Peo in Svizzera, I parte – 13 x 2'  
2000-2  Peo in Svizzera” II parte – 13 x 2'  
2001-3  Naccio e Pomm – 13 x 5'  

Educational Film - Claymation

1984  Dipartimento Litosfera, 10 films 
1986  Unità 2, film for videodisc
1987  La struttura interna del computer – animated inserts
1998  Ippocrate – RAI Educational
2000  Ecolabel, emas, rifiuti – 3 x 30”

Advertisements – Claymation

1968-78  Fernet Branca – 56 ads
1976  Marcolin  
1977  Zurigo Assicurazioni
1978  Ariston  
1978  TVS sigla TV   
1980  Telenova sigla TV  
1981  A.I.E.D.  – 6 ads
1982  SAIWA  
1982  A.I.E.D.   
1983  Rete A sigla TV
1984  Rocher Ferrero  
1984  Bi-Bici  
1985  Mobilsol
1985  Denise  
1986  Ars Nova  
1987  Asgow  
1991  Valle d’Aosta
1991  3 x 2  
1992  Pubblicità Progresso – 5 films
1994  Volta pagina 
1995  Peo (sigla) 
1999  Glu-Glu (sigla)  
2001  Albero Azzurro (sigla) 
2001  Intermezzo per pubblicità  
2001  Colazione con Peo 

Animated Shorts - Cel animation

1985  L’incredibile Usil   

For more information:
Fusako Yusaki’s profile at RAI
“Fusako Yusaki / Documentazione,” arskey: magazine d’arte moderna e contemporanea  


2015 Catherine Munroe Hotes
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13 March 2015

Makoto Wada’s Movie Inspired Art 4: Modern Classics


Makoto Wada (和田誠, b. 1936) is best known as an illustrator whose work has adorned the pages of writers as diverse as Shinichi Hoshi, Haruki Murakami, and Agatha Christie.  In addition to illustration, he has also dabbled in film directing and animation – winning the Noburo Ofuji Award for 1964 for his comic animated short Murder (殺人).  In Murder, he spoofs a wide variety of famous film and literary icons including Poirot, Sam Spade, Dracula and James Bond.  He has also done a range of paintings inspired by film stars and classic movies.  This is my third in a series of posts looking at his art and his muses.  See also: Part 1: Early Hollywood,  Part 2: Hollywood Classics, and Part 3: European Classics.

You can support this artist by ordering collections of his work such as:


Order: Makoto Wada Cinema Art

Life is Beautiful (1997) put Italian comedian Roberto Benigni on the Hollywood map when he won not only the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film but also the  Best Actor Oscar.  Wada's painting captures the essence of this tragicomic film: the resilience of the human spirit in even the most desperate of circumstances, seen here through the love of two parents for their young son.  

Luc Besson's Léon: The Professional (1994) was written as a star vehicle for Jean Reno, hence the title, but what most people remember is the unlikely friendship that develops between Léon and the teenage girl Mathilda (Nathalie Portman).  

In this painting Wada brings together two seminal moments in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993): the girl in the red coat and Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) and his employee Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) writing the famous list of Jews that they hoped to save from the Nazis.  
Wada's take on the movie poster for Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire (1987) captures the contemplative gaze of  the angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz) as he sits on the Victory Column (Siegesäule) looking out over the divided city of Berlin.  Although the body positioning of Solveig Dommartin as Marion is different than in the poster, she does make that pose during her acrobatics in the film itself.


Next: Makoto Wada's Movie Inspired Art 5: Hitchcock

Cathy Munroe Hotes 2015
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07 March 2015

Makoto Wada’s Movie Inspired Art 3: European Classics


Makoto Wada (和田誠, b. 1936) is best known as an illustrator whose work has adorned the pages of writers as diverse as Shinichi Hoshi, Haruki Murakami, and Agatha Christie.  In addition to illustration, he has also dabbled in film directing and animation – winning the Noburo Ofuji Award for 1964 for his comic animated short Murder (殺人).  In Murder, he spoofs a wide variety of famous film and literary icons including Poirot, Sam Spade, Dracula and James Bond.  He has also done a range of paintings inspired by film stars and classic movies.  This is my third in a series of posts looking at his art and his muses.  See also: Part 1: Early Hollywood and Part 2: Hollywood Classics

You can support this artist by ordering collections of his work such as:


Order: Makoto Wada Cinema Art

In November 2011, Makoto Wada held an exhibition entitled "World of European Films" 「ヨーロッパ映画の世界」at the  Dojima Avanza Entrance Hall in his native Osaka.  According to Kansai Art Beat, the exhibition featured paintings inspired by everything from the popular Harry Potter film adaptions to art cinema classics like Fellini's La Strada (1954).


One of the images used to promote the film was a striking image of Sean Connery as James Bond against a red background.
I believe this studio photo of Connery was used for the promotion of Goldfinger (1964).  

One of my favourites from Makoto's European film series is his rendering of the unforgettable moment from Godard's Breathless when Jean Seberg, in her Herald Tribute T-shirt kisses Jean-Paul Belmondo on the cheek:


The yellow background suits the mood of Breathless, I think, and Wada has captured the body language of the two protagonists perfectly.  Less successful, in my opinion, is Wada's rendering of Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes (1948):

Yes, this is one of the classic stills from the movie, but the adaptation lacks finesse.  Wada's body proportions for the ballet dancer Vicky Page are all wrong.  Actress Moira Shearer was much more delicately proportioned than that, and her nose was quite dainty in real life.  Wada makes her look more like one of Cinderella's evil stepsisters. 

In contrast, Wada's interpretation of Albert Lamorisse's fantasy featurette The Red Balloon (1956) is spot on in its use of colour and design.  

Next: Makoto Wada's Movie Inspired Art 4: Modern Classics


2015 Catherine Munroe Hotes

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