Animation Celebration Dives Into Hungarian Folklore

A mix of familiar and new faces dropped in on the latest installment of Animation Celebration,” the ongoing series from the New Haven Free Public Library hosted by Haley Grunloh, library technical assistant at Mitchell Library. Attendance may have been down slightly thanks to the holidays, but enthusiasm was as high as ever, thanks to the particularly bewitching choice for this month — the film János Vitéz, or Johnny Corncob, a 1973 film from Hungarian animator and director Marcell Jankovics.

As Grunloh explained to one first-time participant, Animation Celebration” usually happens on the third Monday of every month. Grunloh picks the films and announces them in advance. We watch them ahead of time and then talk about them” on a Zoom call. (Grunloh has already announced January’s pick, 2020’s Ride Your Wave.) The series started in May 2020 while the library was closed and we couldn’t do anything else,” Grunloh said. But the format proved sticky even as things reopened a year later, and Grunloh and crew are still at it. I’ve definitely seen a lot of weird movies that I wouldn’t see otherwise,” Grunloh said, 

Grunloh began with some background on Marcell Jankovics and Johnny Corncob. Born in 1941, Jankovics started out as an apprentice in a government-funded film studio, worked on many shorter projects — short films and commercials — before getting the opportunity to make a feature film,” Grunloh said.

Johnny Corncob was his first, and the first animated feature produced in Hungary. The then-Communist Hungarian government commissioned the film to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sándor Petőfi, considered the national poet of Hungary,” Grunloh said. In 1844 Petőfi published János Vitéz, an epic poem about a shepherd who goes on a series of adventures, from fighting in the army against the Turks to dealing with witches, in a long journey to find his true love. Based on Hungarian folk tales, János Vitéz is often compared to the Odyssey,” Grunloh said, and its story was very familiar to Hungarian audiences in the 1970s. Jankovics was about 30 when he directed his film based on the poem. He had two years and a team of 150 animators to complete the movie. It proved to be a hit, not just in Hungary, but in China, where about 400 million people saw it. According to Grunloh, Jankovics was blown away. He didn’t expect anyone outside of Hungary to get it.”

Jankovics is better known in Hungary for his second feature, Son of the White Mare, but after the end of Communism in Hungary in 1989, it was a lot harder for him to get funding for his films,” Grunloh said. He scraped together money from different places.” His last film, Tragedy of Man, took many years to complete. It’s incredibly ambitious,” said Grunloh, and with a three-hour running time, it’s among the longest-running animated films ever. Jankovics died in 2021 at the age of 79.

Grunloh noted that the style of Johnny Corncob drew from two distinct sources. One is Hungarian folk art,” with its flower patterns and bird shapes. But Jankovics was also a big fan of the Beatles and the movie Yellow Submarine,” so one can see a tribute to that film” in the character design.

Notice the characters have big feet and a small head,” Grunloh said. He wanted it to work like forced perspective, like you’re looking up at the character” so they’re larger than life. They’re these folk heroes, towering figures.”

Grunloh then asked participants for their first impressions of the film. 

I wept a few times in this movie. I wept heartily at the end,” one participant said, because I love romance, and this was what a romance is supposed to do. You’re supposed to reach a peak and hold your breath. Their kisses were like eternal kisses.… It’s a romance from the very beginning.”

She expressed surprise that Jankovics wasn’t sure people outside of Hungary would be able to follow it. Though grounded in Hungarian culture, I would think this is so understandable as an epic journey” across culture, she said, encompassing bloody battles, witches, bandits, and a voyage to the place of the dead.”

He had so much courage” and found solutions” that counted, she said. It was just epic.”

They do a lot of clever things to make it feel grand and sweeping,” Grunloh agreed. That music is stuck in my head forever.”

And some of the phrases too,” the participant said.

That allowed Grunloh to interject more information. One of the things that’s really beloved about the poem it’s based off of is the clever wordplay, which doesn’t translate at all,” she said. 

Hungarian, you can never translate wordplay,” another participant said. If you want to learn Hungarian to read the poetry, good luck.” She spoke, it seemed, from experience. I loved the artwork, the style of it,” she continued. We haven’t seen anything quite like that.” She also noted that Jan. 1, 2023 marks the 200th anniversary of Sándor Petőfi’s birth. I bet they’re going to have a hell of a party,” she said.

We should all watch this movie again on that day,” Grunloh said.

They discussed the wondrous ending of the movie for a moment (which I will not spoil here) before returning to the beginning, when the titular character first meets his true love and they … connect. This was a cinematic orgasm that was right up with Meg Ryan’s in When Harry Met Sally,” one participant said, except that this one isn’t fake.”

It goes on for several minutes,” Grunloh said, laughing, but it’s tasteful and elegant.”

And beautiful!” the participant agreed.

And full of Hungarian art motifs,” Grunloh said.

The participants mutually admired the consistently inventive art style as well as the fun the filmmaker had with geography — such as going from Hungary to France through Italy and India — before Grunloh asked about the characters in the film.

We have Johnny Corncob, or John the Valiant,” Grunloh said. They’re very simple, archetypal characters, but there’s something fun about them, too. Johnny’s a good guy, and he does good things, and he never seems to feel conflicted.”

One participant liked that about him. Each time he found a solution,” she said. It gave me courage to venture out into my day and do everything that comes my way.” But he wasn’t altogether on the up and up, either. In an encounter with bandits, He doesn’t take the bandits’ blood-soaked money,” Grunloh said. But he doesn’t give it back to the townspeople either.”

The second half of the film gets trippier, involving scenes in which, say, Johnny takes a trip across an ocean by nestling in the ear of a giant that strides through the waves, getting comfortable enough to light a fire and have a meal. He kills an enormous dragon by entering its body and squeezing its heart. In his relentless search for his true love Ilushka, he had no regard for life. He would be a great bandit, because he didn’t care If he died,” one participant said. The ending was scary stuff. Not for under 10! Or over 60.”

But the fantastical elements were also visual storytelling, a way of showing big emotions without irony,” Grunloh said. I feel like I don’t see that in a lot of more recent movies. They have more of a winking at the audience tone. There’s just something different and satisfying about the whole tone” of Johnny Corncob. It’s not afraid of being hokey,” she said, and because of that, succeeds in being very moving.

He literally moved heaven and earth to reunite with his beloved,” one participant said. It comes from the pure fairytale tradition. It’s not Hollywood and Disney. You’ve got the hero and the maiden, and they love each other. There’s tragedy,” and he has to face terrible threats that would scare anyone else away, and he has to soldier on and get the girl.” Even death, she added, was just another obstacle.”

Did watching this film make you want to check out his other work?” Grunloh asked. The participants replied in the affirmative. Grunloh noted Son of the White Mare is on Kanopy as well, and in that one he found his voice more and had the support” of the government.

Corrupt capitalism doesn’t help the arts like the glorious Soviet republic,” one participant wryly said. They talked about how some Communist filmmakers felt stifled” under their regimes — they had funding but had to work around restrictions they weren’t super-happy with.” But Jankovics flourished. Grunloh noted that, after the collapse of Communism, Jankovics worked for Disney very briefly.” Mark Dindal, director of 2000’s The Emperor’s New Groove, was a big fan of Jankovics and invited him to work on storyboards. None of Jankovic’s ideas made it to the screen, but he funnelled the money he made into finishing Tragedy of Man. Meanwhile, he stole some pencils.

Why did it take so long for us to see this film? Was it our block or their block?” one participant said of Johnny Corncob’s belated reception in the West.

We don’t have a strong tradition of interest in foreign films,” another participant mused. It’s only recent, apart from French films, because they play a lot of Brahms, and everyone can understand Brahms.… We’re a very insular country.” And if it doesn’t have subtitles, it’s dead in this country. 

I’m not sure you can watch his later films legally,” Grunloh said. Which meant that on Jan. 1 — 50 years after the film’s initial release, and 200 years after the birth of the poet who created the original material — perhaps participants could show everyone this film.”

I think everyone will like it, not just crazy people like us,” a participant said.

The next installment of Animation Celebration” happens on Jan. 23. Visit the New Haven Free Public Library’s event page for details on how to watch the film and join the discussion. Johnny Corncob is available on Kanopy.

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