Author: 213/Anitama Cover Source: Mary and Marx
Title: Mary and Marx
Formerly known as Mary and Max
Country: Australia
Year: 2009
Directed by Adam Elliot
Starring: Toni Colette Philip Seymer Hoffman Eric Barnard Barry Hamfles Bethany Wittmore
Duration: 92 minutes
http://www.le.com/movie/81322.html
<h5>"Everyone's life is a long sidewalk, some are flat, and some are like me, with cracks, banana peels and cigarette butts." </h5>
"Mary and Max," which is recommended for this weekend's patch, is undoubtedly a devastating tear gas bomb, a clay stop-motion animation directed and written by Australian independent animator Adam Elliot, which tells the story of two imperfect human beings in more than 90 minutes with hundreds of thousands of still images.
Directed by Adam Elliott.
Living in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, 8-year-old Mary was not loved by her alcoholic mother and specimen-only father, and usually had no friends, because after a chance to get the address of an American New Yorker named Marx, Mary sent his first letter to him. The 44-year-old Marx was a middle-aged Jewish man living alone, autistic and obese, and he was frustrated in the bustling city. Two Lonely Hearts discover in correspondence that they both like the same cartoon and have no friends. So in this way, for nearly two decades from 1976 to 1994, Mary and Marx both helped each other and hurt each other and eventually tolerated each other, until Mary finally had the ability to come to New York to meet Marx when she became an adult.
The release year of "Mary and Marx" is 2009, CG technology has been popularized in visual image today, and audiences have rarely seen long-form animations that are made in the traditional way of puppets and stop-motion pictures like this film. Director Adam Elliott is a stop-motion animator from Australia, and although he said he wanted to be a veterinarian, he never thought of becoming a clay animator, filmmaker or writer. When Elliot was studying at the Victoria School of art at film school, he had planned to make his first short film 2D animation, but was advised by his mentor to try clay animation, and he has never looked back on this road ever since.
Mary in Australia.
All of Eliot's animation works have participated in more than 700 film festivals and won more than 100 awards. Before Mary and Marx, first three short films in the "Self-Narrative Trilogy," 1996's Uncle, 1998's Cousin, and 1999's Brother, until Harvie Krumpet (2003), which won the 76th Academy Award for Best Animated Short, Elliot persisted in this eccentric character setting that looked distinctly flawed. Marx is almost a continuation of Harvey, the protagonist of "Naked Harvey Breaking the World", one is a Jewish descendant living in the United States, one is an immigrant who came to Australia from Poland because of the war, both of them are outsiders who are incompatible with the surroundings and have not integrated into society, but compared to Harvey, who loves the naked body and is still complete and optimistic, Marx is a more decadent version, if there is no letter from Mary mistakenly, probably Marx's life can only be as gray as the tone of the picture in this film. In addition to the exaggeration and reinvention at the artistic level, Marx did have an archetype, which was one of Eliot's own pen pals in New York who corresponded for more than twenty years, and was also an autistic Jew. In fact, Mary also has the shadow of Elliot's childhood, shy and lonely, and Elliot said that the iconic birthmark on Mary's head is a symbol of this childhood melancholy.
Marx, who lived alone in the United States.
Why cling to the expression of imperfections? This is all due to Eliot's own experience, he himself has some physical defects - because of physiological reasons, the hands tremble involuntarily, which makes it difficult to draw and write, and is often regarded as nervous. All the characters Elliot creates are imperfect, and he has this attitude toward the so-called "mutilation": "Everyone is flawed, but usually these parts are hidden, and my goal is to highlight and celebrate that human beings can have such imperfections, and no one is pure or flawless.". This philosophy eventually became Elliot's aesthetic style, with slender heads and bulging eyes, and his clay dolls never looked good. Mary and Marx are both in the cognition of normal people are the category of "strange people", the theme of this film is to explore the loneliness and differences of this group of people, how to tell this story, Eliot's narrative method is very characteristic, like a mille-feuille cake, the layer by layer of the story is densely spread out. He says he's never obsessed with building structures, but starts with the details, and when the details are prepared enough, the storyline will naturally be connected. Immersing himself in the story in this way of creating a story is quite a bit of a sense of killing a thousand and eight hundred self-inflicted wounds, and when the script of "Mary and Marx" is written to the end, Elliot himself first shed a bucket of tears.
The picture of "Mary and Marx" has a very obvious distinction in tone, and most of the colors used in the animation are colorful, and Eliot said that this time he wants to make something different. Compared with his previous works, Eliot began to use color more clearly as a special means of conveying information in Mary and Marx, the world of Mary in brown and the world of Marx in gray. Australia in the 70s looked like the color of nicotine, and the reinforced concrete metropolis of New York gave it a nice sense of gray. Letters and gifts interact with each other travel through two dim worlds, and small objects that play a very important role appear in dark red colors. In addition, if Mary gave Marx something, even if the thing arrived in New York, the brown of Mary's world would not turn gray, and if Marx gave Mary the same thing, it would maintain their original color. These little rules of playing with color are a surprise on an artistic level that Elliot has painstakingly designed and is proud of, even if the whole film is dark, it is not dull.
The change and contrast of colors in the film.
What viewers may not notice during the viewing process is that Mary and Marx does not use any computer-generated animation effects. A total of 212 clay dolls, 133 scenes, 475 small props, from the letter mailbox trash can to the New York skyline, each character and prop is completed by hand, such as Marx's Underwood typewriter from design to production took 9 weeks. The whole film was filmed with 8 high-resolution digital cameras, and 6 animators moved the characters in each frame, taking a total of about 138,480 photos as footage, which constituted 92 minutes of what the audience saw at a playback speed of 24 frames per second. The shoot alone took 57 weeks, averaging a full week of shooting every 2 and a half minutes, and the entire production time lasted 5 years. Such a time-consuming time is also a test of money, but fortunately they have a very strong and enthusiastic female producer who has pulled in a budget of $8.2 million.
The time cost of making grid-by-frame animation is so high, but even though other opportunities lie ahead, Elliot still doesn't give up his clay villain. Hollywood has never been a place without money, and after Elliott won the Oscar for "Naked Harvey Breaks the World", the Americans extended an olive branch, but he refused, going to the United States must be able to get more paid, but will lose the happiness of animation. In fact, after winning the Oscars, Elliot would get two tickets to the Oscars every year, but in order to keep his distance, he knew that he was a control freak and could not accept the lack of creativity and creative freedom from Hollywood. Another offer from the film company Rocket Man Pictures to shoot 3D animation was also declined by Elliott, who did not even read the script, and in his words, "I have no knowledge of computer animation, computer animation is like a foreigner to me". After visiting Pixar and DreamWorks, Elliot thought so, "We came up with different ideas, but they just looked at it and probably thought, 'This group of people is so strange to us.'" Thanks to all of the above, such a classic work as "Mary and Marx" can be born.
As an independent animation, "Mary and Marx" can be voiced by Oscar-winning film philip Seymour Hoffman. When Elliott watched Hoffman's film "Happiness" again, he decided that Marx's voice must be matched by this person, although he could not afford to pay the fee. It took about a year to find the opportunity to hand over the script to Hoffman, but when Hoffman read the script, he immediately decided to join it. 8-year-old Mary also found a real 8-year-old girl to voice, interviewed 40 little girls and selected Betani Wittmore, and when she grew up, Mary was voiced by Toni Collette, an actress who went from Australia to the world film industry. In addition, there are some particularly small roles that cannot find suitable actors, and Elliot personally plays.
It is no surprise that "Mary and Marx", which is so outstanding in all aspects, has attracted the attention of the world, and the best animated feature film award at the Angsi International Animation Film Festival in France, the Crystal Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and the highest award at the Ottawa International Animation Film Festival have all been included in its pockets. Of course, "Mary and Marx" also opened the door to the United States, not only the first Australian film to land at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States, but also the first animated film to serve as the opening film of the film festival. When mentioning his original intention to make this animation, Elliott said that he wanted as many people as possible to see it, whether he won the award or not, and let the people who spent $15 on the movie ticket feel worth it. In addition to the recognition from the industry and various awards, on the film website IMDb, which is scored and evaluated by the public, the score of "Mary and Marx" is still in the top 250 position, which is also worthy of the original intention.
For viewers who are accustomed to the cool pictures made by computers, it is also an interesting experience to have the opportunity to feel the clay animation that is now made in a way that is full of emotion, not to mention that the story of "Mary and Marx" itself is also impeccable. The opening sentence comes from Marx's last letter to Mary, and the other sentence in the letter is quoted at the end. After all, as one of the most imperfect human beings, most friends in life pass with time, and it is too lucky to have such a thing as a "best friend".
<h5>"We can't choose our own shortcomings, they are also part of us, we have to adapt to them, yet we can choose our friends, and I'm glad we chose you." </h5>
【References】
Wikipedia Mary and Marx
Adam Elliot, “Mary and Max”: Flaws, Limitations, and Possibilities
Interview with Adam Elliot, writer/director/designer of Mary and Max
Mary and Max: rewatching classic Australian films
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