Tale of Tales

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Tale of Tales
Little Grey Wolf from Tale of Tales
Directed by	Yuriy Norshteyn
Produced by	Soyuzmultfilm
Written by	Lyudmila Petrushevskaya Yuriy Norshteyn
Starring	Alexander Kalyagin
Music by	Mikhail Meyerovich Johann Sebastian Bach Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Cinematography	Igor Skidan-Bossin
Editing by	Nadezhda Treshcheva Natalya Abramova
Release date(s)	1979 (USSR)
Running time	29 min 3 sec
Country	USSR
Language	Russian
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Tale of Tales (Russian: Ска́зка ска́зок, Skazka skazok) is a 1979 Soviet animated film directed by Yuriy Norshteyn and produced by the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow. It has won numerous awards, and has been acclaimed by critics and other animators as the greatest animated film of all time.^[1] It has been the subject of a 2005 book by Clare Kitson titled Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales: An Animator's Journey.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Music and poetry 3 Awards 4 Creators 5 Cultural influence 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Plot

Tale of Tales, like Tarkovsky's Mirror, attempts to structure itself like a human memory. Memories are not recalled in neat chronological order; instead, they are recalled by the association of one thing with another, which means that any attempt to put memory on film cannot be told like a conventional narrative. The film is thus made up of a series of related sequences whose scenes are interspersed between each other. One of the primary themes involves war, with particular emphasis on the enormous losses the Soviet Union suffered on the Eastern Front during World War II. Several recurring characters and their interactions make up a large part of the film, such as the poet, the little girl and the bull, the little boy and the crows, the dancers and the soldiers, and especially the little grey wolf (Russian: се́ренький волчо́к, syeryenkiy volchok). Another symbol connecting nearly all of these different themes are green apples (which may symbolize life, hope, or potential).

Yuriy Norshteyn wrote in Iskusstvo Kino magazine that the film is "about simple concepts that give you the strength to live."^[2]

[edit] Music and poetry

In addition to the original score composed by Mikhail Meyerovich, this film makes use of several other pieces of music. Excerpts from works by Bach (notably the E flat minor Prelude BWV 853 (from The Well-Tempered Clavier)) and Mozart are present, and the World War II era tango Weary Sun, written by Jerzy Petersburski, features prominently. However, the most important musical inspiration is the following traditional Russian lullaby, which is included in the film in both instrumental and vocal form.

Russian	Transliteration	English translation
Баю-баюшки-баю, Не ложися на краю. Придёт серенький волчок, Он ухватит за бочок И утащит во лесок Под ракитовый кусток.	Bayu-bayushki-bayu, Ne lozhisya na krayu. Pridyot serenkiy volchok, On ukhvatit za bochok I utashchit vo lesok Pod rakitovy kustok.	Baby, baby, rock-a-bye On the edge you mustn't lie Or the little grey wolf will come And will nip you on the tum, Tug you off into the wood Underneath the willow-root.

Many situations in the film actually derive from this lullaby, as well as the character of the little grey wolf. Indeed, the film's original title (rejected by the Soviet censors) was The Little Grey Wolf Will Come.

The name Tale of Tales came from a poem of the same name by Turkish poet Nazım Hikmet that Norshteyn loved since 1962.^[3][4]

Russian	Transliteration	English translation
Стоим над водой - солнце, кошка, чинара, я	Stoim nad vodoy - solntse, koshka, chinara, ya	We stand above the water - sun, cat, plane tree, me
и наша судьба.	i nasha sud'ba.	and our destiny.
Вода прохладная,	Voda proxladnaya,	The water is cool,
Чинара высокая,	Chinara vysokaya,	The plane tree is tall,
Солнце светит,	Solntse svyetit,	The sun is shining,
Кошка дремлет,	Koshka dryemlyet,	The cat is dozing,
Я стихи сочиняю.	Ya stihi sochinyayu	I write verses.
Слава Богу, живем!..	Slava Bogu, zhivyom!..	Thank God, we live!..

[edit] Awards

• 1980—Lille (France) International Festival of Films: Jury Grand Prize
• 1980—Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films: Grand Prize
• 1980—Ottawa (Canada) International Animation Festival: Best Film Longer Than Three Minutes Award
• 1984—Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival: voted by large international jury to be the greatest animated film of all time^[5]
• 2002—Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films: again voted by large international jury to be the greatest animated film of all time

[edit] Creators

Director	Yuriy Norshteyn (Ю́рий Норште́йн)
Writers	Lyudmila Petrushevskaya (Людми́ла Петруше́вская) Yuriy Norshteyn (Юрий Норштейн)
Art Director	Franchesca Yarbusova (Франче́ска Ярбусова)
Animator	Yuriy Norshteyn (Ю́рий Норште́йн)
Camera Operator	Igor Skidan-Bossin (И́горь Скидан-Босин)
Executive Producer	G. Kovrov (Г. Ковро́в)
Composer	Mikhail Meyerovich (Михаи́л Меерови́ч)
Sound Operator	Boris Filchikov (Бори́с Фильчико́в)
Script Editor	Natalya Abramova (Ната́лья Абрамова)
Voice Actor	Alexander Kalyagin (Алекса́ндр Каля́гин) as Little Grey Wolf
Film Editor	Nadezhda Treshcheva (Наде́жда Трещёва)

[edit] Cultural influence

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (August 2007)

The Australian electronic duo The Presets paid homage to Tale of Tales in the video of their song "Girl and the Sea" from their first album Beams.^[6]

[edit] See also

• History of Russian animation
• Films that have been considered the greatest ever
• List of films based on poems
• List of stop-motion films

[edit] References

1. ^ Sweet little mystery | | guardian.co.uk Arts
2. ^ CONTEXT - This Week in Arts and Ideas from The Moscow Times
3. ^ Russian Madison | Новости русскоязычного Мэдисона | Article
4. ^ Sweet little mystery | | guardian.co.uk Arts
5. ^ The Olympiad of Animation: An Interview With Fini Littlejohn
6. ^ Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation » Lee Lennox’s “Girl and the Sea”

• Kitson, Clare (2005-06-15). Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales: An Animator's Journey (in English). John Libbey & Co Ltd. ISBN 0861966465. 

• Kitson, Clare (September 2005). Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales: An Animator's Journey (in English). Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253218384. 

[edit] External links

• Tale of Tales at the Animator.ru
• Book review of "Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales: An Animator's Journey"
• Comparison of various DVDs containing the film (in Russian, but with helpful pictures)

v • d • e Works of Yuriy Norshteyn Director/Co-director 25th October, the First Day (1968) • The Battle of Kerzhenets (1971) • The Fox and the Hare (1973) • The Heron and the Crane (1974) • Hedgehog in the Fog (1975) • Tale of Tales (1979) • Winter Days (2003, segment) • The Overcoat (????) Animator (selected films) Lefty (1964) • Go There, Don't Know Where (1966) • Times of the Year (1969) • Cheburashka (1972) • Shapoklyak (1974) • 38 Parrots (1976) • Autumn (1982) • The Book of the Dead (2005)