Sunday, May 14, 2023

Sisyphus Animated

Sisyphus is an short film made by Hungarian animator Marcell Jankovics in 1974. 

(Link to YouTube)


According to the Greek myth, Sisyphus must undertake the nearly impossible task of rolling a huge stone up the side of a mountain. His story is visualized with simple contour lines and presented in a single, unbroken shot.

5 comments:

gizmo1990 said...

Hi James! I hope you'll answer this question, as I feel a lot of artists are struggling with its subject. Especially when watching your masterful control of water based media.
Are you able to explain/describe how you seamlessly combine watercolour AND gouache together? In many of your gouache videos you talk about its inherent chalkiness and how to handle it. Yet it's the juxtaposition of the two medias main strengths (watercolours intensity and gouaches dullness) when used together, which I find so hard to reconcile. And I'm sure others do too. Hope you can answer!

James Gurney said...

Great question, Gizmo. I'll ponder that a bit and eventually I'll do a post or video about it.

Seidai Tamura said...

This animation represents my feeling toward my current project. I hope I come out as victorious as this character.

gizmo1990 said...

That would be so useful and appreciated! Thanks so much!

David King said...

In the myth the boulder rolls back down and Sisyphus must push it back up again knowing that it will just roll back down again, it's his eternal condemnation, (my job often felt that way). I found it interesting how the style of the drawing of the figure changed, especially near the end.