Wild Minds by Reid Mitenbuler

Author:Reid Mitenbuler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2020-11-20T20:53:35+00:00

Vladimir “Bill” Tytla, the artist who designed Mickey for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence, had also wanted to design the centaurs for the Pastorale sequence. A polo player whose father had been in the Ukrainian cavalry, he thought he was a good fit for the job. Disappointed after Disney assigned the centaurs to another artist, Tytla was even more disappointed when he saw the final result. “They looked gutless,” he said. “They should have been big stallions with dark, Mediterranean faces on them. Instead they were castrated horsies with a type of Anglo-Saxon head.”

Disney denied the assignment to Tytla not because he lacked confidence in him—Tytla was actually one of his best artists—but because he wanted Tytla to work on the sequences for Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain instead. It would feature Chernabog, a hulking demon who would spiral up from a column of flames, summoning dead souls to rise from the ground like wisps of smoke. Disney assigned characters to animators whose personalities were a good match, and he thought Tytla was a good fit for this deity from Slavic folklore, whose name meant “black god.” During the production of Snow White, Tytla had likewise been assigned the role of animating Grumpy.

Born in Yonkers to immigrant parents, Tytla had piercing eyes and a dark mop of hair that looked as if it was chiseled from coal. His powerful shoulders and arms likewise contributed to his imposing aura, but tapered down into a surprisingly delicate set of hands—­an artist’s hands. Even though many mistook him as dark-natured and temperamental, he was actually quite sensitive and kind. His artistic pedigree was also impeccable. He had studied art in Europe under a disciple of Rodin, the renowned French sculptor Charles Despiau, who called Tytla the Daumier of his generation. Other Disney artists credited Tytla’s sculptural abilities with giving his animation such breathtaking dimension. Tytla had given up sculpture, however, because his sense of perfectionism had turned sculpturing into a tormenting struggle—he doubted he would ever be as good as he wanted to be, which was to be the best. Instead, he decided to divert his attention to animation. As a young boy, he had seen Winsor McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur, and he could never forget it. Before joining Disney, he animated for Paramount, Raoul Barré, and Paul Terry.

Tytla prepared for his animation assignments using the Stanislavski process of “method” acting. During Pinocchio, when he animated Stromboli, the old man who creates the Pinocchio puppet, he prepared by spending weeks hanging out in Italian neighborhoods, absorbing the rhythms and moods of their cafés and butcher shops. For Chernabog, to create the right mood to get inside the devil’s head, he kept his office dark, decorating it like the lair of a fortune-teller. He also convinced Bela Lugosi, the Dracula actor, to send him film footage for reference. His colleagues remember the sounds rattling his office door and echoing down the hallway as Tytla acted out the role in his office, just as Disney did to find his own vision of a film.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.