Yuri Norstein

PAR Yuri Norstein Russian ???? ????????? ???????? Yuriy Borisovich Norshteyn born 15 September 1941 is a Soviet and Russian animator best known for his animated shorts Hedgehog in the Fog and Tale of Tales Since 1981 he has been working on a feature film called The Overcoat based on the short story by Nikolai Gogol of the same name According to the Washington Post He is considered by many to be not just the best animator of his era but the best of all time Yuri Norstein was born to a Jewish family in the village of Andreyevka Penza Oblast during his parents World War II evacuation He grew up in the Maryina Roshcha suburb of Moscow After studying at an art school Norstein initially found work at a furniture factory Then he finished a twoyear animation course and found employment at studio Soyuzmultfilm in 1961 The first film that he participated in as an animator was Who Said Meow 1962 After working as an animation artist in some fifty films Norstein got the chance to direct his own In 1968 he debuted with 25th October the First Day sharing directorial credit with Arkadiy Tyurin The film used the artwork of 1920sera Soviet artists Nathan Altman and Kuzma PetrovVodkin The next film in which he had a major role was The Battle of Kerzhenets 1971 a coproduction with Russian animation director Ivan IvanovVano under whose direction Norstein had earlier worked on 1969s Times of the Year Throughout the 1970s Norstein continued to work as an animator in many films and also directed several As the decade progressed his animation style became ever more sophisticated looking less like flat cutouts and more like smoothlymoving paintings or sophisticated pencil sketches His most famous film is Tale of Tales a nonlinear autobiographical film about growing up in the postwar Soviet world Norstein uses a special technique in his animation involving multiple glass planes to give his animation a threedimensional look The camera is placed at the top looking down on a series of glass planes about a meter deep one every 2530 cm The individual glass planes can move horizontally as well as toward and away from the camera to give the effect of a character moving closer or further away For many years he has collaborated with his wife the artist Francheska Yarbusova and the cinematographer Aleksandr Zhukovskiy Source Wikipedia