Wladyslaw Starewicz, The Bug Trainer, Stop Motion, and the bugs eating your brain.

Wladyslaw Starewicz‘ childhood passion for entomology led his career: he began producing short documentaries in Moscow around 1909-1910, beginning with a documentary about insects in Lithuania. In his spare time, he experimented with stop-action films using beetles, which he articulated by wiring the legs to the thorax with sealing wax! This, of course, led to his big breakthrough, released by the Van Kanjonkov Studio of Moscow: “The Battle of the Stag Beetles”, the first puppet-animated film.

[Note: Emile Cohl previously used stop-motion animation to make a public service announcement film, “The Animated Matches,” in 1908… Starewicz was the first to do anything more advanced (i.e., using puppets, telling a story) with the technique.]

In particular, Starewicz’s 1933 short “The Mascot” plays like a blueprint for the style of Tim Burton productions like The Nightmare Before Christmas, with its large cast of bizarre dolls and puppets brought to life by painstaking stop-motion work. It’s impressive even by today’s standards.

Before Wallace and Grommett and Gumby, The film industry of the Soviet Union was producing some of the best examples of stop-motion animation, or ‘claymation’, in the world. Themes of these cartoons ranged from didactic propaganda to children’s entertainment, such as the beloved Cheburashka series. Click here to watch a short documentary about Aleksandr Ptushko, the Walt Disney of the USSR.Click here to watch another children’s claymation feature.

‪Nikchemuchka (Useless Doll) Ukrainian Soviet Macro Stopmotion Cartoon

Entomology and Animation: A Portrait of
An Early Master Ladislaw Starewicz
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Most of Starewicz’s adaptations are rooted in Eastern European folktale tradition, and his fervent characters and effectual storytelling strongly reflect this heritage. An excellent example of this genre, but with a modern twist, is The Cameraman’s Revenge (1912). This is the story of Mr. and Mrs. Beetle whose home life is rather dull. In search of spontaneity and change, each one cheats on the other. Mr. Beetle meets the beautiful Dragonfly, and heartlessly steals her away from her lover Mr. Grasshopper. The Grasshopper, being a cameraman, begins his plot of revenge by filming Mr. Beetle’s affair with the Dragonfly. Before this revenge unfolds, however, Mr. Beetle happens to catch his wife at home with another insect, the artist. The irascible hypocrite that he is, Mr. Beetle throws a fit, smashes things in the house and gets rough with Mrs. Beetle. Eventually he forgives her, and takes her to a movie. Unbeknownst to him the projectionist at the theater is Mr. Grasshopper, who runs the footage he shot of Mr. Beetle and Miss Dragonfly having their fling. The cheering, insect audience loves this spontaneous slice of life, but Mrs. Beetle has other thoughts and chases her husband straight through the movie screen and out of the theater. In the end, Mr. and Mrs. Beetle humbly return home content with their old lifestyle.

‪Ladislaw Starewicz – Cameraman’s Revenge

‪Ladislaw Starewicz – The Devil’s Ball

‪The Mascot (part 1) – Ladislas Starewicz (Puppet Love)‬
‪The Mascot (part 2) – Ladislas Starewicz (The Devil’s Ball – Puppet Love)
‪The Mascot (part 3) – Ladislas Starewicz (Puppet Love)‬
Excerpt from the 1934 animated film “The Mascot” by Ladislas Starevitch. Song taken from “Beekeeper debut EP”

‪Ladislaw Starewicz Vladislav Starevich 1926 Le Rat des villes et le Rat des champs‬

‪Miaou! – Le Roman de Renard – Ladislas Starevitch

‪The Lily of Belgium‬

WLADYSLAW STAREWICZ – FROGLAND 1922

Winter Carousel (1958) “Carrousel Boreal” (Ladislaw Starewitch) French Stop-Motion

‪Voice of the Nightingale – Wladyslaw Starewicz (1923) Part 1/2‬
‪Voice of the Nightingale – Wladyslaw Starewicz (1923) Part 2/2‬

Le Lion Devenu Vieux – Ladislaw Starewicz, 1932

‪Fleur De Fougere : by Ladislaw Starewicz :PART 1/3‬
‪Fleur De Fougere : by Ladislaw Starewicz :PART 2/3‬
‪Fleur De Fougere : by Ladislaw Starewicz :PART 3/3‬

Ladislaw Starewicz – The Navigator (1936)