“New Gulliver” - an original version of classical story - was released
in 1935. In some sense this is the result of
experiments with the
dolls, by which Ptushko was occupied in the middle of the 20's.
Possessing the inexhaustible creativity and bright technical abilities,
he developed a number of original hinged constructions of the dolls and
then many efforts spent on the study of the expressive possibilities of
the stop animation. In the film, together with the
living actors, “are
occupied” three thousand 3-D dolls. The director combined real medium
and living actors with the animated cartoon dolls in one sequence. The
dolls are grotesque; they have rich mimicry and “their own” voices.
Alexander Ptushko for the first time introduced into the sound track of
the film a sufficiently interesting method. During the recording of
actors he changed the frequencies of the passage of sound at the moment
of record and led the timbre of the living speech of actor to the
maximally high, almost squeaky sounding, attaining the characteristic
“
puppet” voice of characters. This was uncommon and created an
agitating effect, especially in the dialogues of actor- Gulliver with
the doll- Lilliputian. Ideological shell of the film (great
Lilliputian- proletarian revolution with the participation of the boy
Peter from the USSR didn’t stand the time-test. What is remained is the
innovating approach of the director and surprising even at the times of
computer animated cartoon the acting of puppet characters. Well and, of
course, the Lilliputian corps-de-ballet, which dances and sings a
flamboyant tango: “My Lilliput- girl, oh, come to me! Let’s stay
together in privity!”