Research Guru / Moderator
Posted:
Mar 15, 2004, 2:38 PM
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William Moritz, 63, was author, animator
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Longtime California Institute of the Arts professor William Moritz, an animator and expert on abstract animation, died Friday at 63 following a long battle with cancer.
A specialist on the work of experimental filmmaker Oskar Fischinger, Moritz lived in Hollywood. He died Friday at his sister's home in Mokelumne Hill, a town in Calaveras County, California.
Moritz himself made 44 experimental films, including animation and live-action shorts, which were shown at museums European and Asian museums.
He also curated many well-received film shows and lectured on animation in North America and Europe. The author of the chapters on animation in the Oxford History of Cinema, he was a past president of the Society for Animation Studies. Moritz spoke eight languages, including German.
"His grasp of all forms of animation was unique," Steve Anker, dean of the School of Film/Video at CalArts, told the Los Angeles Times. At CalArts, Moritz was an instructor of courses on such subjects as the history of experimental film and animation, film grammar, and the theory of comedy.
Born in Williams, Arizona, Moritz often took the train to Los Angeles or Phoenix to watch operas with his pianist father, a German emigre. He also loved such cartoon characters as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Woody Woodpecker and Porky Pig.
Moritz's death came at same time as the publication of Optical Poetry: The Life and Work of Oskar Fischinger, his biography of the avant-garde animator and painter who fled 1930s Nazi Germany for Hollywood.
Fischinger blended color, music, motion and imagery to create "visual music," making him one of the most prolific and influential artists of the experimental film movement. Fischinger may be best known -- although uncredited on screen -- for conceiving the "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" section of Disney's 1940 feature film Fantasia, one cinema's most popular experimental pictures.
Moritz worked closely with Fischinger's widow, Elfriede, and her family for over three decades to archive his films and bring them to public notice.
"He was a very important force in bringing Fischinger's reputation to where it is today," New York University film scholar John Canemaker, said Friday.
Although Canemaker never met Fischinger, who died in 1967, he did meet his wife the following year. She called Moritz one day to discuss the need to preserve her husband's nitrate film prints. Moritz's command of German helped to win her confidence. He soon won her trust and, eventually, helped her archive Fischinger's work and organizing international screenings.
He spent years restoring the films of other experimentalists as well, such as Man Ray and Fernand Leger.
Moritz earned a doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Southern California, where he minored in cinema (one of his classmates was future Star Wars filmmaker George Lucas). He then taught at various institutions, beginning his tenure at CalArts in 1987.
In 1993, Moritz received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal Academy of the Netherlands for his contributions to visual music.
Also a published poet and playwright, William Moritz is survived by a sister, Mitzi Curtis, of Mokelumne Hill; a brother, Edward, of Fort Wayne, Indiana; and four nephews and a niece.
(This post was edited by eminovitz on Mar 15, 2004, 2:38 PM)
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