We’re premiering our street theatre and (virtual) street organ spectacular, Half cock, in about eight weeks time. The mechanics of cutting a 2.5m rooster in two, leaving one half live and the other half ready for the barbecue, are quite complicated, so last night we were scouring around for a bit of costume inspiration on YouTube and elsewhere.
Some things we knew already–for example, unlike most other animals, cockerels are almost exclusively portrayed in profile. But others were at least partly new.
A couple of weeks ago we were reintroduced to Eastern Bloc cinematics starting with a showing of the superb 1960s Czech Western, Lemonade Joe, and we particularly enjoyed the Russian stuff we saw last night.
Of particular interest was Sergei Gordeev’s Большой петух (“Big cock”, 2006), whose second reel is in narrative terms roughly identical to the Demi coq fable as known for example in France, which had a considerable influence on Russian fakelore.
Intriguingly, however, the first reel uses a jealousy motif I think (I’m stranded without notes or even Aarne-Thompson) I’ve only encountered in versions from what was once the Ottoman Empire, from the Rif through Egypt and extending north through Turkey to Kosovo (a couple of other Russian versions don’t use it):
The bullfight scene is, of course, my favourite, but for me nothing in this animation approaches the comprehensive brilliance of Старик и петух (“The old man and the cock”, 1984), which is an extremely simplified tale of a rooster saving his master by surmounting a series of obstacles:
I struggled a bit figuring out the techniques–it looks to me on this screen like surface relief collage mixed with early computer work, but I could most easily be wrong.
The third example, Почему у петуха короткие штаны (“Why the cock wears shorts” (?), 1966), was more of a struggle for someone who only recognises a couple of dozen Russian words, but again the visual style was a delight:
Are there any Russian-speakers out there who’d be interested in adding subtitles to the first tale?
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