Diabolica Invencion

[Werner Presber]

"Karel Zemen (1910–1989) is a filmmaker I’m often telling people  
about but whose work isn’t easy to see. So it’s good to find that  
YouTube has gained some clips of his animations and examples of the  
partly-animated adventure films he made in the Fifties and Sixties.  
Zeman was yet another great Czech animator and the YouTube collection  
includes his most celebrated short, Inspiration, which gave life to  
glass figurines, an unyielding medium that he moves as expressively  
as if it was clay or plasticine.


The adventure films are predominantly based on Jules Verne and place  
live actors into animated settings, many of which are taken directly  
from (or intended to imitate) the engraved illustrations of the  
original novels. The animation enabled Zeman to fill his films with  
dirigibles, submarines and various steam contraptions which would be  
too expensive to create otherwise. Zeman’s The Fabulous Baron  
Munchausen took the Gustave Doré illustrations for its visual style  
which is something this particular Doré fan appreciates, and the film  
is closer to the spirit of the Raspe novel than the Nazi adaptation  
of 1943 or Terry Gilliam’s later version. The results are a lot more  
artificial than the seamless blend of animation and live action  
attempted by Ray Harryhausen in his own Jules Verne film, Mysterious  
Island, but the artificiality gives the films a distinctive charm.

• A Deadly Invention aka The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958)
• The Fabulous World of Jules Verne trailer (1958)
• Excerpts from Baron Munchausen (1961)
• The Special Effects of Karel Zeman pt. I | pt. II

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls
• Jan Švankmajer: The Complete Short Films
• Taxandria, or Raoul Servais meets Paul Delvaux
• Barta’s Golem
• The Hetzel editions of Jules V"

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feuilleton
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