The Brilliant Animations of Ralph Bakshi
From the 60s to the 80s Ralph Bakshi created some of the most original animated fantasy films that challenged the conventional "Disney-way" of animation. Bakshi was born in Palestine in 1938 but grew up in Brooklyn, from where he worked himself up to become an animation legend. For me Bakshi created one of the most memorable animation films of my childhood, The Lord of the Rings from 1978. I remember being dead scared of it, the riders were and still are so intense and intimidating with the pitch-black hoods and horses, blood red eyes and life like movements. And that is Bakshi's signature in his animations, Rotoscoping, the technique where animation is put over live action, making movements really, yeah well, life like. The Lord of the Rings might be his most famous but far from his only brilliant work.
In 1967 Bakshi started working for Paramount and directing the animated Spiderman Series, in 1972 he directed cult classic Fritz the Cat, the animated feature solely for grown-ups and the success of the film consequently allowed Bakshi to produce films with his own characters and ideas. After a few hits with the critics he made the second film I'd like to mention, Wizards. A beautiful Post apocalyptic story about a wizard named Avatar and his faire folk who must fight his evil wizard brother, Blackwolf, who is using technology in his quest for power and to destroy. It is a science-fiction film with a magical Tolkien kind of feel over it. The year after was the year of Bakshi's try on Tolien's epic Rings-saga and even though it received a tepid welcome amongst critics because of its length, I love it.
In 1983 he made Fire and Ice in which he collaborated with legendary fantasy/science Fiction artist Frank Frazetta, which is quite evident if you are familiar with Frazetta's work. In 1992, Cool world came. A, according to me, Who Framed Roger Rabbit rip off, yet, to Bakshi's defense the script he wrote was re-written without his knowledge so many times that he in the end didn't recognised it. Its not a bad film, I actually quite enjoyed it, but not a fair representative of Bakshi's usually amazing work. Bakshi's films has over the years gained an underground cult status, so all of these films are worth looking up if you are a fan of Bakshi, or if you are just a fan of obscure animation with fantasy elements and realistic undertone. I certainly would recommend his films to.. well everyone.
