Max Fleischer - Text
Max Fleischer was born on 18 July 1883 and died on 25 September 1972. Frequently mentioned alongside his brothers Dave and Joe (the “Fleischer brothers”), he is known for having invented the Rotoscope, which was patented in 1917. This device was used to produce animated series which are still famous today, including Out of the Inkwell (1919-29), Betty Boop (1932-39), Popeye the Sailor (1933-38) and more.
It was while Fleischer was working in the art department of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper in the early 1900s that he met John Randolph Bray. Intrigued by the work Fleischer later carried out on the Rotoscope, Bray hired him to work in his own studio in 1915 with the idea of producing Out of the Inkwell (1919-29). This collaboration did not last: when the war began, Bray first sent Max to Oklahoma to make films for the army, and relations between Bray and the Fleischers deteriorated. Max left the studio to join his brother Dave, and together they founded Out of the Inkwell Films. In the early 1920s, some twenty employees were working in their studio, and in order to improve their productivity, the idea of assigning intermediate tasks to young artists quickly presented itself. It is often said, moreover, that beginning in this same period Max no longer drew, playing more the role of a boss than that of an animator.
Several authors, beginning with André Martin, ascribe to the Fleischers the black-and-white style specific to the “New York school” beginning in the teens (Winsor McCay, Raoul Barré, Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer, etc.). Moreover, a large part of the history of the Fleischer studios is generally associated with their rivalry with Walt Disney (the “West Coast Style”), especially from the 1930s onwards. This rivalry, at once aesthetic and industrial, is accounted for by the Fleischers’ many innovations, among which we can see for example a certain interest in sound (work on synchronization, bouncing balls, etc.) and other inventions derived from the Rotoscope (such as the Rotograph).
Bibliography
- Crafton, Donald. Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898-1928. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1982.
Fleischer, Richard. Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleischer and the Animation Revolution. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2005.
Maltin, Leonard. Of Mice and Magic. New York: Penguin Books, 1980.
Barrier, Michael. Hollywood Cartoons. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Pointer, Ray. The Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer: American Animation Pioneer. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2017.
Fantasmagorie, nos. 3-4 (1980), “Betty Boop, Popeye et cie : l’histoire des Fleischer.”
