Can you write 350 words on the Quay DVDs by Thursday?
- You do know that there's a major conflict of interest, what with me being the producer on the DVDs as well?
- Yes, but that makes you sensationally well qualified to write about them. Besides, you're the only one who'll see the discs before we go to press.
- But your readers aren't going to believe a word I say! I mean, it's perfectly true that the restored, remastered and Quay-approved transfers look eye-poppingly good; that the commentary recording session left me grateful they were in a sound-proof booth because of the number of laugh-out-loud moments; that the discs include loads of fascinating rarities (idents for the BFI and BBC2, a self-financed pilot that never found a backer, alternative ‘Scope versions of two shorts, their 'acting' cameo in Greenaway's The Falls, two hefty interviews); that the booklet is a collector's item containing a comprehensive Quay Brothers Dictionary and the original illustrated treatment for Street of Crocodiles, and that the Quays' personal involvement extended to supervising the menus and packaging - but won't this be wasted if it comes from me?
- Well, don't write that, just a brief pen-portrait of the Quays and keep it neutral.
- So something like 'Philadelpia-born, London-based, Mitteleurope-influenced identical twins the Quay Brothers have been refining their unique brand of stop-motion puppet animation since their debut, Nocturna Artificialia, in 1979. Whether working in documentary (The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer), literary adaptation (Street of Crocodiles), music video (Stille Nacht I-IV), installation (The Phantom Museum) or their own unclassifiable fantasies (Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies), each Quay film is a trip into a deeply strange and private universe of unsettling dreams, disturbing memories and unexpected movements, where natural and narrative laws have long since been abandoned'?
- Yes, that does it.
This 2-disc DVD set celebrates the work of the amazing identical twin animators The Quay Brothers, who have produced a unique body of work, and have also made a major contribution towards establishing the puppet film as a serious adult art form. Includes The Cabinet Of Jan Svankmajer, The Unnameable Little Broom, Street Of Crocodiles, Rehearsals For Extinct Anatomies, Stille Nacht I - Dramolet, The Comb, Anamorphosis, Stille Nacht III - Are We Still Married?, Stille Nacht III - Tales From Vienna Woods, Stille Nacht IV - Can't Go Wrong Without You, In Absentia, The Phantom Museum, Nocturna Artificialia, The Calligrapher, The Summit and Archive Interview.
Jan Svankmajer: The Complete Short Films 1964-1992
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Quay Brothers - The Short Films 1979-2003
