Boasting the biggest budget for one of their short films (both then and to date), Street of Crocodiles was the first Quay Brothers film since Nocturna Artificialia (1979) to be conceived from the outset as a self-contained work. Though the BFI Production Board insisted on a recognised literary source as a condition of funding, the Quays responded by licensing a story by the Polish author Bruno Schulz, whose writing relies more on dream-logic than conventional narrative. They also departed considerably from the original, notably in the ‘dance routine’ involving an assortment of screws. Improvised during production, it nonetheless chimes perfectly with the Schulzian universe.

This universe is entered via an old-fashioned kinetoscope machine, examined in the opening scene by a (live-action) caretaker, who brings the mechanism to life with a gobbet of saliva before cutting the strings of the puppet protagonist, allowing him to roam free. The rest of the film depicts the puppet exploring an occasionally familiar but more often decidedly unsettling netherworld, where laws of physics and perspective no longer apply, bizarre machines perform pointlessly repetitive and unproductive tasks and a small urchin brings supposedly inanimate objects to life by casting reflected light upon them.

Ultimately, the explorer’s journey concludes in a strange tailoring establishment, where he is surrounded by a trio of sinister, vaguely female figures with hollowed-out heads (each stamped with a serial number on the back), gliding as though propelled by a higher power. The tailor is portrayed as a megalomaniacal figure remodelling the world in his own image (he owns a map of Poland that is physically stitched together with yellow sutures). The rear room of his shop is full of dark and disturbing imagery: sexualised anatomical cross-sections, pulsing animal (or human?) organs riddled with pins, a woman’s shoe whose high heel consists of a screw.

The increased budget allowed the Quays to shoot in 35mm for the first time, which allowed them to pay much more attention to texture, fine detail and the quality of the light. The impression of a long-dormant civilisation is conveyed by the volume of dust, grime and discarded objects (illustrating Schulz’s notion of a “degraded reality”). The Eastern European feel is further enhanced by the scratchy, spiky score by Leszek Jankowski, who wrote and recorded the music before the film was made, and who was so taken with the end result that he became the Quays’ regular composer. —Michael Brooke, BFI

Director

Stephen Quay

The Quay brothers are identical twin brothers born outside Philadelphia, in Norristown, Pennsylvania. They studied Film and Illustration at the Philadelphia College of Art {1965-1969} followed by a Masters Degree in London at the Royal College of Art {1969-1972} where they continued their studies in Illustration and Film, particularly the latter, where they made three short animation films. Returning to America they attempted to make a living from free-lance book illustration out of New York, though economically times were difficult. In terms of their work, there was an increasing frustration with the two-dimensional graphic realm of drawing and little by little they gravitated towards wanting to create in miniature (in the manner of Joseph Cornell’s boxes) powerful three-dimensional realms, using puppets and objects through the medium of film animation. In 1978 they received a National Endowment Grant for the Arts. They travelled throughout England, Belgium and Holland researching… read more

The Quay brothers are identical twin brothers born outside Philadelphia, in Norristown, Pennsylvania. They studied Film and Illustration at the Philadelphia College of Art {1965-1969} followed by a Masters Degree in London at the Royal College of Art {1969-1972} where they continued their studies in Illustration and Film, particularly the latter, where they made three short animation films. Returning to America they attempted to make a living from free-lance book illustration out of New York, though economically times were difficult. In terms of their work, there was an increasing frustration with the two-dimensional graphic realm of drawing and little by little they gravitated towards wanting to create in miniature (in the manner of Joseph Cornell’s boxes) powerful three-dimensional realms, using puppets and objects through the medium of film animation. In 1978 they received a National Endowment Grant for the Arts. They travelled throughout England, Belgium and Holland researching and looking at the craft of puppetry. Whilst in London a former colleague from the Royal College of Art, Keith Griffiths was working as Deputy Head of Production for the British Film Institute Production Board, and suggested that they make an application for ‘‘experimental’’ film funding. They promptly drafted a scenario for a short puppet animation film and then left for Holland. Some months later they received a telegram saying that they had been awarded the B.F.I. grant.

They returned to London and “a little like James Joyce who, upon his arrival in Paris planned on staying for only two weeks and instead remained 25 years. In our case, we had planned on staying a mere 9 months in order to execute the film but similarly have ended up staying some 25 years as well. Our first film lead to a second film, then a third and a fourth, etc”. By this time they had formed a small company “KONINCK” together with producer Keith Griffiths and over the past 24 years have made a hybrid variety of puppet animation films: Documentaries (Punch and Judy, Stravinsky & Janacek, The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer, Anamorphosis, The Phantom Museum); Interludes & Stings (BBC, MTV); Commercials (for Englandand America); as well as Fiction Films inspired by the writings of Kafka, Bruno Schulz (Street of Crocodiles), Robert
Walser (The Comb, Institute Benjamenta – a live-action feature film). Recently, for Channel Four they have directed as part of a dance series called “Choreographers and Filmmakers” Duet – an 18 min. ballet by Will Tuckett from the Royal Ballet. For the BBC as part of its Sound and Image series they collaborated with the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen who wrote the music for their film In Absentia. They did a further collaboration with the choreographer Will Tuckett, a 40 min. film based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman.

Apart from the films, their work also includes designing the scenography for Theatre, Opera and Ballet productions both in London and Europe. —Celluloid Dreams

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Timothy Quay

Stephen and Timothy Quay (born June 17, 1947 in Norristown, Pennsylvania) are American identical twin brothers better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They are influential stop-motion animators. They are the recipients of the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for their work on the play The Chairs.

They reside and work in England, having moved there in 1969 to study at the Royal College of Art, London after studying illustration at the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. In England they made their first short films, which no longer exist after the only print was irreparably damaged.[citation needed] They spent some time in the Netherlands in the 1970s and then returned to England where they teamed up with another Royal College student, Keith Griffiths, who produced all of their films. The trio formed Koninck Studios in 1980, which is currently based in Southwark, south London.

The Quays’ works (1979-present… read more

Stephen and Timothy Quay (born June 17, 1947 in Norristown, Pennsylvania) are American identical twin brothers better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They are influential stop-motion animators. They are the recipients of the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for their work on the play The Chairs.

They reside and work in England, having moved there in 1969 to study at the Royal College of Art, London after studying illustration at the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. In England they made their first short films, which no longer exist after the only print was irreparably damaged.[citation needed] They spent some time in the Netherlands in the 1970s and then returned to England where they teamed up with another Royal College student, Keith Griffiths, who produced all of their films. The trio formed Koninck Studios in 1980, which is currently based in Southwark, south London.

The Quays’ works (1979-present) show a wide range of often esoteric influences, starting with the Polish animators Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica and continuing with the writers Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Robert Walser and Michel de Ghelderode, puppeteers Wladyslaw Starewicz and Richard Teschner and composers Leoš Janáček, Zdeněk Liška and Leszek Jankowski, the last of whom has created many original scores for their work. Czech animator Jan Švankmajer, for whom they named one of their films (The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer), is also frequently cited as a major influence, but they actually discovered his work relatively late, in 1983, by which time their characteristic style and preoccupations had been fully formed.²

Most of their films feature dolls, often partially disassembled, in a dark, moody atmosphere. Perhaps their best known work is Street of Crocodiles, based on the short novel of the same name by the Polish author and artist Bruno Schulz. This short film was selected by director and animator Terry Gilliam as one of the ten best animated films of all time, and critic Jonathan Romney included it on his list of the ten best films in any medium (for Sight and Sound’s 2002 critics’ poll). They have made two feature-length live action films: Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life and The Piano Tuner Of Earthquakes. They also directed an animated sequence in the film Frida.

With very few exceptions, their films have no meaningful spoken dialogue—most have no spoken content at all, while some, like The Comb (1990) include multilingual background gibberish that is not supposed to be coherently understood. Accordingly, their films are highly reliant on their music scores, many of which have been written especially for them by the Polish composer Leszek Jankowski. In 2000, they contributed a short film to the BBC’s Sound On Film series in which they visualised a 20-minute piece by the avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Whenever possible, the Quays prefer to work with pre-recorded music, though Gary Tarn’s score for The Phantom Museum had to be added afterwards when it proved impossible to licence music by the Czech composer Zdeněk Liška.

They have created music videos for His Name Is Alive (“Are We Still Married”, “Can’t Go Wrong Without You”), Michael Penn (“Long Way Down (Look What the Cat Drug In)”) and 16 Horsepower (“Black Soul Choir”). Some people mistakenly believe that the Quays are responsible for several music videos for Tool, but those videos were created by Fred Stuhr and member Adam Jones, whose work is influenced by the Quays. Although they worked on Peter Gabriel’s seminal video “Sledgehammer” (1986) as animators, this was directed by Stephen R. Johnson and the Quays were unhappy with their contribution, believing it to be more imitative of Švankmajer’s work than truly distinctive in its own right.

Their work also includes decors for the Theatre and Opera productions of director Richard Jones: Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges; Feydeau’s “A Flea in Her Ear”; Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa; and Molière’s “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.”. Their set design for a revival of Ionesco’s “The Chairs” was nominated for a Tony Award in 1998.

Before turning to film, they worked as professional illustrators. The first edition of Anthony Burgess’ novel “The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby’s End”, features their drawings before the start of each chapter. Nearly three decades before directly collaborating with Stockhausen, they designed the cover of the book Stockhausen: Conversations with the Composer (ed. Jonathan Cott, Simon & Schuster, 1973). —Wikipedia

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