VMA Faculty Member’s Doc Wins Top Prize from Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has awarded Cartooning America, a documentary series about the creators of Betty Boop and Popeye produced by Visual and Media Arts affiliated faculty member Kathryn Dietz, with the sixth Library of Congress/Ken Burns Prize for Film, a $200,000 cash award that will allow them to finish the project.

“We started production of this film in 2019, the same year I started teaching at Emerson!” said Dietz, who received the prize with the film’s director, Asaf Galay, at the Library of Congress on September 17. “Since then, it has grown from a one-hour film to a six-episode series in rough cut form, that we are shopping for finishing funds and distribution. Asaf … and I are thrilled to have won the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film.”

Cartooning America tells the story of Max and Dave Fleischer, and their brothers Joe, Lou, and Charlie, who created animation techniques and characters that transformed the industry and inspired Walt and Roy Disney, among others. Their characters — Betty Boop (sexy, subtly Jewish), Popeye (muttering, street-smart), and Superman (the original superhero) — “came right off the streets of New York,” Dietz said in a statement, and their technological innovations have lasted decades.

“They were the first to mix live action with animation, to make the first sound cartoon, and to pioneer the use of 3D,” she said. “Their rotoscope invention is still in use, evolved into today’s motion capture/CGI technology.”

By 1942, however, the studio went out of business and the brothers never spoke again. The film talks to Fleischer family members, animation historians, and animators about their legacy and downfall.

The Prize for Film recognizes documentaries that tell important stories about American history. It was established in 2019 by the Library of Congress and The Better Angels Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to acquainting people with American history through film. It is supported by a gift from Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine through the Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation.

“Cartooning America reminds me why I – like the Fleischer brothers – have pursued visual storytelling, and why this medium remains so vital and affecting,” said award-winning documentary filmmaker and prize namesake Ken Burns in a statement.

Emerson alum Marlene McCurtis ’79 was a finalist for the Prize for Film for her documentary, Wednesday in Mississippi. The film tells the story of Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women, who joins forces with Polly Cowan, an affluent Jewish social activist from New York, during the Civil Rights Movement.