Journey To The Beginning Of Time
Cesta do praveku
Karel Zeman
Czechoslovakia – 1955
Screenplay: J.A. Novotný
Cinematography: Antonín Horák, Václav Pazdernik
Production: Ceskoslovenský Státní Film
Language: Czech
Duration: 93 mn
Color: Color
Synopsis: When a little boy finds a strange fossil, his friends decide to take him on a fantastic voyage through prehistory, to the very beginnings of life on Earth. As the four boys set out down the river of Time to explore the earliest living creatures on the planet, their adventures follow the evolution of natural history. Inspired by scientific illustrations, magnificent special effects return primeval plants and animals to life and look sharp even today, over 60 years later. The film has been acclaimed for its educational value and scientific accuracy. One by one, the boys explore a sequence of prehistoric ages until they find a living predecessor of the fossil found at the beginning of the film.
Notes:
Journey to the Beginning of Time, directed by Karel Zeman, used a combination of 2-D and 3-D stop-motion animated models in addition to live action and special effects, for which it won international acclaim. The documentary style of this nature film was most unusual for its era and pre-empted many TV productions that would depict prehistoric life for educational purposes rather than purely for entertainment. Thanks to this film, a whole generation of children were first introduced to the history of our planet, with its ancient plants and animals brought to life on the big screen by the creativity and artistry of Karel Zeman’s special effects. Rated one of the best children’s adventure films of all time, it is a pioneering work of world cinema heritage. The film gained popularity in the US, a notoriously difficult market for foreign productions, when it was acquired by Bill Clayton’s distribution company in the mid 1960s and partly re-adapted for American audiences.
Journey to the Beginning of Time was inspired by the illustrations of anthropological artist Zdeněk Burian and has been acclaimed for its educational value and scientific accuracy under the supervision of leading Czech paleontologist and geologist Josef Augusta. Journey to the Beginning of Time used sophisticated techniques, for its time, to seamlessly integrate live action and stop-motion animation, including the use of puppets and matte paintings. The film was made in the Kudlovský Studios in Zlín and in the film studios in Hostivař. Exteriors were shot on the Slovak river Vah, on the Souš at Tanvald, in Strmilov, in Jindřichov Hradec, and at the Zlín dam. The final scene was filmed on the sea coast on the island of Rügen in Germany. Journey to the Beginning of Time originally premiered in 1955, and a restored digital version was first screened in 2013 at the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary. The digitized version was assembled from the original film footage and released on DVD in 2012 as the first title in the Karel Zeman Film Club series, a series of DVD re-editions started by the newly-opened Karel Zeman Museum in Prague. This series is dedicated to publishing the works of Zeman’s filmography. So far, it has released digitized editions of Journey Beginning to the Beginning of Time, The Fabulous World of Jules Verne and The Fabulous Baron Munchausen. The digitizations were made in association with a team of experts from UPP, Universal Productions Partner, headed by Ivo Marák, who also worked on the restoration of films such Marketa Lazarova and the documentary films of Jan Špáta. The new editions were prepared under the supervision of Ludmila Zemanova, Karel Zeman’s daughter and co-producer of his last films. Karel Zeman is distinguished by a style that combines various animation and live action techniques. Because of his innovative style and techno-scientific approach to filmmaking, he has often been compared with the grandfather of special effects, Georges Méliès. He is best known by his poetical fantasy films like Journey To The Beginning Of Time, An Inventor For Destruction, Baron Prášil and Magician’s Apprentice.
Adapted from background information provided by the Museum of Karel Zeman