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The Old Man and the Sea (1999 film)
Encyclopedia
The Old Man and the Sea is a 1999
paint-on-glass-animated
short film directed by Aleksandr Petrov, based on the novel of the same name
by Ernest Hemingway
. The film won many awards, including the Academy Award for Animated Short Film
. Work on the film took place in Montreal
over a period of two and a half years and was funded by an assortment of Canadian
, Russia
n and Japan
ese companies. French
and English-language
soundtracks to the film were released concurrently. It was the first animated film to be released in IMAX
.
It opens with the dream sequence of an old man named Santiago, who dreams about his childhood on the masts of a ship and lions on the shores.
When he wakes up, we find out that he has gone 84 days without catching any fish at all. He is apparently so unlucky
that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack in the morning. The next day, before sunrise, Santiago and Manolin make their way to the seashore. Santiago says that he will venture far out into the Gulf to fish. Manolin wants to come, but Santiago insists on going alone.
After venturing far out, Santiago sets his lines and soon catches a small fish which he decides to use as bait. A big fish that he is sure is a marlin
takes his bait. Unable to pull in the great marlin, Santiago instead finds the fish pulling his skiff. An unspecified number of days pass in this manner (it's two), during which the old man bears the tension of the line with his body. On one night, Santiago dreams of his youth, of how he won an arm wrestling match against the strongest black boy in town. On another night, though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago dreams that he and the marlin are brothers, swimming through the ocean together. An extended fantasy sequence is animated here by Petrov. Suddenly, he is woken up; the marlin tries to take advantage of the situation and escape (unsuccessfully). As the fish jumps out of the water, the old man sees for the first time just how big it is.
Eventually, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the old man. With each circle, Santiago tries to pull it in a little closer. As the fish swims under the boat, Santiago manages to stab the marlin with a harpoon
, thereby ending the long battle.
Santiago straps the marlin to his skiff and heads home, triumphant. However, in a short while, shark
s are attracted to the trail of blood left by the marlin in the water. Santiago kills one with his harpoon, losing that weapon in the process. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife
to the end of an oar
to help ward off the next line of sharks and manages to kill a few more. Soon, however, the sharks have devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving only its skeleton. The old man castigates himself for sacrificing the marlin.
The next morning, a group of fishermen gathers around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. Manolin, worried during the old man's endeavor, brings him food and drink and finds the old man lying in his cabin. When he wakes, he tells him that they had boats searching for him and that his parents allowed him to fish together once again.
The project was initiated in 1995 after Petrov (who had made his first films in Russia
) had his first meeting with Pascal Blais Studio, a Canadian
animation studio.
The film was partially funded by and was made at their studio. Other funding came from Imagica Corporation, Dentsu Tec and NHK
from Japan
, and Panorama studio from Yaroslavl
, Russia (of which Aleksandr Petrov is the head).
Work on the film began on March 1997. It took Aleksandr Petrov and his son Dmitri Petrov (who helped his father) until April 1999 to paint each of the 29,000+ frames. The film's technique, pastel oil paintings on glass, is mastered by only a handful of animators in the world. Petrov used his fingertips in addition to various paintbrushes to paint on different glass sheets positioned on multiple levels, each covered with slow-drying oil paints. After photographing each frame painted on the glass sheets, which was four times larger than the usual A4-sized canvas, he had to slightly modify the painting for the next frame and so on. For the shooting of the frames a special adapted motion-control camera system was built, probably the most precise computerized animation stand ever made. On this an IMAX
camera was mounted, and a video-assist camera was then attached to the IMAX camera.
. People, animals and landscapes are painted and animated in a very realistic
fashion, but there are sections where Petrov attempts to visually show a character's inner thoughts and dreams. For example, the film contains a scene where the fisherman dreams that he and the marlin
are brothers swimming through the sea and the sky.
(the two films were originally screened together at IMAX theatres).
The French DVD contains only the French-language versions of everything on the English DVD as well as Petrov's previous films: The Cow (1989), The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1992) and The Mermaid (1997), which are 10, 20 and 10 minutes long respectively and are in their original Russian language
with French subtitles
. There is also a 9-minute-long "making of" film.
1999 in film
The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep...
paint-on-glass-animated
Paint-on-glass animation
Paint-on-glass animation is a technique for making animated films by manipulating slow-drying oil paints on sheets of glass. Gouache mixed with glycerine is sometimes used instead...
short film directed by Aleksandr Petrov, based on the novel of the same name
The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea is a novel written by American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cuba, and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon Santiago, an aging fisherman who...
by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
. The film won many awards, including the Academy Award for Animated Short Film
Academy Award for Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present....
. Work on the film took place in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
over a period of two and a half years and was funded by an assortment of Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese companies. French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and English-language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
soundtracks to the film were released concurrently. It was the first animated film to be released in IMAX
IMAX
IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
.
Plot
The film follows the plot of the original novel, but at times emphasizes different points.It opens with the dream sequence of an old man named Santiago, who dreams about his childhood on the masts of a ship and lions on the shores.
When he wakes up, we find out that he has gone 84 days without catching any fish at all. He is apparently so unlucky
Luck
Luck or fortuity is good fortune which occurs beyond one's control, without regard to one's will, intention, or desired result. There are at least two senses people usually mean when they use the term, the prescriptive sense and the descriptive sense...
that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack in the morning. The next day, before sunrise, Santiago and Manolin make their way to the seashore. Santiago says that he will venture far out into the Gulf to fish. Manolin wants to come, but Santiago insists on going alone.
After venturing far out, Santiago sets his lines and soon catches a small fish which he decides to use as bait. A big fish that he is sure is a marlin
Marlin
Marlin, family Istiophoridae, are fish with an elongated body, a spear-like snout or bill, and a long rigid dorsal fin, which extends forward to form a crest. Its common name is thought to derive from its resemblance to a sailor's marlinspike...
takes his bait. Unable to pull in the great marlin, Santiago instead finds the fish pulling his skiff. An unspecified number of days pass in this manner (it's two), during which the old man bears the tension of the line with his body. On one night, Santiago dreams of his youth, of how he won an arm wrestling match against the strongest black boy in town. On another night, though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago dreams that he and the marlin are brothers, swimming through the ocean together. An extended fantasy sequence is animated here by Petrov. Suddenly, he is woken up; the marlin tries to take advantage of the situation and escape (unsuccessfully). As the fish jumps out of the water, the old man sees for the first time just how big it is.
Eventually, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the old man. With each circle, Santiago tries to pull it in a little closer. As the fish swims under the boat, Santiago manages to stab the marlin with a harpoon
Harpoon
A harpoon is a long spear-like instrument used in fishing to catch fish or large marine mammals such as whales. It accomplishes this task by impaling the target animal, allowing the fishermen to use a rope or chain attached to the butt of the projectile to catch the animal...
, thereby ending the long battle.
Santiago straps the marlin to his skiff and heads home, triumphant. However, in a short while, shark
Shark
Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....
s are attracted to the trail of blood left by the marlin in the water. Santiago kills one with his harpoon, losing that weapon in the process. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife
Knife
A knife is a cutting tool with an exposed cutting edge or blade, hand-held or otherwise, with or without a handle. Knives were used at least two-and-a-half million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools...
to the end of an oar
Oar
An oar is an implement used for water-borne propulsion. Oars have a flat blade at one end. Oarsmen grasp the oar at the other end. The difference between oars and paddles are that paddles are held by the paddler, and are not connected with the vessel. Oars generally are connected to the vessel by...
to help ward off the next line of sharks and manages to kill a few more. Soon, however, the sharks have devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving only its skeleton. The old man castigates himself for sacrificing the marlin.
The next morning, a group of fishermen gathers around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. Manolin, worried during the old man's endeavor, brings him food and drink and finds the old man lying in his cabin. When he wakes, he tells him that they had boats searching for him and that his parents allowed him to fish together once again.
Creators
| Director | Aleksandr Petrov |
| Scenario | Aleksandr Petrov |
| Animators | Aleksandr Petrov Dmitri Petrov |
| Video operator | Thierry Fargeau |
| Producer | Bernard Lajoie Tatsuo Shimamura |
| Executive producers | Jean-Yves Martel Shizuo Ohashi |
| Composers | Denis L. Chartrand Normand Roger Normand Roger Normand Roger is a Canadian composer, sound editor and sound designer. He is particularly known for his work as a composer of soundtracks for animated films, having composed more than 200 such works since 1970... |
| Voice actors | Gordon Pinsent Gordon Pinsent Gordon Edward Pinsent, CC, FRSC is a Canadian television, theatre and film actor.-Early life:Pinsent, the youngest of six children, was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, the son of Flossie ; originally from Clifton, Newfoundland, and Stephen Arthur Pinsent, a papermill worker and cobbler;... (English) Kevin Delaye (English) Yoji Matsuda Yoji Matsuda is a Japanese actor and seiyū from Tokyo.-Film:*Ayano Asuka Gumi *Blue Christmas *Doctor Magura *The Hidden Blade *Kaabee *Kappa... (Japanese) Rentaro Mikuni (Japanese) |
| Editors | Denis Papillon |
History and technique
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
) had his first meeting with Pascal Blais Studio, a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
animation studio.
The film was partially funded by and was made at their studio. Other funding came from Imagica Corporation, Dentsu Tec and NHK
NHK
NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....
from Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and Panorama studio from Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historical part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities...
, Russia (of which Aleksandr Petrov is the head).
Work on the film began on March 1997. It took Aleksandr Petrov and his son Dmitri Petrov (who helped his father) until April 1999 to paint each of the 29,000+ frames. The film's technique, pastel oil paintings on glass, is mastered by only a handful of animators in the world. Petrov used his fingertips in addition to various paintbrushes to paint on different glass sheets positioned on multiple levels, each covered with slow-drying oil paints. After photographing each frame painted on the glass sheets, which was four times larger than the usual A4-sized canvas, he had to slightly modify the painting for the next frame and so on. For the shooting of the frames a special adapted motion-control camera system was built, probably the most precise computerized animation stand ever made. On this an IMAX
IMAX
IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
camera was mounted, and a video-assist camera was then attached to the IMAX camera.
Artistic style
The film's style is analogous to that used in Petrov's other films and can be characterized as a type of Romantic realismRomantic realism
Romantic realism is an aesthetic term that usually refers to art which combines elements of both romanticism and realism. The terms "romanticism" and "realism" have been used in varied ways, and are sometimes seen as opposed to one another....
. People, animals and landscapes are painted and animated in a very realistic
Realism (visual arts)
Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
fashion, but there are sections where Petrov attempts to visually show a character's inner thoughts and dreams. For example, the film contains a scene where the fisherman dreams that he and the marlin
Marlin
Marlin, family Istiophoridae, are fish with an elongated body, a spear-like snout or bill, and a long rigid dorsal fin, which extends forward to form a crest. Its common name is thought to derive from its resemblance to a sailor's marlinspike...
are brothers swimming through the sea and the sky.
Awards
- 19991999 in filmThe year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep...
—Cinanima: "Grand Prize" - 1999—Japan Media Arts FestivalJapan Media Arts FestivalThe Japan Media Arts Festival is an annual festival held by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs since 1997. The festival for a nominal year was usually held during February or March next year, rather than at the end of the nominal year. For instance, the 2010 Japan Media Arts Festival, where...
: "Grand Prize" (Animation) - 1999—Montréal World Film FestivalMontreal World Film FestivalThe Montreal World Film Festival , founded in 1977, is one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF...
: Nominated for "First Prize (Short Films)" - 20002000 in filmThe year 2000 in film involved some significant events.The top grosser worldwide was Mission: Impossible II. Domestically in North America, Gladiator won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor ....
—Academy Award for Animated Short FilmAcademy Award for Animated Short FilmThe Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present.... - 2000—Annecy International Animated Film FestivalAnnecy International Animated Film FestivalThe Annecy International Animation Film Festival was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of June in the town of Annecy, France. Initially occurring every two years, the festival became annual in 1998...
: "Audience Award", "Grand Prix for Best Animated Short Film" - 2000—BAFTA Awards: Nominated for "Best Animated Short Film"
- 2000—Buster International Children's Film Festival: "Politiken's Short Film Award"
- 2000—Genie Awards: Nominated for "Best Animated Short Film"
- 2000—Jutra Awards: "Jutra" in the category "Best Animated Film"
- 2000—Mainichi Film Concours: "Ofuji Noburo Award"
- 2000—Saint PetersburgSaint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
Message to ManMessage to ManMessage to Man is an international competitive documentary, short and animated film festival held annually in Saint Petersburg, Russia.- History :...
International Film Festival: "Special Jury Prize" in the category "International Competition" - 2000—Zagreb World Festival of Animated FilmsZagreb World Festival of Animated FilmsAnimafest Zagreb, also known as World Festival of Animated Film in Zagreb, is an annual festival dedicated to animated film held in Zagreb, Croatia. Initiated by the International Animated Film Association, the event was established in 1972 at the time when Croatia was part of SFR Yugoslavia)...
: "First Prize" in "Category C - 15 Min. to 30 Min." - 20012001 in filmThe year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy...
—Burbank International Children's Film Festival: "Director's Gold Award" - 2001—San Diego International Film Festival: "Festival Award" in the category "Best Animation"
DVD releases
The film is currently available on two DVD releases, English and French ("Le Vieil Homme et la mer"). Despite similar covers, their contents are actually significantly different. The one with the English cover contains both the English and French sound versions of the animated film as well as the 17-minute short film Hemingway: A Portrait directed by Eric CanuelEric Canuel
Eric Canuel is a film director and actor from Quebec, Canada.Eric Canuel began his career in the mid-1980s making music videos for such artists as Paul Piché, Sass Jordan, Norman Iceberg, Vilain Pingouin and Sylvain Cossette...
(the two films were originally screened together at IMAX theatres).
The French DVD contains only the French-language versions of everything on the English DVD as well as Petrov's previous films: The Cow (1989), The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1992) and The Mermaid (1997), which are 10, 20 and 10 minutes long respectively and are in their original Russian language
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
with French subtitles
Subtitle (captioning)
Subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialog in the same language, with or without added...
. There is also a 9-minute-long "making of" film.
Further reading
- Olivier CotteOlivier CotteOlivier Cotte is a French film director, writer, graphic novel author, and animation historian.After studying music, ballet, fine arts and films, he worked 15 years in the industry as director, flame artist and director of special effects, with such people as Wim Wenders , Roman Polanski ,...
(2007) Secrets of Oscar-winning animation: Behind the scenes of 13 classic short animations. (Making of '"The Old Man and the Sea") Focal Press. ISBN 978-0-240-52070-4
External links
- Pascal Blais Studio - here you can see clips of Petrov's films, including this one (enter the English site, then click on "directors")
- The Old Man and the Sea at the Animator.ruAnimator.ruAnimator.ru is a Russian website chronicling the films, people and studios of the animation industry in Russia, the former Soviet Union and the CIS. It also includes a forum, a news block, a photo-gallery and an animators labour exchange...