Interview - Ralph Bakshi

As I’m a humble person, my word is my bond. And I promised all of you, long ago, that we would post and interview with legendary director Ralph Bakshi, so here it is. Every one of us in the studio is very proud of this interview. I am very proud of having the opportunity to talk with such a rich man.

I don’t know if Bakshi is one of the greatest artists alive today, but he certainly is one of the artists I respect the most. I admire his lack of compromise with anything but his own worldview and the crude sincerity with which he expresses it. These are clearly not the political trades of businessman and it’s no wonder that it’s been more than ten years since his last movie, but there are still people, like me, who appreciate this kind of honesty. Kurt Vonnegut said “Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” I often feel this is one of Bakshi’s trademarks.



Throughout the last year, I’ve written at least five articles about the man and his works. Some of them are in Spanish and some in English; most of them are unpublished. But he always comes back to me as a cornerstone not only of my views about animation, but of art in general. So, yeah, it’s with great honor that I present you this interview.

At first, what he says might come off as kind of downer, but that’s mostly because we had to edit out the brightest parts of his gloomy discourse and his jokes due to time constrains. Check out his movies and see for yourself that he’s a jolly man. And a wise man.

I especially like what he has to say about writers :)

Two wolves in animation

After a couple of years of studying literature (yes, I don’t think there is no actual equivalent for what I majored in in the English-speaking world, but that’s close enough) my interest in animation and comic books as forms of narrative resurfaced. Back then, my re-introduction in this world were Yuri Norstein’s works. At the risk of sounding snobbish, I must admit I worship this Russian’s oeuvre. Like Tarkovski and many other Russians before them (ok, I admit I am a filthy snob), their works mesmerize me. I found them incredibly deep; so deep, indeed, that I feel often lost in their crude beauty. And the first Nortein’s film I watched was Tale of Tales, where a folkloric wolf somehow plays the leading role.

I’ve been gone for a while now. I started teaching Language and Literature to small children (awesome job, by the way) and that left with little time for this blog. Today, in a conversation, Cartoon Saloon’s Old Fangs came out and I realized it was time I resumed my duties. If you haven’t done so, you should probably watch this vimeo version, in beautiful HD.

I won’t be here as often as I used to be. But I thank this wolves for pulling me back into animation again and again.