At the last Dennis Nyback film festival I attended, Dennis showed a creepy stop-motion animated film made in the early 20th century by a guy who was (Russian? Estonian? French? Moved from eastern Europe to Paris? Something like that), and commented that this fellow’s work strongly influenced Tim Burton. (And yes, the styles were clearly very similar.)
Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the animator. Anybody know who it might have been?
His stuff always reminded me of early Charles Addams work (Addams Family cartoons)
IMDB lists Mario Bava as one of Burton’s influences.
Oh man, this is gonna bug me all night. Somewhere in my stacks of books, I have a book on Burton in which he mentions this man’s name. Of course, I’d have to dig it out and I’m just not up for it. But I do know who you are referring to.
Would you be thinking of Alexander Alexeieff ?
Found it!
Wladyslaw Starewicz. His stuff is well worth checking out.
Interesting. When I read the O.P. I thought you were referring to George Pal, who was born in Hungary and did animation in Germany before fleeing the Nazis in the early '30s.
Burton has also cited the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen as an major inspiration for his work.