8 Comments

Thank you for this brilliant guide to Norstein!

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Thank you! Glad it's a help!

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Thanks, I learned some new things (or remembered things I had forgotten!). This inspired me to also write something about Norshteyn, with my thoughts about his films. Part 1 is here: https://niffiwan.livejournal.com/39903.html (and part 2 will come soon)

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Really glad you liked it -- and amazing to hear that it inspired you to write your own! Thanks a bunch for the link. Your write-up is super solid (those subtitles on Children & Matches are much appreciated) and we're excited to see part 2. Especially looking forward to your thoughts on the abandoned project with Khitruk.

As an aside, there was one minor omission in our round-up, which the writer Toadette pointed out on Twitter. Norstein worked with Kihachirō Kawamoto in some small capacity on a film called The Book of the Dead (死者の書/Shisha no Sho) in 2005. He's credited as a guest animator, but it's unclear what exactly he did. Looking through it, only one or two brief shots jump out as even potentially being his work. Just wanted to let you know about it -- we weren't familiar with it until after this post went up. There might be more information available that we haven't found yet.

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Ah yes, I'd forgotten that until you reminded me just now. I saw that film when it came out back in 2005, and met the director. Though I'm not sure how you could tell at a glance what is Norstein's work and what isn't. Really, it could be anything... though my guess is that he was only there for a short time to visit his friend Kihachiro Kawamoto, as a side trip from some paid event/talk, so it probably wasn't something too big.

By the way, I may have missed it somewhere, but who is "we"? What is the name/nickname I should call you by?

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Ah, sorry for the confusion! A couple of people work closely together on Animation Obsessive, so we use "we" to refer to our activities.

Most of the writing on here is done by one person (me) and I also respond to all our comments. I wrote the Norstein guide in this issue as well. We like to spread the credit around for everything that we do, though, so it's all shared under the Animation Obsessive banner.

As for the Kawamoto film, one of the shots that looked potentially like Norstein's is an upward shot under a tree, which looks a bit similar to the one in Hedgehog in the Fog. Not sure if it was his, but it did resemble his work somewhat.

In any case, feel free to drop a link to the second part of your Norstein write-up whenever it's done -- can't wait!

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My bad, it was actually in Sept. 2006, not 2005. I'll have to see if I made any notes of anything I heard at the time (probably not, but there's a small chance) - someone probably would have asked the director about Norstein.

Thanks for explaining about "we", but I'd appreciate some practical suggestions for how to refer to you, if the need comes up. "Animation Obsessive Anonymous Author #1"? "The One at Animation Obsessive Who Responds to the Comments"? It's a bit of a mouthful. Even a single letter or initials would be helpful.

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Ah, no worries! We'll keep it simple and just go with G, if you ever have a need to refer to me. Have a great week.

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