Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshiis an American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote. He has been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer and animator...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCartoonist
Date of Birth29 October 1938
CountryUnited States of America
The art of cartooning is vulgarity. The only reason for cartooning to exist is to be on the edge. If you only take apart what they allow you to take apart, you're Disney. Cartooning is a low-class, for-the-public art, just like graffiti art and rap music. Vulgar but believable, that's the line I kept walking.
Cartooning at its best is a fine art. I'm a cartoonist who works in the medium of animation, which also allows me to paint my cartoons.
As an artist, I want to interpret my feelings
Animation is tremendously resilient. Animation will recover, as art always recovers. There's always cycles of good art.
I thought I had the rights to The Lord of the Rings. I don't know how Jackson ended up with the rights.
I wouldn't leave Disney to do Disney.
I hired Bob at Terrytoons. He was my assistant animator, and then became an animator himself. He had just come from Boston with his family and was a brilliant draftsman as well as a great jazz guitarist. We had lots of fun nights in Greenwich Village together and then later hanging in LA. Bob worked on Fritz the Cat , Heavy Traffic , Coonskin , and on Wizards . I am terribly saddened by his passing and will miss him dearly.
Most of the animated films I watched, the emotions are all prepackaged like canned music, the hand actions, the sighs.
Lord of the Rings made me realize that I'm not interested in doing anyone else's work.
I'm having the same problems today that I had when I first started, saying that outrageous adult animation works.
All the old great companies were run by guys who knew what an animator meant, and guys who knew how to draw. All the companies today are run by executives.
I miss animation very passionately. Not continuously, but every once in a while I would die to do another film.
I would like to have the original ending to my Lord of the Rings instead of the one they released. In my original cut I had the victory at Helm's Deep as the final sequence.
I animated 20 years at Terry Toons. It's important to know that animators like pizza and a raise once in a while, and you've got to treat them with love.