Post by petrolino on Feb 26, 2021 17:54:02 GMT
It was the first feature film based on the 'Peanuts' comic strip created by Charles Schulz of Minnesota.
'Fly Me To The Moon' ~ Vince Guaraldi Trio
The work of Charles Schulz was held in the highest regard in France and Italy. He produced some of his early drawings in France where there's been several major exhibitions of his work. There's a permanent exhibition and installation celebrating his work at the Schulz Museum in Milan; Snoopy posters and t-shirts appeared in numerous Italian genre films in the 1970's and 1980's, a gesture carried out in tribute to the man and his work by a film community who were among his biggest fans.
"It is always a wonderful surprise when an exhibition is installed and becomes open to the public. It transforms a collection of pieces into a story. In one of the current exhibitions, A Change of Scene: Schulz Sketches From Abroad, is a wonderful story that accompanies the sketches from France, which you see here.
Shortly after we were married, Sparky and I went back to visit his “army buddy,” Elmer Hagemeyer, and to attend a Company B reunion. Sparky was intrigued to discover that several of the attendees had gone back to trace the route their squad had followed in 1945. The squad’s unofficial historian, Art Lynch, had complete maps and material from “then and now.” Sparky very much wanted to make a similar trip, and so we did. Using Art’s maps and with a very helpful driver, we made the journey with Helen and Bill Melendez. Bill became a family friend through his role as Director and Animator on the Peanuts animated specials. Together we found Château Malvoisin, where Sparky’s squad, along with some other squads had been billeted for six weeks around February of 1945. The drawings you see here were about a mile up the road from the château. The “village” consisted of a church, a school, and a bar/ restaurant. To Sparky it looked as if time had stood still. He spoke to the bartender, telling him with gestures and broken French, “I was here during the war.” The host replied in French, “I was here, too.” “I played this game here,” Sparky pointed to the foosball game. “No,” the host said, “it was over here,” pointing to a corner. Amazing!
As for the Château, it was boarded up, and we squeezed through a small opening into the courtyard. The grass was waist high (my waist, anyway). But it didn’t matter to Sparky because his squad was assigned to a lean-to area up against the inner wall. He showed us exactly where he had laid his sleeping bag, and he pointed out where the other soldiers slept. It looked as though the war had ended and this entire area had been suspended in time, waiting 35 years for him to return to the place he had been as a young soldier, knowing now that he survived it.
Even more amazing to the story is that when we returned a year later with the film crew of Karen and David Crommie to document the story for What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown, the entire place had changed. The Château had been rented out or sold, and it was all spiffed up. And the little café had been transformed into two small apartments. The scene we had been talking about for a year was gone. Imagine our surprise. But to me, there was something perfect about it. It was as if the scene remained suspended in time so that Sparky could revisit it. Once that had happened, history could continue. I am so grateful for things suspended in time. I wish more things could be, but I know they cannot."
Shortly after we were married, Sparky and I went back to visit his “army buddy,” Elmer Hagemeyer, and to attend a Company B reunion. Sparky was intrigued to discover that several of the attendees had gone back to trace the route their squad had followed in 1945. The squad’s unofficial historian, Art Lynch, had complete maps and material from “then and now.” Sparky very much wanted to make a similar trip, and so we did. Using Art’s maps and with a very helpful driver, we made the journey with Helen and Bill Melendez. Bill became a family friend through his role as Director and Animator on the Peanuts animated specials. Together we found Château Malvoisin, where Sparky’s squad, along with some other squads had been billeted for six weeks around February of 1945. The drawings you see here were about a mile up the road from the château. The “village” consisted of a church, a school, and a bar/ restaurant. To Sparky it looked as if time had stood still. He spoke to the bartender, telling him with gestures and broken French, “I was here during the war.” The host replied in French, “I was here, too.” “I played this game here,” Sparky pointed to the foosball game. “No,” the host said, “it was over here,” pointing to a corner. Amazing!
As for the Château, it was boarded up, and we squeezed through a small opening into the courtyard. The grass was waist high (my waist, anyway). But it didn’t matter to Sparky because his squad was assigned to a lean-to area up against the inner wall. He showed us exactly where he had laid his sleeping bag, and he pointed out where the other soldiers slept. It looked as though the war had ended and this entire area had been suspended in time, waiting 35 years for him to return to the place he had been as a young soldier, knowing now that he survived it.
Even more amazing to the story is that when we returned a year later with the film crew of Karen and David Crommie to document the story for What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown, the entire place had changed. The Château had been rented out or sold, and it was all spiffed up. And the little café had been transformed into two small apartments. The scene we had been talking about for a year was gone. Imagine our surprise. But to me, there was something perfect about it. It was as if the scene remained suspended in time so that Sparky could revisit it. Once that had happened, history could continue. I am so grateful for things suspended in time. I wish more things could be, but I know they cannot."
- Jean Schulz, Schulz Museum
'Un Petit Garçon Nommé Charlie Brown' -Serge Gainsbourg
The film incorporated artistic styles both old and new, bringing Schulz's cartoon creations and forward-thinking theories into harmony with the progressive arts movement of the late 1960's.
'A Boy Named Charlie Brown, while directed and produced by the same team of Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson, who were responsible for all the Peanuts television specials (Phil Roman directed later TV specials starting around the mid-1970s), has many different aspects that most of the specials did not explore in a visual sense. The film itself has moments where there is rotoscoping prevalent, as in the sequence when Snoopy skates, and bleached-out silhouettes of real hockey players are visible behind him. Some backgrounds have a pop art feel, similar to much animation of the late 1960s, as in "The Star-Spangled Banner" sequence, where the images are purposely chaotically edited, or the sequence where Schroeder plays Beethoven on his piano, which effects a surrealistic quality similar to Disney's Fantasia.
There also seems to be a strong Andy Warhol influence, wherein actual photographs appear to have been painted over in semi day-glo psychedelic colors (this is particularly evident during the film's closing credits). Melendez, who had previously worked with Bob Clampett on cartoons back in the 1940s, also uses garish colors in some sequences, which takes its cues from many Clampett backgrounds, particularly a Warner Bros. cartoon called The Big Snooze which was directed by Clampett and which Melendez had also worked on. Many backgrounds are also rendered in watercolor, or simple pen strokes, or fine lines, or sometimes all three at once. There are scenes where colors will change solidly and erratically, as witnessed by the Snoopy "Red Baron" sequence in the film. Perspective and horizon points are showcased in the "I Before E" scene. Split screen is also used to much effect in A Boy Named Charlie Brown, as well. But even with all these theatrical enhancements, at its core, the film still has the look and feel of many of the Peanuts television specials.'
- Wikipedia
'I Only Dread One Day At A Time' - Vince Guaraldi
