Le Roman de Renard (1941)

The Tale of the Fox (1941)

Study Guide (Grade 1-8)

Friday, February 20th 2015, 11am

Presented as part of the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)’s Young Audience Program

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Welcome to the Florence Gould Hall at FIAF! We have made this study guide available to you in order to introduce your students to the performance they are about to watch. From both a cultural and a social point of view, our goal is to make this event unique and enjoyable for all. Therefore, we would like the students to behave appropriately during the performance. We kindly ask you to remind them:

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Synopsis

In the animal kingdom, Renard the fox is constantly tricking others. The complaints keep piling up until finally King Noble the Lion decided to put a stop to it. When sentenced to be hanged, Renard told the king that he knew the location of a fabulous treasure in the King’s sovereign, and thus he was released. When the King Noble discovered the new trick, he ordered the siege of Maupertuis, Renard’s castle. However, this time Renard outwitted the King’s men yet again. Impressed by Renard’s ability, the King decided that it was better to make Renard his ally.

About the Film

Le Roman de Renard is directed Ladislas Starevich and Irene Starevich between 1929 and 1930, and, after finally adding a French soundtrack to the film, it was released in France in 1941. It is a stop motion animation using puppets as characters.

Often mentioned as being among Ladislas Starevich’s best work, The Tale of the Fox (Le Roman de Renard) was also his first animated feature. It was entirely made by him and his daughter, Irene. The production took place in Fontenay-sous-Bois. When the film was ready, the producer had encountered difficulty in adding sound tracks to the film and it was not released. German film studio UFA got interest to show the film and the voiceover was added in German. It premiered in Berlin in 1937. Later, Roger Richebé (Paris Cinéma Location) produced a French voiceover, which premiered on April 1941. It was the third animated feature film to have sound, after Quirino Cristiani's Peludópolis (1931) and The New Gulliver (1935) from the Soviet Union.

Stop motion Film

Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object of persona appears to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Dolls with movable joints or clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning.

About the Tale

The film Le Roman de Renard is based on the medieval fable Reynard (French: Renart), which is a literary cycle of allegorical French, Dutch, English, and German fables largely concerned with Reynard, a half red fox, half man and trickster figure.

The figure of Reynard is thought to have originated in Alsace-Lorraine folklore from where it spread to France, the Netherlands, and Germany. The Old French version Le Roman de Renart written by Pierre de Saint-Cloud around 1170 detailed the fox figure. In the story, Reynard has been summoned to the court of king Noble, or Leo, the Lion, to answer charges brought against him by the Wolf. Other half human half animal figures, including the Bear, the Donkey, the Cat, all attempt to set up one another. The stories made Reynard a peasant-hero character. Reynard's principal castle, Maupertuis, is available to him whenever he needs to hide away from his enemies. The Wolf is Reynard's most frequent antagonist and foil, and generally ends up outwitted, though he occasionally gets revenge.

Illumination  from  a  manuscript  of  the  Roman  de  Renart,  end  of  the  13th  century  

 

About the Director

Ladislas Starevich (Vladislav Starevich) (1882 – 1965) was a Russian and French stop motion animator notable as the author of the first animated film made with puppets. He is also known for using insects and other animals as protagonists of his films.

Childhood passion for entomology led his career: he began producing short documentaries in Moscow around 1909-1910, beginning with a documentary about insects in Lithuania. In his spare time, he experimented with stop-action films using beetles, which he articulated by wiring the legs to the thorax with sealing wax.

Starevich's popularity grew quickly. His third film, The Ant and The Grasshopper earned him an honor from the Tsar himself. At that time Starevich also played some comedic roles in Polish dramas, decorated props in some churches, and "people say he always drew attention to himself at the ball by wearing the most wonderful costumes."

The Russian Revolution caused Ladislas to emigrate. He fled to Paris, France, arriving in 1920, where he became known as Ladislas Starevich. He settled in a villa in Fontenay-sous-Bois, where he spent the rest of his life producing surreal, lyrical animation. With great patience and attention to detail, he wrote or adapted the stories; designed and built the puppets, sets and costumes; articulated every movement; and shot each film frame-by-frame, often without continuity notes. After 1924, his daughter, Irene, assisted him and appeared in many of his films. Fiercely independent, Starevich rejected lucrative offers from American animation studios, rather than give away creative control.

Despite his influence on many of today's animators, Starevich is under-recognized today because many of his films were considered lost, and those that exist are rarely screened.

History of French Animation Film

The history of French animation is one of the longest in the world, as France has created some of the earliest animated films dating back to the late 19th century, and invented many of the foundational technologies of early animation.

The first pictured movie was from Frenchman Émile Reynaud, who created the praxinoscope, an advanced successor to the zoetrope that could project animated films up to 16 frames long, and films of about 500~600 pictures, projected on its own Théâtre Optique at Musée Grévin in Paris, France, on 28 October 1892.

Émile Cohl (1857–1938) created what is most likely the first real animated cartoon to be drawn on paper, Fantasmagorie in 1908.

Le Roman de Renard (The Tale of the Fox), 1930/1937, directed by Ladislas Starevich. The first French animated feature film. The animation was finished in 1930 but a soundtrack was only added in 1937, and it was a German one. A French-language version was released in 1941.

A projecting praxinoscope, 1882  

Some well-known French animation -

1967 saw the release of Astérix le Gaulois (Asterix the Gaul), directed by Ray Goossens. This was the first movie based on the long-running Asterix comics; however, it was made without the knowledge of the comics' creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, and is not widely liked by fans.

Les Aventures de Tintin (The Adventures of Tintin), began in 1990, directed by Stéphane Bernasconi. This TV series is based on the famous Belgian comic of the same name.

Kirikou et la sorcière (Kirikou and the Sorceress), 1998, directed by Michel Ocelot. Critically acclaimed movie based on a West African folktale.

Les Triplettes de Belleville (The Triplets of Belleville), 2003, directed by Sylvain Chomet was nominated for two Oscars — Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for "Belleville Rendez-vous" in 2004.

Persepolis, directed by Marjane Satrapi, was released in 2007 and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

Sources:

http://www.grandbouillon.com/#!le-roman-de-renard-/c1zq

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_French_animation

http://www.awn.com/heaven_and_hell/STARE/stare1.htm

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/stop-motion/31903/the-stop-motion-animation-of-ladislas-starevich