|
|
Stephen and Timothy Quay were born near Philadelphia in 1947. After studies at the Philadelphia College of Art, they moved to London and attended the Royal College of Art, where they made their first puppet films. After the release of prize-winning Nocturnia Artificialia in 1980, they founded Koninck Studios in London together with Keith Griffins, whom they had met at the Royal College of Art.
In addition to puppet films, the Quays' work encompasses various animated shorts and advertising commissions (including documentaries on Punch and Judy, Stravinsky, Janácek and the art of Anamorphosis "De Artificiali Perspectiva," and station/network I.D.'s (Channel 4, MTV). They have designed theater and opera productions (Mazeppa, A Flea in Her Ear, The Love of Three Oranges) for various European venues and made music videos, including collaborating on Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer, and promos for Michael Penn and His Name is Alive.
Whether inspired by animators, composers, or writers, a middle European esthetic seems to have beckoned them into a mysterious locus of literary and poetic fragments, wisps of music, the play of light and morbid textures. Certain films can be considered homages to filmmakers whose work they admire (The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer), others present their own intuitive and visionary encounters with authors, artists and composers whose writings and compositions are transformed into the cinematic medium: Street of Crocodiles, is loosely based on Bruno Schulz's short story, "Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies," and was inspired by a print by Fragonard.
The observed incorporation of other media, which brought the Quays from 2D illustration to animation, continues in their most recent film: The Institute Benjamenta, their first full-length live-action film completed last year. The film has received awards at numerous festivals and has just been released in the US. The illustrious mastery achieved in their exquisite and uncanny animated films is continued in this film's decor, labyrinthian narrative and esthetic composition within the frame.
Whether working in animation or live-action, the Quays choose to use what they call a lateral hierarchy of cinematic formal aspects; unlike conventional films, in which the hierarchy is vertical, topped by a script and narrative, the Quays cast the Institute before the actors. "We wanted the film to move more in the direction of the fable or the fairy tale (or at least a notion of it), as Walser did obliquely. He didn't walk in the front door, he came through the roof, so to speak. Thus, in order to, score something of, as Walser called it, the 'senseless but all the same meaningful 'fairy tale," we started by casting the decor as the main actor. We felt that the essential 'mysterium' of the film should be the institute itself, as though it had its own inner life and former existence which seemed to dream upon its inhabitants, and exert its own conspiratorial spell and undertows. That time and space should be ambiguous, that the locale of the film would be less geographical than spiritual, all to score that particularly Walserian half-waking, half-sleeping 'world in between.' And, since we've always maintained a belief in the illogical, the irrational ... and the obliqueness of poetry, we don't think exclusively in terms of narrative, but also the 'parenthesis' that lay hidden behind the narrative." A gesture to their loyalty to puppet film aesthetics, the Quays' remarked that they "treated the actors with as much respect as we treated our puppets." They are currently working on a new live-action feature project, which will once again incorporate animated sequences, further exploring the melange of these two techniques.
Seen as a whole, the Brothers Quay's works are independent of any definable genre; indeed, the imitation of their unique style which can be observed in films of other animators are a complimentary gesture to the auteur style they have developed. Throughout their opus, a continuity can be observed Quays' devotion to the marginal, the nobody and the unnoticed, elevated into the sublime.
Their films are unbound by time, preferring to investigate what they call "a poetry of shadowy encounters and almost conspiratorial secretiveness." Whether commissioned or independently produced by long-time collaborator Keith Griffiths, Institute Benjamenta retains the unique signature which informs their work. "We like going for long walks, metaphorically, into whatever country we go to--we could disappear in any country." For the Quays, the realm of animation remains a favored locus of future cinematic sojourn.
Excerpts from the article Shifting Realities: The Brothers Quay--Between Live Action and Animation by Suzanne Buchan.
NOCTURNA ARTIFICIALIA (21 mins) (1979)
EIN BRUDERMORD (5 mins) (1981)
IGOR - THE PARIS YEARS CHEZ PLEYEL (26 mins) (1982)
LEOS JANACEK: INTIMATE EXCURSIONS (26 mins) (1983)
THE CABINET OF JAN SVANKMAJER (14 mins) (1984)
THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH [aka THIS UNNAMEABLE LITTLE BROOM] (11 mins) (1985)
STREET OF CROCODILES (21 mins) (1986)
REHEARSALS FOR EXTINCT ANATOMIES (14 mins) (1987)
DRAMOLET (STILLE NACHT I) (2 mins) (1988)
EX-VOTO (1 min) (1989)
THE COMB (FROM THE MUSEUMS OF SLEEP)
(1991-short)
DE ARTIFICIALI PERSPECTIVA or ANAMORPHOSIS (14 mins) (1991)
THE CALLIGRAPHER Parts I, II, III (1 min) (1991)
ARE WE STILL MARRIED? (STILLE NACHT II)
(1991-short)
LONG WAY DOWN (LOOK WHAT THE CAT DRUG IN) (3 mins) (1992)
TALES FROM THE VIENNA WOODS (STILLE NACHT III) (3 mins) (1992)
CAN'T GO WRONG WITHOUT YOU (STILLE NACHT IV) (3 mins) (1993)
INSTITUTE BENJAMENTA
(1995-feature)
| FILM | TELEVISION | LEGENDS | DICTIONARY | STORE |
Please e-mail and let me know what you think. I'm open to any comments
or suggestion that you think would help this page.
send
email to Jim Rodkey.
