travis betz » czech cinema http://travisbetz.com where the chicken tastes like people! Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:13:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Jan Svankmajer http://travisbetz.com/jan-svankmajer/ http://travisbetz.com/jan-svankmajer/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:00:06 +0000 travis http://travisbetz.com/?p=274 [flashvideo file=http://travisbetz.com/video/JanSvankmajer.flv width=550 height=330 frontcolor=a63054 lightcolor=bf5c7a skin=stylish image=http://travisbetz.com/video/jan-svankmeir.jpg /]

Jan Svankmajer is a Czech surrealist who makes some of the most interesting live action/stop motion blended films ever. One of my favorite works from him is a modernized version of Faust, in which a man is tormented by puppets and clay beings as he searches for the Devil in order to gain knowledge and power. This movie is responsible for a large part of my inspiration for Lo (my own feature about demons). Svankmajer also adapted a version of Alice in wonderland in which he surrounded a live action girl with an array of horrible and fascinating stop motion creatures. 

The short film above has always made me happy and is a great introduction to his style. If you enjoy this then I recommend you check out one of his feature films.

Much love

Travis

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