Motion picture cоmpany
SYNOPSIS
for feature animated film
subtitle:
Animated history of Serbian and ex-Yu caricature
Author: Vera Vlajić
Duration: 75 minutes
The idea of this film is to unify and summarize the history of Serbian caricature in an animated form, marking events, historical circumstances and personalities that created this distinctive artistic expression by affirming the universal graphic values.
The widespread application and popularity of caricature has a foothold in its essence, which is to directly interpret certain ideas and situations through one or several drawings. Its social engagement in interpreting current events or conveying certain philosophical thoughts in a satirical, parodic, metaphorical, mocking way, always had the goal of making the one to whom it was addressed laugh, and that is the press reader, be it daily newspapers, periodicals, or magazines specializing in cultivating laughter and humor.
If we accept the interpretation that "caricature" is a funny description or drawing of a face or event and that "adventure" is a bold and risky venture,
then the title of this film provides plenty of room for interpretation of why the "CARICATURE ADVENTURES".
Its adventures start from an idea that is cooked up in the head of its creator, then with the first lines that create the drawing, followed by its printing, copying in hundreds, even thousands of copies, until it reaches those it makes smile, think or quickly forget everything about it.
Its adventures are also reflected in its encounter with other caricatures, with other visual and graphic expressions.
The moment when the author of the caricature separates from it by handing it over to newspaper publishers, it no longer belongs only to him or her, it begins to live its own independent life, like any art or just a piece of funny satirical information.
And that is where its real adventure begins because:
Thus, from its creation, the caricature goes through an exciting life, full of uncertainty, surprises, danger, destruction, but also glory, glorification, and, in some cases even has the chance to become immortal.
A new era in the development of the Serbian press began with the opening of the lithographic department of the Belgrade printing house in 1846, as the necessary technical conditions for more modern illustration of books and newspaper texts were created, which had a very favorable effect on the development of the caricature.
In 1850s or almost simultaneously with the caricatures drawn by the creator of modern caricature, Honoré Daumier (1808-1879), the first Serbian caricatures were created: humorous and satirical drawings, whose authors usually remained anonymous.
Caricature in Serbia, and especially in the cultural and political life of Belgrade, was permanently torn between daily journalistic needs and true artistic values.
Pioneers of Serbian caricature were famous painters and writers: the founder of Serbian caricature in the middle of the last century was Dimitrije Avramović, writer and painter - who displayed both his talents in this very medium. Avramović's caricatures with political character, appeared at the time "when the Serbian people started to fight for their national and political rights also through drawings" (Z. Janc).
In the last three decades of the 19th century, numerous periodically published humorous and satirical newspapers and almanacs appeared in Belgrade and Novi Sad. They were launched easily and shutdown even more easily, and in addition to humorous texts, they fostered humorous drawings. These are publications such as "Brka" ("Moustache Man") 1883, "Dar mar" ("Kerfuffle") 1885, or "Bič" ("Whip") 1899.
That was convincingly evidenced by the exhibition "Old Serbian Caricature" organized at the Belgrade Museum of Applied Arts in 1968, which was prepared and set up by Zagorka Janc, and NIP "Politika" participated in the realization of this exhibition as a patron - the oldest and most respectable Belgrade daily, which in 1923 introduced engaged caricature as a current commentary to everyday life, but also affirming it as a work of universal graphic value.
In a commentary on the occasion of this exhibition written by N. A. Kun in the catalogue, particularly interesting is the part in which he described the time and circumstances when our caricature emerged:
"The aspiration and efforts of a young civil society in the rebuilt Serbian state to enter the ranks of the neighbors who developed in more favorable historical conditions have led to the thriving of all the cultural life flows of that time. But at the same all the opposites of his new class society emerged and opposed each other. In such conditions, humor and satire had a favorable ground to develop as a possible and popular means of contemplating and distorting certain social, political and moral phenomena. Numerous humorous magazines were looking for illustrators for their texts. There was a small number of well-known, an a larger one of anonymous painters and drawers who accepted caricature as a unique artistic expression for direct interpretation of certain ideas to the reader. This exhibition confirms the widespread application and popularity of caricature, and above all its social engagement, which gives it content and maintains its continuous development and actuality to our day ... "
And Zagorka Janc, who prepared this exhibition, adds: "The innate folk sense of humor gets a more prominent place in the Serbian press with this new way of artistic expression. Over time, these first, in fact grotesque drawings, gradually developed into a true journalistic caricature that looks at the world from a specific angle and speaks a special language of allusions and allegories.
It can be said that these caricatures later became true illustrated chronicle of political and economic conditions and a mirror of world events, projected in our small country full of great ambitions.
However, until the beginning of the 20th century, the real artistic caricature was not developed in Serbia as a specific graphic genre.
At the beginning of the 20th century, in 1902, the magazine "Satir" starts to be published in Belgrade, whose initiator was Brana Cvetković - painter, actor and journalist - a versatile personality, a man whom we can consider to be the father of our newspaper caricature, a true caricaturist in Serbia.
His caricature "Nušić on horseback", made in 1910, exudes drawing naivety, and innocent humorous accents are dressed in an expressively strong form.
Of course, only with the emergence of Beta Vukanović - who displayed a series of portrait caricatures of eminent public figures, mostly from cultural life, at the "Lada" group exhibition in 1910, a new, mature chapter in Serbian caricature started. A student of the Munich School of Painting, Beta Vukanović raised Serbian culture to an enviable artistic level, marking the beginning of "artistic caricature" in the Belgrade area, just like Pjer Križanić, about ten years later, marked the beginning of modern "political caricature".
It is important to note here that after the First World War, a state was created in the Balkans that included the territory of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, FYR Macedonia and Montenegro, which was called Yugoslavia. It functioned from 1918 until the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century, i.e. the beginning of the 1990s, and represented a unique political, economical and cultural space. This is also important because during this period caricaturists from all these areas published their caricatures in Serbian newspapers and magazines and thus contributed to the development of Serbian caricature.
In May 1924, in the hall of the Second Belgrade High School, the f i r s t caricature exhibition was held in Belgrade, whose initiator and organizer was Rista Odavić. At this pioneer caricature exhibition, among the exhibitors were: Branko Petrović, Dragoslav Stojanović, Pjer Križanić, Steva Milosavljević, Bogosav Vojinović - Pelikan as well as Beta Vukanović.
Writing about this exhibition of caricatures, which undoubtedly represents a significant date in our cultural history, critic Momčilo Živanović states in the magazine "Misao" ("Thought"), in 1924, that this exhibition was "a true feat", giving some thoughts on caricatures: "... To caricature means to see what is most characteristic in the appearance of a person, an animal, object, or whatever the situation in one event, then emphasize what is essentially characteristic in the given case to the comical, in the satirical or humanistic sense. Of course, in this hyper-caricaturing one can only go up to certain boundaries, otherwise, when these are crossed, it is easy to fall from the caricature into an unpleasant grotesque, which a skillful caricaturist will never do."
A few years before the start of the Second World War, in 1935, following the agreement at the "Ginić" restaurant - a group of Belgrade intellectuals launched an independent humor magazine "Ošišani jež" ("Trimmed Hedgehog").
The novelist Dobrosav Kuzmić, the initiator of this idea, recalls how "Ošišani jež" was born, in his memories of 1975 when "Jež" celebrated its 40th anniversary: "As early as mid-December 1934, - at the "Ginić" restaurant, in the present-day Makedonska street in Belgrade, where journalists and artists gathered, the idea of establishing a humor magazine originated. The so-called "Ginićevci" believed that the time had come to start a humorous and satirical magazine, as the material for it was abundant, and the only thing they feared was censorship".
Among others, participants included: Pjer Križanić, "Politika" caricaturist, Milivoj Mima Predić, journalist - writer, Stanislav Vinaver, journalist - writer, Todor Paranos, journalist, Branislav Dimitrijević - Brandim, professor, Sabahadin Hodžić, caricaturist and others. At the suggestion of Mima Predić, the magazine was named "Ošišani Jež" ("Trimmed Hedgehog"), and Sabahadin Hodžić became its first professional caricaturist.
Already from the first issue, the best artists of that time gather around "Ošišani jež", representatives of different generations of laughter drawers- starting from Brana Cvetković, Beta Vukadinović and Pjer Križanić, to many Belgrade painters, architects and comic strip artists: Ivan Lučev, Dragoslav Stojanović, Miloš Vušković, Đorđe Lobačev, Desa Jovanović - Glišić, Milorad Ćirić, Stipe Pekić, Nikola Tiščenko and others.
It was at a time when Belgrade was one of the leading centers of European comics, whose authors were firstly Russian emigrants whose families, after the October Revolution, settled in hospitable Belgrade: Solovyov, Lobachev, and Kuznetsov.
This pre-war caricature, enriched with comic book drawing experiences, was highly anti-fascist-oriented, and also provided a very precise image of a civil world in disarray, in which many political parties were futilely vying for power - increasingly chaotic social situation led to the inevitable breakdown of the country in 1941, but that did not automatically mean the end of that secret "dialogue with history" led by the Belgrade caricaturists...
Although the bombing of Belgrade on April 6, 1941 interrupted the life of "Ošišani jež", the continuity of Belgrade caricature was not interrupted, the period of the war caricature came.
Between 1941 and 1945, "Ošišani jež" was not printed nor did its most respected contributors published their works. However, two new "Jež"-like editions appeared during this period, printed in primitive technique, under impossible conditions, both in 1944. "Logorski jež" ("Concentration camp hedgehog"), written and drawn by hand, in a few copies, which was issued by prisoners-detainees in German concentration camp Osnabrück, exposing themselves to mortal danger, but implying, defiantly and brazenly, in many naive drawings and provocative texts, the imminent collapse of fascism, and "Partizanski jež" ("Partisan hedgehog") which was printed in the liberated Partisan territory in Croatia, initiated by caricaturist Vilim Čerić, associate of the pre-war "Ošišani jež", in which he published stylized caricatures, in the manner of English artists! Although the caricatures from this period have an exclusively documentary value, giving evidence primarily about the high morale of its authors, the engaged "Jež" style caricature, however, lived in difficult war conditions, and numerous anonymous drawers, in their own humble way, bore witness to its unbreakable antifascist spirit.
Already in 1945, the magazine "Jež" was launched in the liberated Belgrade, where the leading pre-war caricaturists gathered again: Pjer, Lučev, Hodžić, Ćirić, Vušković, Lobachev, Desa, - those who managed to survive the war and to adapt the style of the pre-war politically engaged caricature to the needs of a new society and a new era. They were soon joined by the new young artists, some of whom are former fighters, fostering the daily newspaper caricature of quite different drawing profiles, Kušanić, Džumhur, Savić, D. Jovanović, Dobrić, Pavlović, Živadinović, Krnjetin, Nastić. There are real "line drawing poets" among them, such as Džumhur, Savić, Živadinović, but also artists who created "little jokes" borrowed from everyday life, such as Kušanić, Dobrić, Pavlović.
Post-war caricaturist, like those before the war, deal predominantly with "big topics", continuing the "dialogue with history", started with pre-war contending with fascism, and all this lasts until 1948, until the period of contending with Stalinism, when the influence of domestic agitprop begins to weaken.
The modern Serbian caricature chapter was opened at the beginning of the 20th century, its maturity occupied the center, and it achieved full domestic and international recognition in the second half of the century.
While the dogmatic way of thinking is slowly breaking and Yugoslavia is opening to the world more radically thanks to Western loans already in the late 1950s, a completely new generation of artists of laughter emerge, unburdened by the big historical themes and contending, which begins its long-time "dialogue with everyday life" using the language of drawn satire.
With series of "small jokes", well-drawn but abundantly supported by verbal humor, these authors begin to comment on the new current phenomena in social life, starting from the fight against the increasingly powerful and arrogant bureaucratic forces, through describing the stubborn Balkan mentality in new social conditions, to lucidly monitoring a variety of anti-dogmatic processes!
This new generation of caricaturists includes authors from the ranks of Belgrade painters and architects, the members of the group called "Ogledalo" ("Mirror"). Some are engaged in animation, creating foundations of "the Belgrade school of animated cartoon", such as Ivanović, Rudić, some experiment with various fine art techniques, such as Koraksić, Rumenčić, and some opt exclusively for the current newspaper caricature, such as Katić.
In time, they are joined by many younger authors with increasingly modern drawing sensibility, who perceive caricature as a universal graphic and metaphorical expression, such as Jovanović, Šajtinac, Petričić, Vlahović, Džoja, Zečević, Milikić, Mihatov, Milanović, Ubović, Borković, to the new names......,
Moša Pijade wrote the following about caricature in the magazine "Borba" ("Combat") in 1953: "A good caricature can often say more and achieve a greater effect than a good and witty article. There can be no caricature without exaggeration. It is difficult to say where the limit of exaggeration is, and it depends on the artist's talent, on the power of his fantasy. But the beauty of caricature is in the fact that despite exaggeration it seems true".
In February 1980, Lazar Trifunović wrote the following about caricature on the occasion of the exhibition of drawings and caricatures by Dragan Savić: "Two elements determine the value of caricaturists: the ability to see the problem and to separate its essence from the side layer, and the skill to deform the form to the impossible, maintaining the structure. The more incredible the caricature, the more effective and efficient its message".
In 1989, Slobodan Novaković writes the following about caricature in the book "Smeha crtači" ("Laughter Drawers"): "In this eternal "dialogue with history" which they turned into caricature, but also with everyday life, which they turned into history by using the language of caricature, Serbian caricaturists were on the side of the social progress in every new epoch, in every new socio-historical situation, contending consistently and persistently with all those destructive forces, political and social, that have threatened the foundations of humanistic values on this soil".
So this film will connect historical events and interpretation of these events through caricature, giving special importance to the peronalities who left their imprint as authors and contributed to the importance of this art for Serbian culture as well as the space that for over seventy years was the common cultural space of nations that lived in a country called Yugoslavia.
Using the language of the animated film, its artistic connection with the caricature, that is now animated, the CARICATURE ADVENTURES will insist on what is essential to caricature, and that is laughter.
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