Zdeněk Miler

Zdeněk Miler
Born	(1921-02-21)21 February 1921 Kladno, Czechoslovakia
Died	30 November 2011(2011-11-30) (aged 90) Nová Ves pod Pleší, Czech Republic
Occupation	Czech cartoonist, film director

Zdeněk Miler (Czech pronunciation: [ˈzdɛɲɛk ˈmɪlɛr]; 21 February 1921 – 30 November 2011) was a Czech animator and illustrator best known for his Mole (Krtek or Krteček in original) character and its adventures.

Early years

Miler was born in Kladno just west of Prague, the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia. He became an animator partly because of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. He took part in the demonstrations held consequent to death of Jan Opletal which led to the closing of universities and colleges. He escaped being sent to a concentration camp, and instead wound up working as an animator.

Miler enjoyed painting as a child. His hobby developed when he joined the national graphic school in Prague in 1942. He later studied at the College of Arts and Crafts (Uměleckoprůmyslová škola Praha). In 1948 he began work at the cartoon studio Baťa in Zlín. There he learned the important practical skills relating to film production specializing in animated films. After the second World War, he started work at the cartoon company Bratři v triku and worked first as draughtsman then author and director. He later became the head of the company.

In 2001, Miler announced that he would no longer be making more films, citing health reasons.

Death

Having retired in 2001, Zdeněk Miler began complaining of extreme weakness and lack of sensation, particularly on his lower body. He lived at a nursing home in Prague. He was later diagnosed with a form of demyelinating disease, which was strongly suspected to be either Guillain–Barré syndrome or multiple sclerosis. Sometime after his confinement there, he contracted bronchopneumonia, making his condition even worse than before.

On 30 November 2011 Zdeněk Miler died at a nursing home from cardiac arrest secondary to bronchopneumonia, only two months before his 91st birthday. For the last 10 years of his life, he lived at a nursing home near Prague.^[1] Miler was cremated on the day after his death and his ashes were scattered underground. ^[2]

Krtek the Mole

Miler made about 70 films. In approximately 50 of them, the protagonist was his most famous creation, the small mole (Krtek in Czech). The idea for its creation came when he was commissioned to make an educational film for children in 1956. He was not happy with the script he was given. Since he was strongly influenced by the films of Walt Disney, he looked for an animal as the main character. Later, he said that the idea to use the mole as his main character came to him when he stumbled over a mole hill during a walk.^[3] The first film was titled “How the mole got his trousers” (“Jak krtek ke kalhotkám přišel”), which won a Silver Lion in Venice. In the beginning, the mole spoke. But Miler wanted his mole to be understood everywhere in the world so he decided to use his daughters as voice actors, reducing the speech to short non-figurative exclamations in order to express Krtek's feelings and world perception. His daughters were also his test audience, who got to see the films first. Thus Miler could see whether his message resonated with children.

Krtek was a huge success in Czechoslovakia, Eastern Europe and Germany from the beginning and today Krtek can be seen in over 80 countries.

Works

References

External links

• Zdeněk Miler on IMDb
• Krtek at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Krátký Film Praha
• All films by Krátký Film Praha