The showing included Deitch's works: Oscar Winning Monroe, The Three Robbers, TomTerrific, film versions of Maurice Sendak's In the Knight Kitchen, and Where the Wild Things Are, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Why Mosquitos Buzz in Peoples' Ears, and Tom and Jerry.
The retrospective was the last program I attended at the Festival, and it was an interesting way to end the weekend because all of Deitch's works are hand drawn animation, while most of the other stuff I'd seen over the weekend was all digital all the way. In fact, Deitch and his wife are advocates for hand -drawn animation when it comes to children's entertainment.
Though he acknowledges the magic Pixar creates Deitch said, "Animation comes down to the story. With computers, unfortunately a lot of the characters look like plastic...and the computer is shutting out hand drawn animation, unfortunately erroneously called 2D..."
It could be argued well that hand drawn animation, the artist's hand to pen to paper rather than hand to mouse to computer, is more subjective, more of a reflection of the artist. It's more pure. On digital animation, Deitch said he doesn't understand the path many 3D animators seem to be on of trying to imitate reality. "I don't think we should be in the business of trying to animate real live action. It's a dead end. There's no way to do it exactly, so why should we try?"
Deitch's wife Zdenka, a less than 5 ft woman who he described as small but feisty, had a lot to say about this matter as well. "Done with computer, it has no heart. I prefer hand made animation because it has heart...The animator gives a life, a feeling to it..."
While watching the hand drawn animation pieces of Gene's, my thoughts were along these same lines. The morals of the stories stood out to me. When the animator draws everything her/himself, it means the artist's point of view and perspective are completely reflected in the characters, giving the experience of watching a real feeling, hmmm perhaps this could be called soul?
I talked to Gene, a man who looks about 25 years younger than his age, about the digital versus hand drawn idea after the screenings. "There's so much competition out there now for childrens' attention," he said. "We try to make something of lasting value." Deitch said he has grandchildren who live in the U.S., and he's not even sure they would be entertained by his works, compared to what he called, "The splash - bang of the stuff children watch on TV today... We're trying to create something real, with meaning," he said.
I asked Zdenka if she felt that hand drawn animation is not just for children, but adults too. "We make these not just for children...There is a lot of junk in the world. It is important to broaden the mind," she said, referring to adults watching too.
**Photo credit Hilary Hart San Francisco Film Society --Gene Deitch and his wife, Zdenka, with Festival Programmer Sean Uyehara and daughter Asta.
