The Yellow Stork
About The Yellow Stork
In a China run by harsh mandarins, the wandering flute player Mi bows only to people he thinks deserve it: a rice farmer, a fisherman, a potter. Asked why he will not bow to the mandarin, he says there is nothing to bow for. The mandarin orders his head cut off. Mi slips the guards, hides in a teahouse, plays for the people there, and paints a yellow stork on the inner wall. It will sing and dance for honest folk and never for the mandarin. Servants hear it. When the mandarin arrives the room is empty and the bird is only paint. He has that piece of wall cut out and carried to the palace, offers frogs, then has the picture beaten and painted over. The paint will not hide it. Mi, leaving on a junk, plays the flute. The stork lifts off the wall, goes out the window, and flies to him.
Cast & crew
More about The Yellow Stork
Lev Atamanov directed a script by Boris Brodsky and Mikhail Papava, from an old Chinese tale. Karen Khachaturian wrote the music. Alexander Trusov and Alexander Vinokurov were the art directors. Nikolay Voinov photographed. Soyuzmultfilm released the color short in 1950. A timing of the print is 10 minutes 42 seconds.
Themes
Making
Atamanov stages the miracle as a wall painting with rules: it performs for the teahouse and refuses the palace, then leaves with the flute.
Look
Nikolay Voinov shot Trusov and Vinokurov’s drawings, including the wall section carried into the palace and the stork’s exit through the window.
Music
Karen Khachaturian wrote the score under Mi’s flute and the songs he sings in the teahouse.
Preservation
A Soyuzmultfilm print of 10 minutes 42 seconds survives.
Notes
- Nikolai Aleksandrovich voices Mi. Vladimir Vladislavsky is the mandarin. Dmitry Kara-Dmitriev is the teahouse owner. Leonid Shvachkin is uncredited.
- The stork will not move for commands, persuasion, or a plate of frogs.
- Paint laid over the bird keeps letting the drawing through.
- An honorary diploma at the Delhi festival in 1951 and a diploma at the Bombay festival in 1952 are the honors recorded for it.
Awards
- Honorary diploma, International Film Festival, Delhi (1951)
- Diploma, International Film Festival, Bombay (1952)
Scenes
- Mi names the farmer, the fisherman, and the potter, then asks what the mandarin has done to earn a bow.
- He paints the stork inside the teahouse and says it will never dance for the mandarin.
- The cut-out wall sits in the palace while frogs, sticks, and fresh paint fail.
- On the junk, Mi’s flute brings the stork off the wall and out the window.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1950. Жёлтый аист.webm)
