Budapest Classic Film Marathon: Macskássy fairy tale films

Director: Gyula Macskássy

Pannónia 65

The Little Cocks Diamond Halfpenny (1951, 16')
Sport Competition in the Forest (1952, 12')
Kutyakötelesség (952, 11')
Two Peppercorn Steers (1955, 28')
Smart Girl (1955, 10')
The Mouse and the Lion (1957, 10')
The Greedy Bee (1958, 15')

Hungarian folklore motifs are combined with the Realist style of Soviet and American cartoons of the time in Gyula Macskássy’s adorable animations adapted from classic fairy tales and dating from the first half of the 1950s. A kiskakas gyémánt félkrajcárja (The Little Cock’s Diamond Halfpenny) co-produced with Edit Fekete is an iconic piece from the pioneering age of Hungarian animation; this was the first time Hungarian animators had taken advantage of multiplane imaging, which had been used in American Disney cartoons since the 1930s. Although cartoons from the 1950s reflected the prevailing ideological expectations, the lyrical Két bors ökröcske (Two Peppercorn Steers) stands out among Hungarian animations of the age for its technical and formal bravura, which is made extraordinary by the stylistic keynotes of authentic Hungarian and Transylvanian folk art. Just as in the second half of the 1950s the modern, clean style of animation expressive modality spread into the designs of Hungarian animation commercials and fairy tale films, so the subjects of entertaining fairy tale animations, for instance, Okos lány (The Clever Girl), Egér és Oroszlán (The Mouse and the Lion) and A telhetetlen méhecske (The Greedy Bee), were updated in line with 20^th century technical civilization.

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