toqtaqiya2 Review of The Cameraman's Revenge

The Cameraman's Revenge (1912)

A quirky animated comedy of high historical importance.

[8/10 · 19 September 2010]

The Cameraman's Revenge is a highlight in the career of the great Russian animator Ladislas Starevich (born in Moscow in 1882). The short film is a melodramatic masterpiece of love, deception and betrayal. It's considerably improved by its cinematic reflexivity, willingly acknowledging the voyeuristic and intrusive practices of film itself. Starevich was influenced by The Animated Matches (1908) by the pioneering French animator Emile Cohl. He began working at the Khanzonkow Film Production Company in 1911. His original use of live insects led to their deaths under the hot studio lights, so he had to animate models instead. The use of insects gives the material a Kafkaesque tone, exercising on the 'otherness' of insect forms to evoke the possibility of human perversity and desire. The realism of the animation led The Times to report that the insects were alive and trained by Russian scientists. Starevich's approach was pioneering because it began a tradition in stop-motion animation which in the Hollywood context became absorbed into special-effects work. Starevich's influence can be traced to films such as King Kong (1933), Jason And The Argonauts (1963), Star Wars (1977), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1992) and James And The Giant Peach (1995). Some of these even included direct tributes to Starevich's films. I highly recommend seeing The Cameraman's Revenge. It's an animation classic.