So good to read this again with the updates. Really interesting the connection with Ghibli and so validating to see the inspiration immediately once it's been pointed out.
Thanks so much, Jim! Always appreciate it. And it really is wild how much of Crac is visible in Miyazaki's and Takahata's work after 1982 -- those screenings were a turning point for both of them. This feeling of inferiority hung over Miyazaki throughout the '80s (and maybe beyond), and he often mentioned the challenge that Back presented to animation, and his own struggle to elevate his films in light of that challenge.
Thanks so much for this! ‘Crac’ is one of my very favorite films and a huge influence on our whole generation. I’m so glad to know Directors Miyazaki and Takahashi loved it. Thanks for all this background that I didn’t know. Such an inspiring artist, who made such a powerful humane film with so very limited resources. A great example for us in these dark times. Thanks Again!
What's happening in the world was definitely on our minds when we decided to publish this one! It's hard to know what to say about animation when the news is so grim every day. Back's work feels like a light in moments like these, and Crac still has the power to cut through all this darkness. It's one of the great animated films, for sure.
Thanks! I've been living in Québec all my life and had never seen this great film (though I knew Frédéric Back from his other famous film: L'homme qui plantait des arbres). Being a Miyazaki fan, I'm impressed that Back was an inspiration to him. Also, if you're wandering why at some point there's a canoe floating in the sky, it's probably a reference to one of our most famous legends about a bunch of lumberjacks who made a pact with de Devil to come back home for Christmas to see their wives. I think it's a subtle reference to a form of spirituality. Another thing I noticed: the new born child is brought to the family by American Indians. It's probably also a reference to another legend of ours. Our grand parents used to say that's how children are made... I will watch it again with my 11 yo son very soon (and try that explanation on him...)
Beautiful! I am an artist based in Montreal, Quebec, so very fun to know these histories!
Also in response to someone somehwere mentioning the awful and heartbreaking state of current affairs a reminder that yes the news is awful now and also it was not easy during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in Quebec either. NB: As a Black immigrant artist I experience little "good old times" nostalgia. At the time of Back working on this lovely animation, there was much civil unrest and violence driven by the anti-anglophone Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), a militant separatist group that sought to achieve Quebec independence through armed struggle and socialist revolution. This animation was made at a time when there were over 200 bombings and dozens of armed robberies, kidnapping of British diplomat James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte, who was murdered.
Glad you enjoyed! And great points about that era. There was incredible unrest back then in many countries. The films that Back made, including this one, were essentially all protests against the state of the world he knew. He'd experienced the destruction of World War II while in Europe, and he was an activist (anti-violence, environmentalist, pro-First Nations) while in Canada. We find it very inspiring that he created films like Crac to push back against the horrors of his time.
I love the film Crac! First saw it in the 90s in a summer animation class. The way the character cel layer and background are indistinguishable is so nice. Especially in the dance sequence where the characters fill the screen, and with the camera movements create essentially a hand-animated 3D environment. Wow! And the moment where the kids all grow up... 😪
It's such a fantastic piece and hits so hard, despite how unassuming it is. We'd love to see it and Back's other films get a restored HD release for the new generations of animators. Crac and The Man Who Planted Trees still have the power that knocked over Miyazaki and Takahata!
I’d love to see it restored. I’ve only ever seen the fuzzy VHS copies of copies. In your article I was surprised how vibrant the original art is in the still photos. By the way, I just published another animation-related article, this time about Eyvind Earle and his background art for Sleeping Beauty, which you may enjoy.
What an amazing piece of culture you've shared! i know barely nothing from the animation world but im very fond of it but I dont think i would have found out about any of this not to be for this post, not only Crac as a film but the context and the interrelation of it with so many other things we may be more familiar with was great. Thank you for this!
Visually, Princess Kaguya and My Neighbors the Yamadas are both very indebted to Crac. In the 1990s, Studio Ghibli pioneered watercolor-style digital animation in order to capture a look similar to Frédéric Back's animation. Many other films were inspired in turn by Studio Ghibli's experiments, such as Ernest & Celestine!
This is a beautiful piece. It’s wild how art can transcend its origin story and hit completely different audiences with such power. The idea that a film about a Quebec rocking chair could profoundly shape Japanese animation speaks volumes about universal human experiences and how consensus forms around resonant narratives, even across cultures. It makes you wonder how much of what we call 'progress' just cycles through different aesthetic forms, with core questions about tradition versus modernity always lingering. Thanks for sharing this deep dive.
Thanks so much! That's very kind. And it's definitely amazing how much Back's local story connected with people around the world -- he tapped into something universal without even trying to.
Thanks very much for the tip! We hadn't heard. His Three Sisters was one of the strongest shorts at the Oscars this year, but we haven't had a chance to see Tied Up yet -- will keep it on the list!
That was absolutely marvelous -- I laughed aloud at least 3-4 times and a gasped a couple times at the end. So incredible. Thank you for letting us all know this exists!!
Genuinely moved by this story, which I credit to both your storytelling and the passion that clearly ran through Back his entire life.
It's also a reminder that good things take time. They need to gestate and ferment before it calcifies and can be completed and shared. This works at different speeds for different people and different ideas. Sometimes you have the luxury of time, other times a deadline wills it into existence. Forged by the mental constraint of pressure, and the loose time in which one dreams.
Somewhere between the expanding and concatenation magic is conjured into existence.
Thanks a ton! So happy we could introduce you to his stuff. We love Crac, and not many films (live action or animated) are as high on our list as The Man Who Planted Trees.
i had never seen this film before!! thank you so much for bringing it to my attention, it truly feels like a storybook brought to life. to see something crafted with so much love that speaks to my own childhood like this, truly a magic moment!!
Despite my awareness of this blog for many years, I've only just now been regularly keeping up with it this year. This is the first article I've seen from you that has the subject of the piece linked to a YouTube upload. I gladly watched it before reading the article, and not that I hated it, but I have a newfound respect for it after reading the context behind which it was made. So thanks for that.
Happy to share the film! It was writing the original version of this article in 2024 that made us fall in love with Crac ourselves -- The Man Who Planted Trees was already one of our favorites, but we hadn't taken a close look at Crac yet. They're both classics in our book.
Meant to comment this sooner, but I hope people don't take the wrong lesson from the story behind this piece, that being "I need to suffer physically in order to show that my work to mean something" as opposed to "this is interesting behind the scenes background"
So good to read this again with the updates. Really interesting the connection with Ghibli and so validating to see the inspiration immediately once it's been pointed out.
Thanks so much, Jim! Always appreciate it. And it really is wild how much of Crac is visible in Miyazaki's and Takahata's work after 1982 -- those screenings were a turning point for both of them. This feeling of inferiority hung over Miyazaki throughout the '80s (and maybe beyond), and he often mentioned the challenge that Back presented to animation, and his own struggle to elevate his films in light of that challenge.
Thanks so much for this! ‘Crac’ is one of my very favorite films and a huge influence on our whole generation. I’m so glad to know Directors Miyazaki and Takahashi loved it. Thanks for all this background that I didn’t know. Such an inspiring artist, who made such a powerful humane film with so very limited resources. A great example for us in these dark times. Thanks Again!
What's happening in the world was definitely on our minds when we decided to publish this one! It's hard to know what to say about animation when the news is so grim every day. Back's work feels like a light in moments like these, and Crac still has the power to cut through all this darkness. It's one of the great animated films, for sure.
Thanks! I've been living in Québec all my life and had never seen this great film (though I knew Frédéric Back from his other famous film: L'homme qui plantait des arbres). Being a Miyazaki fan, I'm impressed that Back was an inspiration to him. Also, if you're wandering why at some point there's a canoe floating in the sky, it's probably a reference to one of our most famous legends about a bunch of lumberjacks who made a pact with de Devil to come back home for Christmas to see their wives. I think it's a subtle reference to a form of spirituality. Another thing I noticed: the new born child is brought to the family by American Indians. It's probably also a reference to another legend of ours. Our grand parents used to say that's how children are made... I will watch it again with my 11 yo son very soon (and try that explanation on him...)
Thanks for this wonderful comment! It's awesome to learn about the legends Back was drawing from!
I wondered about those two things! :) Thank you!!
Beautiful! I am an artist based in Montreal, Quebec, so very fun to know these histories!
Also in response to someone somehwere mentioning the awful and heartbreaking state of current affairs a reminder that yes the news is awful now and also it was not easy during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in Quebec either. NB: As a Black immigrant artist I experience little "good old times" nostalgia. At the time of Back working on this lovely animation, there was much civil unrest and violence driven by the anti-anglophone Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), a militant separatist group that sought to achieve Quebec independence through armed struggle and socialist revolution. This animation was made at a time when there were over 200 bombings and dozens of armed robberies, kidnapping of British diplomat James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte, who was murdered.
Glad you enjoyed! And great points about that era. There was incredible unrest back then in many countries. The films that Back made, including this one, were essentially all protests against the state of the world he knew. He'd experienced the destruction of World War II while in Europe, and he was an activist (anti-violence, environmentalist, pro-First Nations) while in Canada. We find it very inspiring that he created films like Crac to push back against the horrors of his time.
Yes! Beautiful.
I love the film Crac! First saw it in the 90s in a summer animation class. The way the character cel layer and background are indistinguishable is so nice. Especially in the dance sequence where the characters fill the screen, and with the camera movements create essentially a hand-animated 3D environment. Wow! And the moment where the kids all grow up... 😪
It's such a fantastic piece and hits so hard, despite how unassuming it is. We'd love to see it and Back's other films get a restored HD release for the new generations of animators. Crac and The Man Who Planted Trees still have the power that knocked over Miyazaki and Takahata!
I’d love to see it restored. I’ve only ever seen the fuzzy VHS copies of copies. In your article I was surprised how vibrant the original art is in the still photos. By the way, I just published another animation-related article, this time about Eyvind Earle and his background art for Sleeping Beauty, which you may enjoy.
https://zoungyart.substack.com/p/how-to-paint-a-medieval-forest-scene?r=3abtxo&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I love this! The animation I resonant of Raymond Briggs' The Snowman.
Interestingly enough, we've read that the Snowman film was partially inspired by Frédéric Back's work! There are definitely similarities in style.
Oh wow! I never knew that! Loads of my friends worked on the Snowman. It was a lot of work!
What an amazing piece of culture you've shared! i know barely nothing from the animation world but im very fond of it but I dont think i would have found out about any of this not to be for this post, not only Crac as a film but the context and the interrelation of it with so many other things we may be more familiar with was great. Thank you for this!
So happy you enjoyed -- thanks very much for the kind comment!
应该对辉夜姬物语影响不小
Visually, Princess Kaguya and My Neighbors the Yamadas are both very indebted to Crac. In the 1990s, Studio Ghibli pioneered watercolor-style digital animation in order to capture a look similar to Frédéric Back's animation. Many other films were inspired in turn by Studio Ghibli's experiments, such as Ernest & Celestine!
This is a beautiful piece. It’s wild how art can transcend its origin story and hit completely different audiences with such power. The idea that a film about a Quebec rocking chair could profoundly shape Japanese animation speaks volumes about universal human experiences and how consensus forms around resonant narratives, even across cultures. It makes you wonder how much of what we call 'progress' just cycles through different aesthetic forms, with core questions about tradition versus modernity always lingering. Thanks for sharing this deep dive.
Thanks so much! That's very kind. And it's definitely amazing how much Back's local story connected with people around the world -- he tapped into something universal without even trying to.
By the way, Bronzit's Tied Up is now available on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV. It's a good film indeed!
Thanks very much for the tip! We hadn't heard. His Three Sisters was one of the strongest shorts at the Oscars this year, but we haven't had a chance to see Tied Up yet -- will keep it on the list!
That was absolutely marvelous -- I laughed aloud at least 3-4 times and a gasped a couple times at the end. So incredible. Thank you for letting us all know this exists!!
Fantastic to hear that you enjoyed it! Crac isn't as famous as it once was, and we're glad we could send a few more folks its way -- it's so good.
Genuinely moved by this story, which I credit to both your storytelling and the passion that clearly ran through Back his entire life.
It's also a reminder that good things take time. They need to gestate and ferment before it calcifies and can be completed and shared. This works at different speeds for different people and different ideas. Sometimes you have the luxury of time, other times a deadline wills it into existence. Forged by the mental constraint of pressure, and the loose time in which one dreams.
Somewhere between the expanding and concatenation magic is conjured into existence.
Thanks so much! Back's dedication to his art and beliefs is something we find really moving and inspiring ourselves. He was one of the greats.
as always, a great read! wasn’t familiar with Back’s work, but really love it now and can totally see his influence on some of my favorite artists
Thanks a ton! So happy we could introduce you to his stuff. We love Crac, and not many films (live action or animated) are as high on our list as The Man Who Planted Trees.
i had never seen this film before!! thank you so much for bringing it to my attention, it truly feels like a storybook brought to life. to see something crafted with so much love that speaks to my own childhood like this, truly a magic moment!!
Ah, love to hear this! So happy you enjoyed!
Despite my awareness of this blog for many years, I've only just now been regularly keeping up with it this year. This is the first article I've seen from you that has the subject of the piece linked to a YouTube upload. I gladly watched it before reading the article, and not that I hated it, but I have a newfound respect for it after reading the context behind which it was made. So thanks for that.
Happy to share the film! It was writing the original version of this article in 2024 that made us fall in love with Crac ourselves -- The Man Who Planted Trees was already one of our favorites, but we hadn't taken a close look at Crac yet. They're both classics in our book.
Thanks for the reply.
Meant to comment this sooner, but I hope people don't take the wrong lesson from the story behind this piece, that being "I need to suffer physically in order to show that my work to mean something" as opposed to "this is interesting behind the scenes background"
Somehow I had never heard of seen Crac! It’s absolutely beautiful! Thank you so much for putting it on my radar, I love this newsletter so much!
Ah, thanks for the very kind words! Happy we could introduce you to Crac!