One of the most influential animators in the history of film, Ptushko’s career began in the Soviet silent era and continued into the early 1970s. He worked in genres normally ignored in the Soviet Union – fantasy, fairy tale, science fiction, surrealism, and even horror. A Ukrainian, Ptushko started his film career in 1927 by animating puppets for short films, and soon he was providing special effects for features such as Dovzhenko’s Aerograd. His first feature-length film, The New Gulliver (1935), was one of the first animated films ever made, employing stop-motion puppetry and live action. Continuing with the ornately imaginative The Stone Flower and Sadko, Ptushko created unforgettable fantasies that are still emulated in the work of Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, and Jan Svankmajer. He outfitted each frame with meticulously handcrafted figures, costumes, and sets. His late films, especially Ruslan and Ludmila, are among his best— and most delirious— elasticizing traditional narrative… read more
