MAX FLEISCHER & THE FLEISCHER STUDIOS | JANE FLEISCHER REID | Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025 скачать в хорошем качестве

MAX FLEISCHER & THE FLEISCHER STUDIOS | JANE FLEISCHER REID | Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025

Max Fleischer (1883-1972) was a pioneer of animation in the early 20th century. With his tremendous talent as an artist, and fascination with the flourishing field of technology, Max immersed himself in both the art and technology of animation, in the process creating a magical world of the imagination. In the mid-1910s, while working as an artist at Popular Science Monthly, Max was challenged by his boss Waldemar Klaempffert to “do something” to make animation less static and jerky. Accepting the challenge, Max set to work with his brothers Dave, Charlie, Joe, and Lou to address the problem. He came up with a way to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, to produce more realistic action. Max named this invention the Rotoscope. He filmed some footage of his brother Dave jumping around in a clown outfit and then painstakingly traced each and every frame by hand to animate the action. It took a year of the brothers working nights in Max’s living room to test this concept. In the end they produced one whole minute of smooth, life-like movement. This single minute of film revolutionized animation forever. In 1916 Max was hired by John Randolph Bray to produce more of this new kind of animation, which became the basis for the first series that Max developed with Bray Productions, Out of the Inkwell (1918-1927). Featuring an animated clown together with a live-action Max, the two interacted, breaking the imaginary “Fourth Wall” separating the fictional world and the real world, and pretty much teasing and tormenting each other, causing all kinds of chaos. In 1923 animator Dick Huemer joined Max and his merry cohort of animators, and gave the clown his name: KoKo. When Max (as the Fleischer Studios) began working with Paramount in the later 1920s, he developed a new series also featuring KoKo the Clown, Inkwell Imps, consisting of 58 shorts. Then, in 1930, Max created the character for which he became known world-wide: the inimitable Betty Boop, who remains an icon of American culture to this day. Initially created as a love- interest for Bimbo, a rapscallion of a dog in the Talkartoons series (1929-1932), Betty started out as a lounge-singing dog. However, as audiences fell in love with her, she gradually morphed from an odd-looking dog to a recognizable human. Her dog ears became hoop earrings, her nose a little button of a thing, and her figure slimmed down. Over the course of 2 years, she developed into the Betty Boop we know and love today, and gained her own series, Betty Boop (1930-1939). The first fully human female to be animated, Betty was a ground- breaking character. A strong, independent woman, she was fearless in exploring the world, taking on new adventures and defeating bullies. In various cartoons, she was portrayed as a president, a judge, and a lion tamer, flew her own plane (to Japan), and even had her own band. Together with KoKo and Bimbo, Betty featured in over 140 cartoons. In the 1930s the Fleischer Studios animated the first 108 “Popeye the Sailor” cartoons. At times during those years, the Fleischer version of Popeye became more popular than Mickey Mouse – and certainly did wonders for the spinach industry! In the 1940s, the Fleischer Studios were the first to bring Superman to life, animating the first 9 of the stellar Superman cartoon series. Drawn in Art Deco style with lavish color, the series is still considered one of the heights of animation. From 1919 to 1942, Max and the Fleischer Studios produced nearly 700 cartoons and live-action shorts. However, neither Max nor the studio owned the cartoons, and when the Fleischer Studios closed in 1942 the films were not saved. Instead they were dispersed all over the world, bought and sold and bought again by various companies. As a result, today there is no single source where all the films can be seen. Since 2021, Max’s granddaughter Jane Fleischer Reid has led an initiative to locate and collect as many of the films as possible, to create a comprehensive digital Fleischer film library. This effort entails working with a small but mighty team of passionate, like- minded parties: the studios and archives (a huge shout-out to Paramount Pictures!), to find and provide the best assets; Thad Komorowski and Samantha Davis of Cineaste Restoration, who restore the cartoons; and Mauricio Alvarado, who collaborates with Jane to bring these historic and classic films back to life in stunning 4K and presenting them once again on the Silver Screen for all to enjoy. – Jane Fleischer Reid CATALOGO GCM2025