Animation Month - Peter and the Wolf

Last year's Oscar for Best Animated Short was awarded to Suzie Templeton for her film Peter and the Wolf. The story and music comes from Sergei Prokofiev's 1936 piece of the same name. Prokofiev's music was originally commissioned as a teaching tool for children to learn about orchestral music. The story is told by a narrator while accompanied by the orchestra. Each character is represented by their own musical theme and instruments (called a lietmotif); Peter by strings, the Bird by a flute, the Duck by an Oboe, etc. The piece has been narrated by several famous people over the years, including Boris Kaloff, Basil Rathbone, Alec Guiness, Patrick Stewart and Sting. Disney created their own animated short in 1949, part of the compilation film Make Mine Music, with Sterling Halloway narrating.

The story itself is simple: Against his Grandfather's wishes, our young hero Peter wanders into the woods, accompanied by his friends the Bird, the Duck, and the Cat, to hunt a wolf, perhaps not really expecting to find one. The Duck is eaten. The Wolf chases them up a tree. The Bird distracts the Wolf long enough for Peter to get a rope around it's tail and captures it.

Templeton's stop-motion film is a little different from Disney's. Character designs are scragglier, earthier; not plump and round. Peter takes place, in part, in a modern day city. Portions of the story are not even accompanied by music and there is no narration. You can read more about the film here on Breakthru Film's site and also on PBS' Great Performances.

Here are two back-to-back excerpts from the film. You can download the full short on iTunes or it is available on DVD.

For fun I've included the complete Disney short, in two parts...

...and an illustrated book by Bono. Yes, that Bono.

You can learn more about Peter and the Wolf at Wikipedia.