Essay

How Has The Quay Brothers Use Of Puppet Stop Motion Influenced Modern Day Animation?

Throughout this essay I plan to analyze how the Quay Brothers use of puppets in stop motion has influenced modern day animation. I will start by discussing the Quay brothers style and techniques before looking at some of their most inspirational works and how these animations have influenced stop motion animators over the last 30+ years, I will then go on to look into specific animators and film makers that have been influenced by the quay brothers such as Tim Burton and how the Quay Brothers influence has shaped their works. I would also like to look at how the quay brothers have influenced stop motion based studio Laika. I will use the rest of this essay to explore how the Quay Brothers have changed modern day animation before finally concluding with a summary on what I have discussed and a brief overview of my thoughts on the Quay Brothers work.

Stephan Quay insightfully states “Our films are dark fairy tales with elements of grotesquery and the pathological.” His brother Timothy Quay adds, “We set them in a twilight world, midway between sleep and wakefulness.” (3) By doing this they usually end up with a rather abstract narrative, a narrative which confuses the viewer and leaves them thinking more and more into the meaning behind the film. This style of narrative causes many animators and critiques to struggle to interpret their works which is established by Teresa Annas statement "There is meaning behind the nonlinear structure of the narrative, but it's not easily deciphered"(4). The use of surrealism allows them to make their animations dreamlike and quite hypnotic a good example of this is the animated hospital puppet sequence from the film Frida (8) were you don’t really understand what’s happening but you know that whatever it is it isn’t good, the use of bright lighting and shaking characters gives the animation a dream like effect mixed with skeletal puppets and gruesome effects creates a dark nightmarish animation.

Teresa Annas respectfully states “While referencing somewhat obscure materials, the twins' work touches on what is fearful, solitary and haunting about the human experience. And that's something nearly all of us can understand."(4) This explains that even though the viewers may have different understanding of the narrative the way it is delivered and expressed gives the viewer a feeling of unknowing.

Lily Koto Olive appropriately wrote “The Quay Brothers work is psychologically challenging, at times repulsively disturbing and certainly emotionally intense while managing to also somehow maintain an intriguingly beautiful albeit melancholic aesthetic." (5) I agree with Lily’s suggestion that the majority of the Quay Brothers work isn’t for the faint of hearted this may be because they use rather creepy characters such as the hollow headed dolls in streets of crocodiles which like the most of the Quay Brothers characters don’t speak but make eerie noises to make them more unsettling than they would be if they just stayed silent. Ron Magliozzi explains. “Their puppets never speak. They’re always silent” (6)

Terry Gilliam articulates “As an American, I always wanted to be seduced into this strange decadent, rotting idea of Europe, and the Quays have created that world in a manner which hypnotizes me, but which I don’t fully understand,” they have created this hypnotic world by making their characters a mixture of uncanny dolls ranging from broken manikins to the creepy wooden figures, they then have the characters interacting with almost living props that react surreally to help obscure the viewer’s understanding of the narrative.

The ‘streets of crocodiles’ film which is loosely based on the short novel of the same title written by Bruno Schultz was selected by filmmaker Terry Gilliam as one of the top ten best animated short films of all time. The film use a range of experimental and abstract scenes of animation that exaggerate the world around the characters and further more encrypt narrative of what seems to be a man lost or exploring that finds a group of hollow headed dolls to express their interpretation of the novel by Schultz. “The essence of reality is meaning.  What has no meaning is not real for us.” (10) The Quay Brothers successfully explored what Bruno Schultz stated within the ‘streets of crocodiles’ animation by bringing the essence of reality into their animation through the use of uncanny props and characters.

The Quay Brothers have spent a life time surrounding themselves with culture which is expressed and can be passed down through their work  “Their work is mind-boggling in its richness; and the history of its growth, from deep roots in the rural United States through design and illustration to filmmaking — absorbing the influence of so much culture, art, music and film along the way — is impressive to say the least,” Magliozzi also praises the Quay Brothers by saying “they’ve maintained their creative independence across so many different mediums of expression for so long should be a real source of inspiration for other animators and filmmakers.” (1) This is because the Quay Brothers use of multiple mediums in there stop motion makes their characters very life like and in each animation there is iconic techniques that are used by multiple stop motion animators both independent or studio based all around the world.

One big name that was inspired by the Quay Brothers is Tim Burton who creates rather gloomy and haunting films/animations that has elaborated on the Quay Brothers technique to bring the abstract and uncanny feel of their European style animation to the mainstream screen and has incorporated it into big screen animations like ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’, ‘9’ and ‘The Corpse Bride’.

 Another not as well-known animator who has obviously been influenced by the Quay Brothers work if not directly that by other animators that have had their influence is Lee Hardcastle (11). Hardcastles stop motion animations carry a very different message to the Quay Brothers as he typically uses horror and gore to get laughs and mainly uses plasticine to create his models as he isn’t trying to create a surreal world within his animation he is more focuses on giving his narrative to the viewer rather than making them work for it. Hardcastle does seem to use similar camera techniques to make the characters look fearful and threatening, some of his characters also share the uncanny feel of the Quay Brothers Characters because of the way the characters are designed and at times because of the lighting and motion used when animating the characters.

The Quay Brothers have even played a part in influencing the studio Laika whose animation is completely mainstream and mostly aimed at children/ families but has adapted the Quay Brothers use of lighting and surreal effects to add an element of horror and to their animation even though they typically use CGI to get those effects. Laika have transformed the use of puppets in animation by using highly detailed flexible characters that are brought to life with the wide range of unique expressions used in face replacement animation which allows the characters to be able to speak and display there mood. Within the animated film ‘Coraline’ you can easily see influences taken from the Quay Brothers models in characters like the ‘other mother’ and ‘other father’ who start off looking human with buttoned eyes which gives the viewer an uneasy feeling while watching them even before we realise they intentions are wicked. As the film goes on the step mother turns into a humanoid figure that is made out of small metallic parts, at this point she resembles some of the quay brothers more elaborate characters like the mechanical being in ‘Streets of Crocodiles’.

Terry Gilliam uses cut out to create comical animations that similar to the Quay Brothers combination of uncanny dolls with everyday objects, combine photographic imagery with stylised cartoony drawings to create humorous animations that are appropriate for an audience of all ages. With the Quotes taken form Gilliam earlier in my paper you can tell that the Quay Brothers have influenced him in the way the Quay brothers make the viewer work to understand the narrative, you can see an essence of this in Gilliam’s work but when trying to deliver comedy if the audience doesn’t understand what’s going on it is much harder to communicate with them on a comical level.

The Quay Brothers unique way of thinking about animation shows other animators that mistakes made in the process of the animation can help shape the film into something greater than first expected if handled properly, Magliozzi explains “They always talk about accident and discrepancy being a part of the way they make films, so although they are doing narrative films, they often need to be deciphered,” this could mean that they add to the story while they are animating instead of planning the whole narrative in preproduction, this would allow them to explore and discover different ideas while creating the animation which would make it a lot more time consuming but would allow them to exhaust every idea they have and make the animation an observation of their discoveries and progress throughout the animation.

The Quay Brothers have helped shaped stop motion animation into what it is today and continue doing so to this day by using their practice to explore different ways to combine narrative and abstract animation. They have also inspired so many minds in the film and animation community that is impossible to judge what animation would be like in modern society but it would likely be more cartoon based on a whole as the Quay Brothers helped deliver animation to an adult audience and inspired many animators to do the same.

To summarize the Quay Brothers use abstract narratives combined with uncanny characters and occasionally dreamlike effects to confuse the viewer’s understanding of the animation and encrypt the meaning behind it. They touch on different aspects of the human experience in a surreal way causing there animations to be almost hypnotic and captivating the viewer. The Quay brothers mix surrealism and reality in there animations which has shaped their unique style. The Quay Brothers animations have inspired many different independent and studio based animators of all mediums in different ways some of these include Tim Burton and Lee Hardcastle. Over the last 30+ years the Quay Brothers have played a big part in shaping modern day stop motion as well as animation as a whole.

While researching the Quay Brothers I have become rather fond of their unique approach to stop motion and even though I still don’t fully understand their work I enjoy the creativity behind the characters and the bizarre ways they move as well as the more abstract and experimental animation that bring the set and props to life in a way not many other animators have been able to do.

                               

Bibliography:

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