A Selfish Post on the master of puppets

My laptop is down for the count...which means midterm papers have to be saved in cyber-space if I want to keep them somewhere accessible. Ladies and Gents, allow me to present the pun-nily named (all for you Mr. T.) paper for my Literature and Place class:

Master of Puppets: Jiří Trnka’s Ties to Czech Culture

“Do your paper on Jiří Trnka,” my suitemate said, “He animated creepy puppet films that were more for adults than kids. He’s right up your alley.” Sure, Trnka’s “The Hand” and “The Cybernetic Grandmother” have their disturbing moments, but on the whole Trnka’s legacy grew more from his mixed-media innovations than from controversial content in his works. Though he would create films protesting the fetishism of technology, he created those films by breathing new life into a storytelling form with deep historical roots in the Czech lands through his use of new technologies and trick photography.

Czech puppet use evolved from Pagan traditions that used puppets for both ceremonial and entertainment purposes. After the 30-years-war, the marionette style of puppet became particularly popular, and this remains the case today. Typically, puppeteering was a family trade. This custom may have developed because the puppeteer was expected to make his own puppets, make his own sets, control all the puppets in a show, and perform all of the voices as well. With this much work involved, it is not surprising that the spouses and children helped with some of the labor. In doing so, they informally apprenticed in the field and so naturally grew into puppeteers themselves. Other signature characteristics of Czech puppet theater that could stem from this one-man tradition include the development of stories conceived with few set changes and one to two character scenes. Noticing these aspects of Trnka’s early works clearly reveals his training in classical puppetry.

Jiří Trnka was born 24 February 1912 in a suburb of Plzeň. Sources are not in consensus on his father’s occupation, but it is clear that Rudolf Trnka did not make puppets. Suffering from what may have been shell-shock incurred during his service in WWI, the elder Trnka spent time as a tin-smith, as a plumber, and as an unemployed father. Jiří Trnka’s entrance to the world of puppet theater was both helped and hindered in distinct ways by the consequential financial difficulties. His mother and grandmother both made toys—including rag dolls and puppets—to sell as supplementary income for the family. Trnka learned these skills from them, and for a time he attended the Holiday Camp Theater run by puppet master Josef Skupa.[1] When money got tight, Trnka had to drop out of school and work to help support the family. He spent time as a pastry cook and as a locksmith, struggling to stay involved with Skupa’s theater and making decorative puppets in his free-time.

Skupa recognized the boy’s talent and convinced his family that Trnka should attend the Applied Arts School in Prague. At age 16, Trnka headed to Prague. He lived with his brother and got his meals from an urban charity to keep costs down, but he also began illustrating children’s books to earn an income. He illustrated for Night Time, a children’s newspaper, and also got involved in the production of The Merman, a traditional puppet show of sea-faring adventure stories. After completing school, Trnka became involved with the Theater in Fetters, which was established in 1936 by Voskovec and Werich. His time with them was short lived; their business tanked and he took over, establishing the Wooden Theater. His first production in his own theater was Among the Fireflies, which was relatively successful. Encouraged, he went on to produce Basil and the Bear based on a story by his friend Josef Menzel. This was the theater’s most successful production, and Menzel actually hired Trnka as an illustrator when the Wooden Theater failed due to financial problems.[2]

In 1945, Disney dominated the international animation scene, creating a standard of anthropomorphic animals and ‘smile through the storm’ morals. At the same time, Trnka thought up his first film: Grandpa Planted a Beet. At the time, he was animating for the Trick Brothers and so was able to turn his story into the first Czech animated cartoon. His use of human characters was as revolutionary in the international scene as his moral: the help of even the smallest and weakest is valuable. Considering the tone of Czech literature, though, his choice to deliver Aesopic lessons rather than Disney-esque ones makes complete sense.

He made one other animated film, The Gift, before beginning in 1946 to produce the first stop-motion puppet films. He began with Bethlehem, the first of six parts to The Czech Year. The sestet of shorts celebrated Carnival, the coming of spring, summer, an autumn harvest festival, and winter. Trnka works in folktales, sometimes by including them as puppet shows watched by characters within the film. In one instance, this artificial fifth wall between the puppet actors and puppet audience is broken, a rather post-modern concept. The films are a nationalistic celebration of Czech identity appropriate to the post-WWII atmosphere in which they were made. They celebrate life, liberty, the common man, unspoiled nature, open spaces, and music; they condemn war and military subordination of the individual.[3]

At first, Trnka’s puppets acted without commentary and without voices. The auditory cues for the tone and plot were set by the music of Václav Trojan’s music. He later experimented with the use of external narrators, folksongs as chapter introductions, and eventually dialogue for the puppets themselves. This last experiment proved especially challenging. Trnka believed that “the mask-like faces of the characters would preserve the magic spell of myths” (Boček, 160). Animating the faces of the puppets to enable realistic speech would ruin this effect, so Trnka has to think of other possibilities. Sometimes his characters wear costumes that cover their mouths. Sometimes they whisper with their backs to the camera. Sometimes the camera focuses on the audience being addressed. In later films, he sometimes even uses paper dolls with animated faces to serve as the voices for the puppet characters.

This capacity for creative problem-solving, combined with the unique problems brought about when dealing with a cast of puppets and a crew of apprentice puppeteers, is part of the reason Jiří Trnka became such a sensation. When he needed transparent characters, he would shoot two images on the same frame and let them overlap. He used burning candles and moving suns to show the passage of time. He lingers over details to build suspense, manipulates shadows to move the viewer’s focus, and deliberately chooses the placement of color (or lack of) to emphasize motifs. In short, he pioneered the use of trick photography in animated film and inspired other artists to experiment with similar techniques. He became such a master of nuance that he even animated a “Shakespeare without Shakespeare” project: A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed without the prose dialogue that the play usually depends on. His version, a puppet ballet, manages to keep the humor of the original even without the repartees, and his version of the play-within-the-play even has a touch of tragic humor that gives it more depth than in the original.

To discuss Jiří Trnka’s place in Czech culture is difficult in such a short space. His final two works—The Cybernetic Grandmother and The Hand—are also the most frequently discussed. The first echoes “Up from the Wheelbarrow” (Ogden Nash) in warning against over-digitization. It features a young girl whose grandmother, at the parents’ telegrammed request, places her in the care of a cyber grandmother. The second film was banned by the Soviet government because it blatantly declares that totalitarianism suffocates the creative spirit of man and kills him in the process. The main character delights in making pots for his favorite flower. One day, a giant hand impinges and pressures him to sculpt hands instead. The overwhelming desperation and paranoia created by the situation causes the character’s death. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the plot is the way the hand does not directly kill the character—in fact it gives him a formal wake upon his death—and so can claim innocence of the deed.

These films showcase all the skills that Trnka developed during his long career, and they are also brilliantly executed examples of social criticism delivered through a medium traditionally reserved for children. They do deserve to be discussed; however, they are not representative of Trnka’s role in Czech culture throughout his career. Considering the 28 films Trnka is responsible for (as well as the numerous merry circuits and book illustrations), it becomes more apparent that his legacy is that of an artist. He pioneered a multi-media film style and developed the techniques necessary to best utilize the available technology while overcoming the limitations of the media being included. Certainly his social and political commentaries are significant, but his innovations in animation were the first serious threat to the Disney monopoly. They were innovations that stemmed from his training in traditional Czech puppeteering, making him someone no other country could have produced.

References

(1996). On Jiří Trnka /3 [Medium of recording: VHS] Prague: Krátký Film Praha.

Boček, J. (1965). Jiří Trnka artist and puppet master. Prague: Artia.

Dubská, A. et al. (2006). Czech puppet theater yesterday and today. Prague: Divadelní ústav.

Träger, J. (1958). Jiří Trnka master of the Czechoslovak puppet films. Prague: Československý

filmexport.

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[1] Skupa, famous in his own right, ran Kaspa’s Cabaret in Plzeň from 1916-1918 before going on to other projects. He established himself in Plzeň before putting together a company that earned success even in Prague. The Kaspa’s Cabaret pieces that he performed, and that Trnka would have been familiar with, were mostly social and political satires. He was Trnka’s earliest mentor and debatably his strongest influence.

[2] An exploration of the influence of Trnka’s next years as an illustrator and set designer is beyond the scope of this paper, but let it suffice to say that Trnka brought his puppet-making experience into his character illustration and later explored the use of multiple sets in his puppet productions as a result of his experiences in this interim. His connections from this time also helped him get established in the film world later on. Both painting and live theater would remain major parts of his life until his retirement. For example, his last film The Hand uses an actor’s awareness of the power of nuance to turn a puppeteers hand into a menacing character with minimal help from costuming or props.

[3] Ironic since the series was released as a whole in 1947, at which point the occupying Soviets were plotting to take power in Czechoslovakia. A plan which bore fruit the following year.