Karel Zeman - Фильмы

A true successor to Жорж Мельес and a wizard of the big screen, as he was often called, Карел Земан was born in hradec králové near Nová Paka in northern Bohemia. A brilliant pioneer of special effects in film, he is still one of the few Czech directors to be universally recognized in the world of cinema. Ever since his childhood he had adored puppets and performed with them in a puppet theater. Despite his artistic talent his parents insisted he study business at high school in Kolín. At the age of 17, responding to advertisement in a newspaper, he went to Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, where he studied advertising design. While in France, he frequently visited the cinema, and became especially interested in animated movies. He was to put this knowledge to good use in his own first attempt at анимация – an advertisement for soap. He traveled widely in his youth, hiking in Morocco, Egypt, Yugoslavia and Greece. After his military service, he returned to work in advertising, and, in 1939, he was about to make an extended trip to Casablanca in Morocco, as a representative of the Báťa shoe company, but failed to get the necessary papers from the then Protectorate authorities in time and in the end he had to stay put. He then began working as head of the advertising section of a department store in Brno. In 1943, the film director Elmar Klos was sent to make a report about a window-dressing competition which Земан had recently won. Klos was so taken by Zeman's work that he immediately offered him a job at the Bata Film Studios, in the Kudlov suburb of Злин. Thus began the professional career of this later world famous film director and production designer. Земан often had to struggle against difficult условия in the technically ill-equipped Kudlov Studios. Many of the workers with whom he started had no particular experience of filming. They, like Земан himself, had to learn everything on the job. Gradually a coordinated creative team emerged. Journey to the Beginning of Time released in 1955 became Zeman's breakthrough кино, his first to сочетает в себе живое действие, animation and puppetry. Four years later, Изобретение for Уничтожения saw him shoot to world-wide success. The film was sold immediately to 72 countries and became the most successful Czech film of all time. Земан continued to develop his highly successful use of special effects in The Fabulous Baron Munchausen and the two Жюль Верн адаптации that followed. In the 1970's, partly motivated by his love for children and the desire to create фильмы specially for them - but also in part because of the difficulty of shooting live action movies - Земан returned to making strictly анимированные фильмы. Among Zeman's close associates were the composer Зденек Лишка, animator Арношт Kupčík, менеджер по производству Карел Hutěčka and his daughter Людмила, co-creator of his films from The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor onwards. In the late 70's Земан was threatened with the loss of his sight, but he overcame the disease and continued working. In the final stages of his life he suffered from heart problems. Карел Земан died in Zlín on April 5, 1989.