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An interview with Ferenc Cakó
On March 28, within the frames of the Spring Festival, a concert of the Weiner-Szász chamber orchestra was held in Vigadó. The musical piece, Pulcinella, composed by Stravinsky, was also accompanied by Cakó's live sand animation.
So, the first question is rather obvious: how does a painter becomes a film-maker?
I inherited my drawing skills from my father, a graphic designer who still works at the age of 86. He taught me - although not in the strict sense of the word - how to handle the material, how to look at colours and how to see the world as a whole.
When I was a secondary school student, I was already very interested in the image and the sound, so I started to make cartoons myself. I drew on long stripes of paper, one picture on each. This period is the renaissance of the Hungarian cartoon. Outstanding achievements were born then: the Gustave-series made by József Nepp and Bean Film by Ottó Foky, whose puppets were on display at the Adolf Fényes Exhibition Hall, where I could personally meet him. The few lines he wrote to me influenced me to a great extent, since later I visited him in the studio, and I also began making puppets, 'carving' figures, characters and costumes. Then I graduated from the College of Fine Arts.
Meanwhile, due to some coincidence, or rather thanks to a friend, I got acquainted with Lóránt Mertz, who was a keen amateur film-maker. He had an 8-mm camera, so we started making films, with which we won the grand prize of the amateur film festival twice.
I graduated from college in 1973, after which I was invited to Pannónia Film Studio. My parents were really happy, because their son finally got a decent job, so he would not be a scraping graphic designer. Although I already had my inherited drawing skills, this is where I learnt the profession properly. I studied animation, materials and laboratory work. In Bean Film I was both animator and assistant director.
My first film, the Chair, was made in 1978. It was followed by Csalimese (Tale with Surprize Ending), Hurut király (King's Cold), Kasszagyúrók (Criminal Clay), then Ad Astra, which was taken to Annecy in 1983, where it won the Critics' Award regarded the most important after the grand prize. It is a two-minute film we collected the material for step by step, since there was no money available at all. It is typical that we had to make the sound when the sound mixer of Pannónia was free; it means late afternoons. So one of the 'hammerers' was me, the other was sound engineer András Imre Nyerges, who first set the sound, then hopped in to act as a 'musician'.
Then came the other plasticine movies (including series as well) which then were regarded as novelties: Tobias, Zeno, Töf töf elefánt (Elephant Töf-Töf). I won the main prize with Ab Ovo in Cannes and Annecy in 1988, then another one in Oberhausen two years later.
Apart from that, I regularly sent in materials, pictures and participated in collective arts exhibitions both in Hungary and abroad. Image-making was a hobby for me besides the shorts, the series and the book illustrations I made for festivals, which provided me with ideas, but also helped me to make ends meet.
Did you switch for sand animation because the material had 'dried' out? Did you not find plasticine satisfactory any more, or were you following other examples?
Yes, I really felt that what I was doing was not satisfying any longer. Obviously, others were also trying to do that, but everyone knows that I am doing it on a 1mx2m glass screen. Just like everything else, film-makers also tried plasticine, as well as sand or washing powder in the A/4 size frame of the cartoon, but it is impossible to work with it in that size. The grains of sand are too large for that size, they cannot be overcome.
I work on a larger surface (I even had an iron stand made, on the top of which the cameraman can also see the whole glass surface) which shows a different surface, a different image. Due to my drawing skills, I make rather naturalistic and realistic pictures, not abstract ones. Most people like it, though, that they are drawn.
Another factor is that the sand cannot be corrected, so while working I do not have a control, no motion control. I do not have any opportunity, which cartoonists do, such as the tracing paper phase, during which they either draw the lines or scan them in the computer. In my head I have to know the guiding line along which the whole process is running, since as I remove it, it will no longer have a 'before' or an 'after', which is also true of puppet films. At the same time, it gives opportunity for a great deal of improvisation and I can also divert from the script. That is why I usually do several minutes longer sections than what is required, because improvisation gives freshness to the whole. I divert in many directions both in thought and form, and that's when the good ideas are born.
Sand came handy to me, since I love the blowing technology, which is called American retouch. They used it for the enlargement of the picture taken of Marylin Monroe; all the spots were removed from her skin, later it was reduced again, and a woman was born who actually doesn't exist at all.
I don't use it that way, but rather to blow wonderful shades with it; it takes only a moment to 'set up' the plastic arts piece with it, much faster than with a pen or a brush, so really nice forms can be created with it soon, and I love working fast, I am not a pondering type. (I quickly put my films aside; I never watch them once I had completed them, since I am already dealing with another one.) The same applies to pictures where the pistol blows small spots, while sand is also made up of tiny grains: both can be traced back to the same method.
The painter
Hands play a focal role in your art, just like the running paint in Pollock's work. Here, the action, the gesture is recorded on film, which besides modernity also reminds us of the oldest method of communication, of expression: the sign, the trace or the projection written in sand.
You are right. So much so that when I work with sand, and if the music is fast, I learn it that way. I have to learn it, because I have to keep the time. My hands also move fast and I draw fast. But if the music is slow, I also draw slowly, since my hands can always be seen on the projector. The audience can see the indecisiveness of the hands, as well as that of the drawing, and they can immediately realise if I don't know what I'm doing. On the other hand, I must follow the rhythm of the music which can take things into a good direction; it won't just become a gesture, but a theme composed on a given topic. For example, I usually do a young couple to Bach's Air which takes five and a half minutes: at first the audience sees a man and a woman with big, flying hair, then the woman's hair starts to turn grey, slowly the man goes bald, their face becomes wrinkled and finally what we have is the picture of an old couple, which is just like a picture, and that's all that remained from them. It may sound rather silly by telling it, but the image looks really impressive, since we see how life and time flows by in front of our eyes. Music, arts, sand animation movies and live sand animations enforce one another, they dissolve into each other. I put into pictures what could already be seen at the exhibition and what I already used in the film, or put images into the film or into live sand animation. It's good for thoughts, as well as images to flash about.
When you are working on a sand animation, it's like the goblet of Rubin, where the duality of the base and the picture is exchanged. It can sometimes be seen in your paintings, too.
Yes, this is the exact motive of Ab Ovo. There are things that can be transferred into film or painting, for which you have more time. It makes all really image-like. The distortion of figures, as one shape transforms into another one, that's difficult mentally. In the film you have to be very careful with how things transform into another one graphically. But it's difficult in terms of tools as well: it has to be recorded, created frame by frame. You can transform a figure quickly into another, but if a movement is to be recorded on 200 frames, it takes at least one afternoon. You have to withhold yourself, because if you work with another (smaller) number of frames, the film will be unenjoyably fast. It has to be done by adding little pieces, 'grains of sand', to make it dream-like and soft. On some occasions, I made 2000 frames from morning until late at night at one go, then a roll of film without stopping, because you cannot leave a puppet film or a sand animation in the middle of a scene, since you lose the rhythm or somebody might push the table which you cannot actually see with your eyes, but there will be a fraction in the picture. You cannot just leave the puppet there because the wires might get bended; the figure will 'jump'. In these genres the scenes must be completed just like during an operation. In a live performance, however, I can correct myself, although only to a minor extent, which the spectator will not notice. A picture can be interrupted, too, but not like an oil painting which you can continue painting for years on end, since there's no time for that here. Acrylic doesn't easily give in, and paper is not canvas either. But I enjoy it because you can work fast with it. Just like living sand which strangely enough the audience also loves. The puppet film is more down to earth, no matter how well it is made. The sand is more poetic, more abstract, it is almost like music. Although it much depends on the direction. It is more like a fashionable genre, and this we have to accept.
The audience of Vigadó had the opportunity to a see a film similar to Picasso's Mystery, at the end of which the painter asked the director how many minutes of the film he still had left. Then he started painting on the empty glass surface, and at the end of the film his face disappeared behind the completed picture. In your film the picture disappears and only the blank white frame remains. You use the brush mainly to conceal forms, unlike the canvas. The different surface, the canvas, the paper or the glass seems to bring different ideas out of you.
Absolutely different ones. Not that I couldn't direct cartoons, but that's rather one-sided. I love the world of graphic art Pisti Orosz is doing. Nevertheless, I cannot find excitement in a contoured cartoon, which I can find in objects or sculpting, and especially in working with sand. There is immense freedom in three-dimentional genres; they give the chance to play. Several tiny ideas can be built into a good animation, a plasticine or a puppet character, while making a film, in addition, ideas just crop up. You can never draw the figure in an illustrated script so that it really looks illuminated, but you can get new ideas only by turning the figure's head. I must admit, though, that it is a constant, terrible struggle with the material. In Kasszagyúrók (Criminal Clay) there's a scene where a figure pushes a nail into a tall plasticine building which thus deflates. I did it by pressing the plasticine, but it started to collapse due to its own weight. I had to act and do the frames very fast to save the scene, so that I didn't have to rebuild the house. It happens sometimes. Figures fall over due to their weight, the puppet's leg breaks out in the course of time. When working with sand you have to be very careful to avoid draught in the room, others pushing the table, or dropping anything on it that could ruin it all. Often a machine breaks down, it frequently occurs when shooting cartoons; the equipment that forwards the film often goes wrong. I might be making a film for half a day, but it doesn't turn out until the end of the shooting that the machine 'has eaten it up'. Or in the lab the material gets burned into the developer, ruining a whole week's work. So it is much simpler and easier to have live performances: it is quickly over and we have quick success without having to'sweat for' previously.
To what extent do recurring forms and figures become standardised? The mentioned ageing process can be seen in other films, too, just like the woman with the floating hair.
Good question. Since I have to work tightly together with the music, I don't practise drawing, because I can do that, but I do learn the order of the pictures, so that they correspond to the rhythm. It doesn't work with film, only with sand animation. When I was preparing for Stravinsky's Pulcinella, at first the music sounded chaotic: the story consisted of 22 short sections. When I repeated the 30-minute section for the third or fourth time, the drawing time started to match the musical time. I used just the necessary musical time for drawing. The more times I repeated it, the longer time remained. My musical time expanded which I could further enrich. I could fit in more elements than six rehearsals before. It's a strange genre. As the musician practises the piece, here the drawing should be rehearsed to be 'in tune with' the music, just as the Emerson-Lake-Palmer trio practised improvisation. The audience wants something attractive, in the noble meaning of the word, because they are not interested in how I manage to draw a head. They want to see the story. I never just play with the sand, while there is some music in the background. Once I did some improvisation with St. Martin, but the audience believed, we had previously rehearsed together. It happens, but it has to be practised to a certain extent, as St. Martin also does with his improvisations, or at least with his motives. I also have a series of motives that I can enrich the performance with or simply leave out. I never do the same again, but this is a genre like that. That's what makes it interesting.
Are they decorative patterns, linking elements or transitions to substitute editing?
It doesn't matter whether you draw three more birds or a landscape, but I don't like drawing just to fill in time. If I don't tell a story, the audience will soon get bored, no matter how attractive the film is: in three-five minutes they will be unable to relate the picture to anything. If they see that a person (or a couple) gets old or dies, and hear the Spring by Vivaldi, or sees Adam and Eve, they will be able to relate what they feel or know, and they will be able to follow it or listen to it. Pulcinella is a pastorale about a love triangle which can be followed. If I just start to spread the sand that can be very funny, the audience might even applaud, because it looks interesting ... It doesn't necessarily have to be a good story, but they should be able to relate it to an idea and that is enough.
The philosopher
The title of your films always refers to concepts: Ab Ovo, Ad Rem, Ad Astra, Labyrinth. You visually point at these ideas, name them and interpret them. The hand drawing on the surface is the partner of the language, that of thinking.
I try to reach a little deeper, down to more social aspects in a rather strong, almost political way, just like in Ash, which was darkened by my mother's death. But a very interesting forty years has passed, so there is a lot to talk about ... It is also remarkable that Eastern Europe brings much more exciting films than the Swiss or the Swedish. Because what excitement can there be in welfare and tranquility? On the other hand, the Russians and the Czechs make very good films which are exciting in form, for example, Svankmayer, who I love. It's also important where you come from or how you experience a given situation, how much you can feel it. The strange thing is what we can see at today's festivals is that the profession is slowly transforming into nonsense and only laughs at every film. Films which point at problems and deal with philosophical issues start to disappear. Films tend to turn towards the form, while everybody beats the keyboard. The problem is not that it requires a lot of knowledge, since this method is good for series, but it cannot be used in the case of individual films. The same software produces the same form.
Did the Eastern European common fate mean spiritual community or interaction? Who influenced who?
Apart from the already mentioned Svankmayer, Norstein personally had an impact on me. We visited him in his studio in Moscow when he was shooting the Gown based on Gogol's short story with unbelievable perfectionism. He invented a genre and an optical system of transmission gearing, with which he can merge paper cuttings, so the differences which make the film strange, cartoon-like, such as in Hedgehog in the fog disappear. He may have started it due to lack of money, since there was no money for it, but he wanted to make it with incredible creativity. Great pieces were born when there was not much work, so he could work on an eight-minute film for a year. One of my best films is Ab Ovo: since at that time we had nothing to work on, a ten-person staff could work on it for six months. Time - besides money - is the most important factor in animation. (That is why today young people are unable to make films, since all of them carries out 'wage labour' somewhere to be able to make ends meet, because funds cover only the making of films.) Apart from Svankmayer and Norstein, Polish animation, poster art and music brought the Eastern European flavour closer to me. The representatives of the new wave (Pendereczky) invented some unbelievable, special, classical-flavoured music which is getting juicier and more compact as it evolves. László Sáry brought their albums from the Cracow film festival, including their music in Ab Ovo and other films. The representatives of naturalistic films also influenced me: Eizenstein, Fellini, neo-realistic films and the new waves. I saw them when I was very young because when I was a student I frequently visited the ELTE university film club. The place doesn't exist any more, which created a gap in the Hungarian cultural life. I visited festivals where you could refresh yourself by seeing that it can be done like that. I became more and more confident as I began to receive awards. First I pinched ideas from here and there, from what the jury liked, then slowly I decided not to care about what others do. I wanted to do it my way, I had to walk along the way on my own. Now, I suppose, others are interested in what I am doing. This is a process like that ...
The teacher
This is supported and proved by your success at festivals. Can you imagine yourself as founder of an artistic genre?
I don't know, I don't strive for that. I'm often invited to workshops which not only animators attend: we work with sand from the afternoon until late in the evening, and they can make a good, few-second-long material, although they still imitate me. I seem to be bringing up my own competitors, but nobody can be prevented from picking up the paint and the brush.
And when you teach at the college?
I don't teach sand, but rather space animation there which includes the object, the plasticine, paper cutting, sand and a lot of other genres that are the blend of these. I love to deal with them all, but I cannot fit them into six weeks, especially not at the end of the semester when everybody is working on the examination work, and they do not take it seriously enough. There are only few who are openly film-makers; you must be a little mad to be a cartoonist. It sometimes occurs to me that I had to be animating for a long time, sometimes working about 15 hours on one film, so I must say there is an awful lot of work involved.
You don't see the same obsession among today's cartoonists?
Oh, yes, sometimes I do. For instance, there is Feri Fischer who works here in our studio and whose film Caravan is shown at the Annecy Festival in the information program. Two years ago he already appeared here with his diploma work, Broad-cloth Trousers. The young generation tend to like cartoons, since there is a demand for that in the studios. The only problem is that besides 'wage labour', they do not have the time or the opportunity to work on individual films and time flies quickly. On the one hand, they should learn languages - the lack of it I feel badly, although I get by with my English -, on the other hand, they should deal with all the phases of animation more intensively, then specialise in what they like and do best. They need to create their own style for which they should prepare at least four or five films. The first one as a test, the second as a braver attempt and the next few more openly. These steps must be taken. But as far as I can see, it doesn't work, because if someone makes some films and they are (already a little bit) successful, they do not endeavour to make a better one next time, which would be very important. Nevertheless, I can see five or six people who are going in the right direction.
The head of Varga Studio has recently expressed his criticism about today's college graduates.
They expect what could only be demanded from the graduates of the professional American cartoonists' schools. At these schools tuition is specialised, all the cartoons are divided into phases. The graduates of such schools can immediately be sat down to the drawing table. In Hungary graduates get a strong, but rather general knowledge. The college doesn't teach them how to find different positions at large professional firms. Another school should be established for this purpose, since that is a productive branch to which people should be 'produced', so that they can make a lot of money. For a studio heading for American professionalism, the college cannot obviously provide enough, although the knowledge is sufficient for the graduate student to make a short film.
The opportunities for young cartoonists also show the future of the genre.
In my opinion there are only two ways. Individual art films are needed to be present at festivals, but we should make two films of this kind in two subsequent years so that one of them can be selected from among the several hundred. My film was present at the Berlin Festival twice in a row, but it took a lot of hard work. The other side is the series and making long films. I don't think we should only have 'wage labour'; there must be art films, which could carry our reputation further on. It should not solely depend upon the politeness of foreign countries. Apart from that, we can be excellent producers of series. There are a lot of young and talented artists, but not all of them should strive to be directors. The computer can be made good use of in making series. For instance, excellent backgrounds can be painted with the aid of the water paint program. As if we were looking at a water painting. It has a lot of advantages in painting; today only the movements are drawn, the panting is done with the computer. I know a studio which has a five-year schedule and they know exactly what they are going to do: they will 'paint' figures and water paint the backgrounds for Canadian order without ever touching the brush. This all can be done with a computer. It may not be that good for individual films, although ideas can very well be expressed, but it would never be so exciting due to the similarity. I would rather do a sand or plasticine film, or an object animation from different clutters, which is even more exciting.
You have a studio bearing your name, the Creative Animation Know-how Original. It can be found in the building of a former supermarket, with a fully equipped puppet studio and workshop background. It is rather rare today to see a shop turned into a place of intellectual creativity. Nowadays, the opposite is frequent, it is usually cultural institutions which are consumed by a commercial one. How does this 'crafting' enterprise work?
I have worked for Pannónia and another studio. Then I wanted to make my own movie which even this second studio couldn't carry out, so I realised that I had to do it myself, although I didn't even have a camera. So I travelled to Germany where I bought second-hand cameras and lights. I could get a stand at home and I rented a place. For three years all my money has been spent on the equipment, which is a good feeling after all. Even the studio in Kecskemét has been here once to record the credits of Marcell Jankovics's Wonder Deer. Kati Macskássy is shooting a film here at the moment and we are also working on our films. The problem is that administration takes too much of our time: we have to hand in applications, keep the colleagues and the genre alive, because commercial televisions do not order films, and large firms do not deal with unique, artistic movies.
It is really sad to see that Ottó Foky's studio, which was a real hard work to establish, was scattered within a short time. Puppet studios were not destroyed like that in any former socialist countries. It takes long years to collect the materials and the equipment until a studio is capable of operating properly. Luckily, my old mates have remained (photographer Antal Kazy, Csaba Dóka, Erika Kovács, János Szabolcsi, András Wolsky). Some of them I've worked with for 15 years and it is a good feeling to know that I have a professional team, although our life is not easy.
Couldn't the studios and the equipment have been saved along with people and intellectual property?
Unfortunately, we hadn't expected what actually happened. We didn't have the sufficient amount of money, although here money talks. Pannonia fell apart, but the same people work together today who were on good terms previously, too, so obviously they help one another; all those 'up there' have a lot of work and receive tons of orders, which they are unable to fulfil.
What you talked about is part of what happened to the (infra)-structure of films.
MAFILM also fell apart and although I cannot look into that, I think the situation was different there. They always had recruited crews who were shooting for one or two months. Today, if they have enough money, professionals are hired. We can mount in studios, the rental fee of which ranges between 14,000 and 40,000 Forints. We should really take care of the money.
Cartoons are more expensive as well. Was sand animation born out of the mere lack of money?
Yes. I did Vision, and afterwards I wanted Labyrinth to be more impressive, but I'd spent four months doing Vision with about 100 figures. All the money was spent on the material, including the director's salary and the amount I won for sand animation. In fact, I received less money for that, since it is known that we don't need big crew and too much equipment.
Yet, you must be present at festivals, even if you cover it from your own expenses, otherwise you are forgotten. This is one of my hobby horses.
Our realistic films in Berlin haven't been included in the contest for years, they are only projected in the information programs, while our shorts are always invited. Of course, they cannot replace the long films, but the situation is rather strange, since I don't believe they are lagging behind the others. This is only the matter of taste and so many other things ... Ash, with which I won the Golden Bear in Berlin, couldn't enter the Hiroshima Festival. A college examination work was selected instead. This cannot be predicted. You can never know who is sitting there and what they like. Maybe four out of the five-member jury make commercial films or are biased, or perhaps they've been watching the films for hours and just too tired to react to a more serious film.
What you've just said sounds strange, since you often return from festivals winning the main prize, but you can have experience as member of the jury, too.
I've already been member of the preliminary jury and the jury as well. The internal life of a festival is different from what is known about it. You can feel the pressure under the surface. But I've already seen a German juror who would explicitely push their own film forward. Regardless of what he did, German films are really very good, although this particular one wasn't.
I'm sure there are political motivations behind the intentions; the German taste is different from the French. The French love to see the typical French flavour; if you apply with The Three Musketeers or something similar, you can hope for the prize. It cannot happen in any other way, since the French are wild enough to boo at bad films and bad decisions in Annecy. There is no place for obligatory politeness. What really matters is the audience choice. Even unknown artists can enter the leading bunch there, such as the Portuguese puppet film. The Portuguese cartoon film has been rising ever since. Or, for instance, two years ago I held a workshop in Turku, where I met a young girl who has already appeared with her sand animation in Annecy.
You frequently mention Annecy. You won several prizes there, with Ad Astra in 1983 and Ab Ovo in 1989. Your pictures have often been on display and your animated films have been projected there.
Parallel with the exhibition where my paintings were on display, my films were shown at different cinemas with full house which of course felt really good, and gave me compensation for the problems I had to face when transporting the material. Such an interest and such an essence of my works is rare to see; the audience of Vigadó can see a rather wide spectrum of my artistic achievement, from plasticine films to the Chair.
This time you return to Annecy with your latest film, Stones, which you wanted to nominate in Cannes after Berlin where the challenge is bigger, since Annecy is regarded as the 'Cannes of animated cartoons'. Your new film is the mixture of sand- and object (stones and a grinder) animation, as well as that of plane and space. As if it were the closing of the sand period that began with Ab Ovo. The circle has been closed, since now you do more live performances with sand than movies, or does the circle continue?
Nowadays sand animation is at the bottom of my heart, which I have been doing for five years. You cannot follow the route of the film, and although a lot of people can see it, you only get feedback when you win an award. Here you can feel the reaction and the pulsation of the audience. I had a fantastic feeling at the opening ceremony of the 31st Film Week, although I had only five minutes, but the best of the profession were applauding enthusiastically. It was also a great honour for me to have the opportunity of designing the poster and the logo of the Film Week from sand.
Pencil drawing is also popular, but here the audience find themselves in the middle of the creation of magic which is an exceptional experience for all, intellectuals and ordinary people alike. Some of them, and not only children, even take sand home with themselves from the table. It is not generation specific at all.
You perform at social events as well; at the opening ceremony of the European chess championships in Dortmund, the International Day of Water or the event Microsoft held in the lobby of the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest. Last year you were invited to different parts of the world with this performance on 15 occasions. You had the chance to visit more places than where your films had been shown. Do you think this live performance is an alternative to brodcast images, such as the cinema, the multiplex movie, or the Internet?
What you are asking me about is the perspective. I'd like to make something more magnificent. The Kolozsvár Opera House invited me to make a sand animation to the Overture and Freedom Chorus of Nabucco. I also worked with a large orchestra in Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream and now here at the Vigadó. A special crew works with me and makes sure that the picture and the sound are 'in tune', that the screen and the projector work properly. A complete television desk was set up at the Vigadó which helps to create a show-like atmosphere during the live act. A camera is set on me and the orchestra, and while I'm cleaning the glass, the orchestra is shown.
We have plans to present other orchestral pieces, too. A pastorale or a narrative musical piece is not too abstract or serious, so the liberty is greater as well. The Four Seasons is rather abstract, but there is a certain determination in it. I would also like to do Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition, which is also about pictures. I have a similar plan with the Carmen-suit and Bartók's works. I believe the live performance is going this direction, it becomes less and less dependent upon film, which is another favourite of mine, and to it I will never be unfaithful, but it is a different type of work: it takes two or three months to complete a sand animation which I did for Duna Television. It is a forty-minute, complete version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. We mounted that for 35 hours, it includes animated parts and transmissions to the rhythm of the music. Object animation returns in Stones. Here we first had the idea of a grinder; the transformation of ground lives with strange transmissions. Sand is also life. It is difficult to analyse it verbally. Jancsó said about it that he was making films so that he did not have to speak about it. I am also planning a puppet animation, but I would need much more time for that.
Our conversation is similar to what you do with sand. How you create a branch and make it grow out of a tree, then reshape it to have a human face - that is exactly how we got from painting to the current situation of animation, the future, and from teaching to directing a studio. What you do now is closer to performing arts and applied graphics than to being an animated cartoon director, as you define yourself on your business card. On the other hand, you are self-employed. What is closer to your heart: painting, film or directing the studio?
I love the intimacy of the early renaissance, the old panel paintings. That world is close to me. I am also a renaissance type, but accounting and administration which is necessarily involved in directing a studio cannot fit into this versatility. Instead, I would love to deal with what I am good at.
When we had the chance to travel only once every third year, I always went to Italy. With a book in my hand I visited all the cultic places. We should go to museums more often today, the young generation, too. My son was also difficult to take with me, but something must have touched him there, since after coming home from Italy, he took to sculpting. He has incredibly good ideas. I hope he inherited good genes, so he'll become a good sculptor ...
The comparison is not by accident if we consider how the concept of the renaissance, versatile 'polymath' has been spreading recently. 'Renaissance is reborn with us again', wrote Jerome Rothenberg in 1977, in connection with the post-modern and the performance which both cross the borders of artistic genres and are intermedial. It encompasses the tale, the event, the music and visual arts, from graphics to films. Forms created this way are hybrid and strong.
For Cakó the most important thing is not that his work of art be complex, but rather polivalent, with multiple value and identity. It is not the work of art, but the process of creation which stands in the focus of his philosophy.
He is a performer, since he appears in the work of art, where the value is presented through the performance of the creator, his personal presence, his attention to and interest in the particular and local determination; not the formal and aesthetic signs, but what he does. He creates a series of transformations which future culture makes possible: his is a transforming art.
Meanwhile, he is an interpreter as well, mediating between the composer and the audience, whose moral responsibility was defined by Mussorgsky: ”... so that the audience know what a piece is like, first they have to make sure of the values of the person that presents it to them, and whether his method of presentation suits the intention of the composer. ... The secret of his perfection lies in the fact that he is aware of the rules enforced upon him by the performed piece.” Cakó interprets by ”mixing the least noise” into it; he is an almost transparent medium.
He is the initiator of the piece; the creator of the action, but he extends the process and the audience is part of the creative action. To generate thoughts, he uses the electronically generated image and sound, as well as tools regarded as primitive: sand and stones. He looks for materials and techniques outside his own territory to express himself, so he takes a trip to other areas of arts as well (freelancer), he oversteps art freezing into one rigid position; all his works are unique and unrepeated. What he does now can also be further thought about: animation, from animation to performance, including musical performance as well.
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