Hollywood honours Canadian animator Frédéric Back
Last Updated: Monday, August 11, 2008 | 4:40 PM ET
CBC News
Canadian animator Frédéric Back poses after winning a Prix Jutra in 2000. A retrospective in Hollywood looks back at his contribution to animation. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press) The work of a Canadian animator who has won two Academy Awards is in the spotlight this week at the institution that awards the Oscars.
Frédéric Back is being honoured with an exhibit of his drawings and screenings of his films at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles.
In Hollywood, Back is hailed as an important influence on the creation of animated films.
Back has won Oscars for two of his animated films — Crac! in 1982 and L'homme qui plantait les arbres (The Man Who Planted Trees) in 1987.
He also earned Oscar nominations for Tout-rien (All Nothing) in 1981 and Le fleuve aux grandes eaux (The Mighty River) in 1993.
"These films have an appeal that really exceeded all I could have conceived or hoped for," Back told CBC News, speaking in French. "I never made films for glory. What I wanted to do was create something useful."
On Sunday, Back was in Los Angeles at the opening of the exhibit, Frédéric Back: A Life's Drawings which looks back at images from his 46 years as an animator.
The exhibit features the hand-drawn pictures, created with colored pencils on frosted cels, that Back uses to create his animated works.
"Entertainment is more interesting if it conveys ideas which transform people, so that 15 minutes, half an hour or two hours later they are different from the person who entered the room," Back said.
Back, who has worked out of Radio-Canada in Montreal since 1952, is a passionate defender of the environment and many of his works, including The Man Who Planted Trees, reflect environmental themes.
The Los Angeles exhibit also includes some of the thousands of concept sketches, illustrations and landscapes that he generated throughout his career, as well as photographs and correspondence by the filmmaker.
Quebec sound artist Norman Roger, who has worked with Back for more than 30 years, says his colleague's films are familiar to animators around the world.
"They are not well known in Canada, but everywhere where I go when I am invited at festivals to be member of jury or to give workshops, people know our films," he said.
John Lasseter, the pioneering Hollywood animator, will discuss Back's work with him at a special presentation in Los Angeles Tuesday of The Man Who Planted Trees.
Lasseter is executive producer of films such as Finding Nemo, and Wall-E, which also has an environmental theme. Pixar Animations is one of the supporters of the Back retrospective, along with the Canadian and Quebec governments.
Back, who was born in Germany and came to Canada in 1948, also is known in Montreal for creating the stained glass mural L'histoire de la musique à Montréal (History of Music in Montreal) in the Metro. He is an officer of the Order of Canada.
Corrections and Clarifications
- John Lasseter, not James Lasseter, as an earlier version of the story stated, is the pioneering Hollywood animator who will be discussing Back's work with him at a special presentation in Los Angeles. Aug. 11, 2008|8:36 p.m. ET
