The Quay Brothers
Into a Metaphysical Playroom
The complex, special power of the Quay Brothers’ puppet animation poetics
Details
The Quay Brothers
Into a Metaphysical Playroom
ISBN: 9780816646593
Publication date: March 7th, 2011
296 Pages
10 x 7
"Suzanne Buchan’s book offers a welcome introduction to the art of the Brothers Quay, with an emphasis on a detailed reading of their animated film, Street of Crocodiles. The Quay Brothers offers engaging descriptions and thought-provoking insights into the Quays’ art specifically and into the art of animation generally." —Thomas Lamarre, McGill University
"To use the term Buchan cites from Joyce, this is a fascinating transluding of the Quays’ work into prose. Based on several years’ affectionate acquaintance with the pair, The Quay Brothers is entertaining, often innovative, and highly evocative. A great book on the Quays and on the British scene since the 1970s, it also opens up new avenues for animation and film studies." —Sean Cubitt, University of Melbourne
Buchan's aesthetic investigation stems from extensive access to the Quay Brothers' artistic practices and work, which spans animation and live-action film, stage design and illustration. She also draws on a long acquaintance with them and on interviews with collaborators essential to their productions, as well as archival sources. Discussions of their films' literary origins, space, puppets, montage, and the often-overlooked world of sound and music in animation shed new light on the expressive world that the Quay Brothers generate out of their materials to create the poetic alchemy of their films.
At once a biography of the Quays' artistic trajectory and a detailed examination of one of their best-known films, Street of Crocodiles, this book goes further and provides interdisciplinary methodologies and tools for the analysis of animation.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Authentic Trappers in Metaphysical Playrooms
2. Palimpsests, Fragments, Vitalist Affinities
3. Traversing the Esophagus
4. Puppets and Metaphysical Machines
5. Negotiating the Labyrinth
6. The Secret Scenario of Soundscapes
7. The Animated Frame and Beyond
8. Animistic Architectures
Notes
Bibliography
Works of the Quay Brothers
Index
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