by Giannalberto Bendazzi

Quirino Cristiani in Santa Giuletta,on November 29, 1981, when he was being honored by the local government.

Courtesy of Giannalberto Bendazzi



Drawing by Diógenes Taborda for El Apóstol

Courtesy of Giannalberto Bendazzi



Drawing by Diógenes Taborda for El Apóstol

Courtesy of Giannalberto Bendazzi





Frame enlargement from Peludópolis showing Juan Pueblo confonting members of the junta.

Courtesy of Giannalberto Bendazzi





Peludópolis

It was in this studio, in 1929, that another act in the Italo-Argentine filmmaker's career began. Working from a script by Eduardo Gonzalez Lanuza, he began making Peludópolis, his third animated feature. Once again Hipólito Irigoyen and Irigoyenism was his target. (Irigoyen had been elected president a second time in 1928 by a two-to-one margin). Cristiani brought all his imagination and technical discoveries into play. As usual, he used articulated characters cut out from cardboard. He finished the film in 1931 and it had its premiere on September 16. Meanwhile, something had happened.



On September 6, 1930, a year before the film's premiere, Irigoyen had been overthrown by military coup d'état. The increasingly senile president had made one error after another, and his fellow party members had lost most of their prestige and credibility through their dishonesty and corruption. The coup pleased no one. but everyone agreed that, after all, it was a solution.



For Cristiani, it was a tragedy. His film satirized the corruption of the old president's associates, showing the difficulties of keeping the "Argentine ship of state" afloat in an ocean filled with voracious sharks. Now there were no longer a president, and the sharks of the Radical Party were hidden in their dens. What to do?



Cristiani chose to take a middle-of-the-road position. He showed the corruption of Irigoyen and his followers (these scenes had already been shot anyway ...), he showed the generals who had taken power, and, above all, he showed an average man of people (a character called Juan Pueblo) who asked for good government and respect for all rights. Further, he offered a little preamble is verse asserting that the film came of no sectarian spirit. Then on the fateful evening of September 16, 1931, he shook hands with the provisional president, José Felix Uriburu, who honored him with his presence, sat in his chair and crossed his fingers.



The film wasn't a hit. The audiences laughed at times, but generally thought the situation too serious to be laughed at. Also, a year-and-a-half after the film's premiere, Irigoyen died in his bed. The Argentine people, who had done nothing when he had been chased out of Casa Rosada, rushed into the street and squares, falling prey to an irresistible flood of emotion. On the one hand, Cristiani felt the same emotions, on the other, he understood that a film "against" the ghost of a friend of the people no longer had the slightest chance of success. He therefore withdrew it from circulation.



Peludópolis (i.e., "the city of the Peludo, or "Peludo City," also refers to Irigoyen's nickname, Peludo) was Cristiani's last major animated film. It was 80 minutes long with sound (on disc)--making it the first animated feature with sound. The newspaper critics received it rather favorably: "this work is undoubtedly one of the most important of our national cinema ... a tuneful, amusing and charming film." (La Razon) "There are many reasons to be amused--the caricatures themselves, the songs, the comic ideas, the details." (El Diario) "The images are too rigid, not smooth enough, but cartoonist Cristiani shows a singular talent for the difficult art of animation." (La Nacion)



Peludópolis' economic fiasco came as a severe blow to the 35-year-old filmmaker, who already had a long career behind him. Cristiani realized that he could never make it as a producer and creator of animated films in Argentina. Walt Disney had become a success: his films reached Argentina with the charm of their richness, their technical perfection, their economic power. The little artisan from Santa Giuletta simply could not challenge so powerful a studio. Moreover, he was never an "artist" or an inspired poet like Alexandre Alexeieff or Norman McLaren. He never had an artistic vision of the world to communicate, or the need to create a body of work. He was only a cartoonist with a taste for satire, an artisan with a flair for tinkering and little inventions.





Frame enlargement from Peludópolis showing Juan Pueblo, the Argentine everyman.

Courtesy of Giannalberto Bendazzi





So, during the '30s, he stopped making films and cut back on his creative activities in favor of technical ones: he formed a company and the Studios Cristiani (which had moved to 460 Calle Jose Evaristo Uriburu) became one of the best movie labs in Argentina, specializing in the translation and subtitling of foreign films.



Fables

Animation, for him, was now a hobby. And towards the end of the 1930s, his animation career had a brief revival when Constancio Vigil contracted with Cristiani to produce a series of shorts based on fables he had written and published.



The first of these fables was El Mono relojero (The Monkey Watchmaker). It premiered in February 1938 and had a good run. The City of Buenos Aries even honored it with a special prize. But Constancio Vigil did not want to put up any more money and the series ended with its first installment. El Mono relojero is a film of middling quality--a good, professional production for the time. For the first time Cristiani abandoned cardboard cutouts in favor of "classic" North American cel animation. Many people wrote at the time that this black and white short was the first Argentine sound cartoon!



Cristiani became increasingly absorbed with his subtitling work, but still found time to make Enter pitos y flautas (Between Whistles and Flutes) in 1941. It was about soccer, very short, and probably unsatisfying: Cristiani will not willingly talk about it. His last film was Carbonada (the name of an Argentine salad). It was made in 1943 and received the City Council Award.



Incidentally, Cristiani met Walt Disney, during Disney's trip to South America in 1941, and screened some of his films for him. He was a Disney fan, and, for a time, the two thought about collaborating on the Latin American project Disney was planning. No deal was made, but Cristiani suggested that Disney contact Molina Campos, who was not an animator, but a cartoonist who specialized in gaucho caricatures. Disney followed his advice.



Quirino's artistic career is virtually over. Two fires, one in 1957, the other in 1961, destroyed his entire oeuvre: negatives, prints, original drawings, and papers.



The aging pioneer still keeps documents from his career--photos inscribed by presidents, ministers, mayors; testimonials; honorary diplomas in English; etc.--but he no longer works. He lives quietly with his family near Buenos Aires, having sold his laboratory. A vegetarian and a nudist, this frugal man had never taken an airplane before his visit to Italy in November 1981, when he received an invitation from the provincial government of Pavia. He visited the little country village of his birth and was widely feted, especially by the humble film critic who signs this article and who traced him to the far side of the planet after a four year search ....



Giannalberto Bendazzi is a Milan-based film historian and critic whose book on Quirino Cristiani, Due voite l'oceana, was published in 1983. His history of animation, Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation, is published in the US by Indiana University Press and in the UK by John Libbey.