Co Hoedeman is a world-
renowned puppet animator who joined the NFB in 1968, adding one more colour to the rainbow of techniques practised at the Film Board. He brought with him to Canada the skills developed in his native country, the Netherlands, and began a tradition that continues today with The Necktie/Le nœud cravate (2008) by Jean-François Lévesque. Puppet animation entered the NFB with its head held high!
Hoedeman’s success should not, however, hide the achievements of his forerunners who tried to define puppet film in Canada, such as Jean-Paul Ladouceur (Sur le pont d’Avignon, 1951) and Grant Munro (One Little Indian, 1954). Hoedeman, who won an Oscar in 1978 for The Sand Castle/Le château de sable (1977), modernized the technique by emphasizing the puppets’ faces and eliciting a sense of personality. He had a long-lasting influence on succeeding generations, whose work the NFB has always encouraged.
Pierre M. Trudeau invented a unique style using puppets made from construction paper, and the look of children’s paper creations characterizes his films for the young: Kid Stuff/Enfantillage (1990) and Baroque’n Roll (1994). Martin Barry’s Juke-Bar (1989) is an entertaining musical comedy featuring the high jinks of a bunch of zany-faced cockroaches and has delighted audiences of all ages. The young filmmaker Patrick Bouchard’s strange, earth- and clay-coloured world brought puppet animation into grim hyperrealism (Dehors novembre, 2005), as well as disturbing surrealism (The Brainwashers/Les ramoneurs cérébraux, 2002).
It’s a remarkable range of celebrated filmmakers who have made puppet films at the NFB: The Czech Bretislav Pojar, who worked with animator Jiri Trnka, made several films at the Film Board, including Nightangel/L’heure des anges (1986), co-directed with Jacques Drouin and using the pinscreen technique that made his name. In 2007, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski made the virtuoso and multiple award-winning Madame Tutli-Putli, a metaphysical thriller that took festivals the world over by storm. Melding conventional shooting methods with digital tweaks, the duo brought us into an entire new territory of puppet animation.
The Necktie/Le nœud cravate is an impish and charming story about work, in which director Jean-François Lévesque again redefines the puppet technique. Incorporating 2D animation into 3D backgrounds and combining puppets with animated drawings, he easily and brilliantly makes the aesthetics developed by Hoedeman his own. Lévesque’s film appeals to both heart and mind.
Other filmmakers, like Brian Duchscherer (The Balgonie Birdman, 1993), Pjotr Sapegin (Aria, 2001; Through My Thick Glasses, 2003) and Sjaak Meilink (Stiltwalkers/Les échassiers, 2002) have vastly enriched the history of puppet animation. The 40 years of research, invention and innovation that followed the arrival of Co Hoedeman at the NFB are still going strong.