Histoire de Mr. Vieux-Bois

While cel animation was the preserve of American producers from the late 1910s onwards, cut-out and stop motion animation were the dominant techniques in Europe between 1908 and 1930. Following the trail blazed by Emile Cohl, in particular his seminal work Pieds Nickelés (1917–1918), came „Histoire de Mr. Vieux-Bois“ (1921), a respectful adaptation – bar a little watering down – of a famous picture story by Swiss author, illustrator and teacher Rodolphe Töpffer, based on the 1837 author’s copy. Just as in American animation, in Europe adaptations of existing graphic stories (Forton, Rabier, Kahles) played a key role in the evolution of cinema towards a truly narrative dimension with its own identity as a separate genre.

Financed by two Genevans, François Ehrenhold and Maurice Peyrot-Schlumberger, using the moniker Pencil-Film, „Histoire de Mr. Vieux-Bois“ was entrusted to Paris’s Atelier Lortac to create a modern version of Töpffer – for the cinema! – that was faithful to the original. Originally conceived as three episodes, the slapstick romantic tribulations of Monsieur Vieux-Bois (named Obadiah Oldbuck in a early redrawned american version) were so were soon shown as a single piece throughout the interwar period. However, the film was only released locally even though one of two remaining reels from the era features bilingual intertitles – evidence of a desire for wider distribution throughout Switzerland.

Produced in 4K from an original 35-mm negative donated in 1980 by Olivier Dunant, Peyrot’s grandson, the digital restoration by the Swiss National Film Archive preserves the flaws from the production process (scratched negatives, slight off-centring, splicing, etc.), but also the era’s grey levels and the correct speed. This work allows a full appreciation of cut-out animation made on a single surface, and the tension between economy and variation of the animated parts. It highlights the skill used in creating this simple animation: using feel to structure the rhythm of the movement and the background that keeps the same pen strokes as the original while adjusting the level of detail, as well as the use of pullers. 

Text by Roland Cosandey and Caroline Fournier