Louis Bunin (28 March 1904 – 17 February 1994) was an American puppeteer, artist, and pioneer of stop-motion animation best known for his 1949 adaption of Alice in Wonderland.
Early works edit
While working as a mural artist under Diego Rivera in Mexico City in 1926, Bunin created political puppet shows using marionettes including a production of Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape. Photographer Tina Modotti took many pictures of Bunin and his puppets, including her renowned work, "The Hands of the Puppeteer."[1]
Career edit
On his return to the United States, Bunin created animated three-dimensional puppets to appear in the 1939 New York World's Fair in New York City. His 1943 political stop-motion satire, Bury the Axis, is well known. Later Bunin landed a job with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer where he created the stop-motion Prologue to the famed film, Ziegfeld Follies. He was subsequently fired as a casualty of McCarthyism.[2]
Alice in Wonderland (1949) edit
Bunin went on to create a feature-length stop-motion animation film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland in 1949, starring Carol Marsh as a live-action Alice. A lawsuit from Walt Disney prevented it from being widely released in the U.S.,[3] so that it would not compete with Disney's forthcoming 1951 animated version.[1] Further, the film was kept out of Britain as his representation of the Queen of Hearts was seen as too close and too unkind to Queen Victoria.[4] The film was restored with 12 additional minutes and shown at museums around the US, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.[5]
Death edit
Creator of the popular Talking Utica Club Beer Mugs and a plethora of memorable short films, Bunin died of a stroke on 17 February 1994 at age 89 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.[1]
References edit
- ^ a b c Lou Bunin, obituary. New York Times, February 20 1994.
- ^ Senses of Cinema
- ^ "Cinema: Battle of Wonderland". Time. 16 July 1951. Archived from the original on March 28, 2010. Retrieved 29 September 2009.
- ^ Time Out London
- ^ Bunin's Alice|Cartoon Brew
Further reading edit
- Bendazzi, Giannalberto (2015). "Bunin's Puppets". Animation: A World History: Volume II: The Birth of a Style - The Three Markets. CRC Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-1-317-51991-1.
- Canemaker, John (September–October 1987). "Lou Bunin: Puppet Master". Print: America's Graphic Design Magazine. Vol. 41, no. 5. pp. 94–. ISSN 0032-8510. OCLC 1762867.
- Prestone, David; Mandell, Paul (1976). "The Puppet Films Animator Lou Bunin". Closeup. No. 2. pp. 4–11. OCLC 56827139.
- Roffat, Sébastien (2020). "Retour sur la coproduction franco-anglo-américaine d'Alice au pays des merveilles de Lou Bunin (1949)". 1895: Revue d’histoire du cinéma (in French). 91 (2): 96–131. doi:10.4000/1895.8020. ISSN 0769-0959. S2CID 236867573.