Surrealist Filmmaker, Jan Svankmayer: Restoring Higher Reality Through Living and Breathing Objects

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how Švankmajer built on the Prague traditions of Puppetry and Mannerism and utilized animation techniques as an effective method to convey his thoughts, faith and desires in his films as a Surrealist artist. Jan Švankmajer is a Czech Surrealist artist and filmmaker who experiments with a combination of live-action with animation. He is largely known for his unique style of Surrealist art. The particular uniqueness of his art lies in borrowing from the Puppetry tradition to utilize effigies dolls, marionettes and puppets, and objects as elements to animate, and also borrowing of the visual conceit from the Mannerist tradition. Effigies and objects are juxtaposed with live actors in his films. Compositional mode of objects in images and separate cuts in his films are an influence of not only Surrealism but the Mannerist tradition that presents a form of montage or editing, a fragmentation of the image, and that contains the energies of that very fragmentation of the frame. Even though Švankmajer has publicly stated that he views animation as only one of several media he uses to express his Surrealist ideas and themes of alienation, distortion of reality and childhood, there is no doubt that consciously or subconsciously,Švankmajer senses that collage or bricolage of animated objects are the best means to achieve expression of his beliefs in his films. This unique visual and aesthetical characteristic of Švankmajer's films may be the reason why it would be fair for the public to acclaim him as a "master of animation."