A pesquisa se propõe a analisar a técnica de animação pixillation como linguagem específica, traçando relações deste tipo de animação com estudos ligados à imagem e ao movimento. Para isto, proponho atribuir ligações do pixillation com os trickfilms do early cinema, no âmbito da perspectiva mágica dos truques da técnica; estabelecer paralelos entre a prática fotográfica e a prática cinematográfica, utilizando-me de ambas as linguagens para avaliar questões do pixillation sob aspectos que dialogam com o conceito de magia e sua relação com as imagens técnicas; e, com base nos trabalhos em pixillation de Norman McLaren e Jan Svankmajer, entender a técnica como proposta poética e estética de linguagem audiovisual. Assim, através dos aspectos técnicos do pixillation, destacarei as potencialidades mágicas desse tipo de animação. / The research aims to analyze the technique of pixillation animation as specific language, tracing relationships of this type of animation with studies of image and movement. For this, I propose: assign connections of pixillation with the trickfilms of the early cinema, within the perspective of magic tricks of this technique; draw parallels between the photographic practice and the film practice, using both languages to evaluate the pixillation issues in ways that dialogue with the concept of magic and its relationship with technique images; and based on the work in pixilation of Norman McLaren and Jan Svankmajer, understand the technique as a poetic and aesthetics proposal of audiovisual language. Thus, through the technical aspects of pixillation, I will highlight the magical potential of this type of animation.

A pesquisa se propõe a analisar a técnica de animação pixillation como linguagem específica, traçando relações deste tipo de animação com estudos ligados à imagem e ao movimento. Para isto, proponho atribuir ligações do pixillation com os trickfilms do early cinema, no âmbito da perspectiva mágica dos truques da técnica; estabelecer paralelos entre a prática fotográfica e a prática cinematográfica, utilizando-me de ambas as linguagens para avaliar questões do pixillation sob aspectos que dialogam com o conceito de magia e sua relação com as imagens técnicas; e, com base nos trabalhos em pixillation de Norman McLaren e Jan Svankmajer, entender a técnica como proposta poética e estética de linguagem audiovisual. Assim, através dos aspectos técnicos do pixillation, destacarei as potencialidades mágicas desse tipo de animação. / The research aims to analyze the technique of pixillation animation as specific language, tracing relationships of this type of animation with studies of image and movement. For this, I propose: assign connections of pixillation with the trickfilms of the early cinema, within the perspective of magic tricks of this technique; draw parallels between the photographic practice and the film practice, using both languages to evaluate the pixillation issues in ways that dialogue with the concept of magic and its relationship with technique images; and based on the work in pixilation of Norman McLaren and Jan Svankmajer, understand the technique as a poetic and aesthetics proposal of audiovisual language. Thus, through the technical aspects of pixillation, I will highlight the magical potential of this type of animation.

Esta dissertação estuda comparativamente o grotesco presente no manuscrito Alices Adventures Underground, de Lewis Carroll e no filme Alice (1988) do diretor Jan Svankmajer. Considerando a diferença dos campos narrativos em que atuam, relevou-se a especificidade de cada suporte, identificando como cada artista desenvolveu a estética em seu trabalho. Para focar a análise, selecionamos alguns aspectos: o início das histórias, o personagem do coelho branco, as mudanças de tamanho sofridas por Alice, a união do humor e do horror e o encerramento das narrativas. Observamos como esses elementos, marcantes no manuscrito de Carroll, reverberam na obra do cineasta surrealista, levando à construção de um filme capaz de ampliar, com maestria, os elementos da estética do grotesco, estabelecendo um diálogo criativo com o escritor vitoriano. / This thesis studies, through comparison, the grotesqu e found in the manuscript by Lewis ,jer. In view of the difference between their narrative fields, the specific traits of each medium were taken into consideration, and it was recognized how both the writer and the film director developed aesthetics in their work. To refine the analysis, some aspects were selected: the beginning of the stories, the White Rabbit character, the size changes through which Alice goes, the joining together of hu mor and horror, and the ending of the tales. We remark how these elements, so distinguished in Carrolls manuscript, echo in the work of the surrealist filmmaker, leading him to the creation of a film capable of masterly increasing the elements in the aesthetic of the grotesqu e, establishing a creative dialogue with the writer from the Victorian era.

Esta dissertação estuda comparativamente o grotesco presente no manuscrito Alices Adventures Underground, de Lewis Carroll e no filme Alice (1988) do diretor Jan Svankmajer. Considerando a diferença dos campos narrativos em que atuam, relevou-se a especificidade de cada suporte, identificando como cada artista desenvolveu a estética em seu trabalho. Para focar a análise, selecionamos alguns aspectos: o início das histórias, o personagem do coelho branco, as mudanças de tamanho sofridas por Alice, a união do humor e do horror e o encerramento das narrativas. Observamos como esses elementos, marcantes no manuscrito de Carroll, reverberam na obra do cineasta surrealista, levando à construção de um filme capaz de ampliar, com maestria, os elementos da estética do grotesco, estabelecendo um diálogo criativo com o escritor vitoriano. / This thesis studies, through comparison, the grotesqu e found in the manuscript by Lewis ,jer. In view of the difference between their narrative fields, the specific traits of each medium were taken into consideration, and it was recognized how both the writer and the film director developed aesthetics in their work. To refine the analysis, some aspects were selected: the beginning of the stories, the White Rabbit character, the size changes through which Alice goes, the joining together of hu mor and horror, and the ending of the tales. We remark how these elements, so distinguished in Carrolls manuscript, echo in the work of the surrealist filmmaker, leading him to the creation of a film capable of masterly increasing the elements in the aesthetic of the grotesqu e, establishing a creative dialogue with the writer from the Victorian era.

Czech animated allegories of the period of 1946 to 2012 encode their political ideas in objects and things, rather than through conventional narrative techniques such as voice-over or dialogue. The existence of these objects in cinematic time and space is integral to this process of political encoding, which is achieved through the selection of objects, cinematography and editing. In some of these films, time and space themselves are politically encoded. Materialist critical approaches to the film texts can help illuminate these latent political meanings. 'Thing theory', which puts a critical emphasis upon reading objects and things, exposes the politically resistant role of simple, domestic objects in the films of Jiří Trnka and Hermína Týrlová. Trnka's cinema in particular defends traditional, pastoral modes of being in which the individual is rooted within their environment. 'Actor-network-theory', a means of interrogating the relationship between actors in networks, resonates with the political ideas present in the cinema of Surrealist artist Jan Švankmajer. Švankmajer's central political project is an interrogation of anthropocentrism and attempts by humans to exert systems of control and order upon non-human actors. Rather than celebrating functional, domestic objects like Trnka or Týrlová, Švankmajer's cinema is radically anti-utilitarian. Objects are depicted as things that resist categorisation. 'Rhythmanalysis' – a mode of poetic-scientific investigation developed by philosopher Henri Lefebvre – can be used to unpick the rhythms in the animations of Jirí Barta. Barta's films critique rational clock time and the design of urban spaces through the use of editing patterns and repetition. Finally, all three materialist approaches in combination help illustrate the political content of animated films (and live-action films with significant passages of animation) produced in the wake of the Velvet Revolution. Such films often question the relationship between the individual Czech citizen and the Czech capital city of Prague. The animated films of the aforementioned directors and historical periods, tend to give precedence to the material world of objects over the semiotic world of humans, though these two realms are often shown to be inter-dependent. To this end, the political messages of the films are conveyed not through language, but through images and things.