You can read the what, how and why on the site. Emru always has a place in my heart. He published my first animation piece in 1996. So, if you want to hunt anyone down, he’s the man. Hence, it’s all the more essential that you keep this guy up and running. More importantly, he’s a rare breed of animation writers AND he’s a fine human being.
Make the Gods (and me and my dog) smile and go to www.healemru.com.
NFB. Madame Tutli-Putli.
I love the NFB. I am not being forced to say that–even though I know that they are watching me. I think that Mia Desroches, in particular, is really swell and does a great job promoting the english animation department. I’m not so sure about the chick who does the french side, but she’s kinda sexy if you like bulky hockey player types.
They should do something about Bulgarian and Iranians though (and that guy Barry Dingle who works in the cafeteria). They have problems, serious mental problems. But I love the NFB for giving them a home. Everyone needs a home.
I lost the Martine Chartrand interview that was supposed to be used in my Canadian book. I believe that the NFB agents have taken it from me. There is information about boxers and haitians that they do not want revealed.
I love the NFB. They’re the tops.
hmm…well, let’s me be blunt. The best animation short of the year wasn’t even nominated (cause the distributor forgot to submit the film). That film? Koji Yamamura’s Kafka’s a Country Doctor. This was a film with style AND substance. The most original and complex and provocative film in a few years.
The same can’t be said of Peter and the Wolf, Madame Tutli Putli, or that achingly bad Petrov film.They represent everything that is pathetic about the animation world. Technique and style is valued over substance.
Having said that, 2007 was a shitty year for films. One of the worst years I can remember, so hey, if you’re gonna pick five films, you could do worse (except maybe Claude Cloutier’s Sleeping Betty or Elizabeth Hobb’s the Old Man– maybe the underrated film of the year)
I am happy for Suzie Templeton. She’s a decent gal.
Mostly, I’m glad the NFB didn’t win. The Tutli boys are talented but a little to caught up in themselves. They come from a commercial background and it shows. Tutli is slick but lacking in substance. There is great potential there, but over time, Tutli will not stand with the animation Gods.
I’m also pleased that the NFB didn’t win. It pisses me off that they spend THOUSANDS of taxpayer dollars just trying to get their films nominated. I don’t necessarily blame the NFB producers and administrators. They need candy to give to the ignorant bureaucrats who only see the Oscars as an award worthy of more funding. It’s a shame cause like I’ve said before…the Oscar pool is shallow. A truer measure of success is found at the animation festivals in Annecy, Ottawa, Stuttgart etc… It’s a shame that the NFB–or rather their puppet masters–don’t take enough pride in that.
I’d love to know what the NFB spends on the Oscar campaign. I’m sure the public would like to know too.
Meanwhile, time to get back to more pressing things like NHL trade deadline deals.
Americans, you need to vote for Barack Obama.
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| Canadian Animation |
In 2007, writer Chris Robinson traveled across Canada to meet with some of the country’s leading independent animation filmmakers. Along the way, Robinson muses about the animation art form in Canada and his own relationship to the scene and personalities, many of whom are friends and colleagues. As he travels from place to place he carries along his own private (and sometimes not-so private) struggles with insomnia, depression, identity, cab drivers, hobos and nobos and the shocking murder of animator Helen Hill, who‚s life and work embody many of the themes that colour these conversations.
With the intimate detail of a diary, Canadian Animation: Looking for a Place to Happen weaves together history, memoir and dream into a mesmerizing and candid portrait of Canadian animation, art, doing, drifting and dying.
Lavishly illustrated, the book’s cast includes award-winning animators Marv Newland (Bambi Meets Godzilla), Chris Landreth (Ryan), Chris
Hinton (Nibbles), David Fine (Bob and Margaret, Ricky Sprocket), Wendy Tilby (When the Day Breaks), Anne-Marie Fleming, Torill Kove (The Danish Poet), Claude Cloutier (Sleeping Betty), Janet Perlman (Why Me?) and many more.
Chris Robinson is an Ottawa-based author and the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF). A noted animation
commentator, curator, and historian, Robinson is a leading expert on
Canadian and international independent animation. He is also a frequent contributor to The Ottawa Citizen and The Ottawa Xpress.
His other books include: Estonian Animation: Between Genius and Utter Illiteracy (2006), Unsung Heroes of Animation (2005), Stole This From a Hockey Card: A Philosophy of Hockey, Doug Harvey, Identity & Booze (2005), and The Animation Pimp (2007).
Robinson lives in Ottawa with his wife Kelly and their sons Jarvis and
Harrison. His dog is Molly.
Canadian Animation: Looking for a Place to Happen will be published by John Libbey Publishing and available through Indiana University Press in the Fall of 2008.
The book will be launched at the Ottawa 2008 International Animation Festival in conjunction with a retrospective screening of Canadian independent animators.
Do you loathe Christmas? Are you tired of those schmaltzy fake feel good holiday films that wax bad poetic about the true meaning of Christmas? Here’s an essential list of holiday viewings for the Christmas curmudgeon.
#10 It’s a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra, 1946
Take away the deux ex machina inspired resolution and you’ve got one very bleak film noir. It’s got suicide (sort of), drunks, death, sleaze, corruption, and child abuse.
#9 Edward Scissorhands, Tim Burton, 1990
It’s not technically a Christmas film, but with all that snow and Danny Elfman’s christmas friendly soundtrack, it sure feels like one. Regardless, they don’t come much more twisted than this tragic tale of a Frankenstein-like being (Johnny Depp) who is left with scissors for hands after his creator (Vincent Price) dies suddenly on Christmas.
#8 Female Trouble, John Waters (1974).
When bitchy teenager Dawn Davenport (Devine) doesn’t get Cha Cha shoes for Christmas, she goes crazy, attacks her parents, and runs away from home to become a fashion model/mass murderer. Now, that’s a Christmas story!
#7 Merry Freakin’ Christmas, Corky Quakenbush, 1996-2006
A delirious dvd collection of stop-motion parodies made for Mad-TV by animator Corky Quakenbush. Includes the hilarious Clops (where a heavily intoxicated Santa gets pulled over by cops and tells them he had “just a couple a nogs at the pole is all occifer.”) and the Rudolph parodies: Ragin’ Rudolph, The Reinfather, A Pack of Gifts Now. “The ho ho ho horror” (www.spacebassfilms.com)
#6 South Park: Mr. Hankey, The Christmas Poo, Trey Parker/Matt Stone, 1997
The idea of a kid believing that a talking piece of poo comes up the toilet bowl every year to bring gifts to fiber fueled kids is a fine ode to the ribald tradition. And the quartet of foul mouthed, self-absorbed children is darn close to the true nature of many half pints at Xmas.
#5 Christmas Holiday, Robert Siodmak, 1944
Gene Kelly. Deanna Durbin. All the makings of a classic Hollywood Christmas musical, right? Wrong. In fact, this film noir has little to do with the holiday season. After Christmas Mass, Durbin breaks down and tells a stranger how she discovered her husband (Kelly) was a murderer. One of the most bizarre entries in the classic Hollywood pantheon.
#4 Black Christmas, Bob Clark, 1974
Looking for a good dose of anti-Christmas Story, well look no further than its director Bob Clark. Before terrorizing us with Ralphie, BB guns, and leg lamps, Clark directed Black Christmas. During the Xmas holidays, a psycho menaces a gaggle of sorority girls. The film is bit cliche today, but it’s easy to forget that this was the pioneer of the slasher genre. With a cast that includes stellar Canadian thespians Andrea Martin, Margot Kidder, Art Hindle, and Doug McGrath (Pete, from the legendary Goin’ Down The Road) Black Christmas is a creepy Canadian classic guaranteed to take the life out of Xmas.
#3 Silent Night, Deadly Night, 1984
On Christmas eve, Little Billy sees his parents raped and murdered by a madman dressed as Santa Claus. Living in an orphanage, Billy, who is haunted by his parents’ death and hates Christmas, is treated brutally by the head nun. At 18, Billy gets a job at a toy store. Life is good until the store Santa gets injured and Billy is asked to take his place. Wearing the costume he has fear his whole life, Billy finally cracks and goes on a Christmas Eve killing rampage chanting “PUNISH!” before he kills. Until the generic slasher stuff begins, Silent Night is actually a pretty interesting character study.
#2 Star Wars Holiday Special, Steve Binder, 1978
Warning: Do not watch this sober or alone. It may cause confusion, pain and severe depression. Chewbacca and Han Solo battle Imperial Forces to get the Wookie home for his version of Christmas called Life Day. Along the way, we endure: a ten-minute opening spoken entirely in Wookie grunts; bizarre and painful cameos by Art Carney, Bea Arthur and Harvey Korman; and a foggy looking Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher later said she couldn’t remember making the show) attempting to sing. Like a car wreck, you can’t help but look, no matter how painful what you see might be.
#1 Bad Santa, Terry Zwigoff, 2003
There is no meaner, nastier Christmas film around than this hyper cynical tale about a pair of crooks (Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox) who pose as a store Santa and elf in order to rob department stores. Outstanding performances by Thornton and Bret Kelly (the kid) overshadow equally brilliant bits from John Ritter (”he’s not going to say f*** stick in front of the children is he?) and Bernie Mac. A dark, twisted and dysfunctional masterpiece that is guaranteed make your Christmas misery blissfully satisfying.
Originally appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, December 2006
One of my favourite pieces. Written for the Ottawa Citizen in September 2007 just before Jarv and I went to see The Who.
1982. I was 15 and angry, real angry. I’d just been told that my father wasn’t really my father. In one sense, I was relieved. I never liked the guy much anyway. At least now I knew I wasn’t his blood. But now my birth was now clouded with mystery. If I wasn’t his son, whose was I? Fuelling the fire was a tormented mother who refused to discuss the truth of my origins. All of this unfolded during an already fragile time. I was a teenager in high school. Every day was a major battle to uncover your self and purpose. Now this struggle was vanquished into a litany of meaningless anger, sex, rebellion, and alcohol.
Then there was light in the form of an English rock band called The Who. I’d never heard of them before, but there was a buzz about the band throughout Brookfield High School. Apparently they were embarking on a farewell tour and playing their final date in Toronto. Everyone was talking about it, envious of those who had the money and ability to journey far south to Toronto. For those who didn’t have the means, there was an option. The farewell concert was being aired on national television. With my school chum alongside, I sat in the basement of our Hunt Club garden home on December 16th, 1982 and embarked on a journey that would follow me to this day.
There was no magical moment or song that triggered it. In truth, I probably just wanted to fit in, to embrace something that would define me, that would provide me with some form of accompaniment along the way to wherever. Whatever it was, from that night on I became obsessed with all things WHO.
Fortunately, my classmate Deannie was a massive Who resource and she filled me in on the band’s history. First she told me that their original drummer, Keith Moon (“Moon the Loon” as he was nicknamed), had died in 1978 after overdosing on pills he was taking to curb his alcoholism. Then she led me to Richard Barnes’ book, “The Who Maximum R&B”. Filled with a ton of photos and anecdotes that traced the band’s roots, the book became my bible.
Then, using all my measly part time job earnings, I went on a manic Who shopping spree. I bought records, posters, t-shirts, buttons (which I still have today). I was SO addicted that I even bought an unused Who ticket from my colleague at the Airport Drive-In (where I worked during the summers). Soon, my room was entirely covered with Who posters and flags. In a sense it was all quite superficial, but that soon changed as I began to dig deeper into the music and band members.
Initially, I was drawn to all the members of the original Who. They were all so different from quite different from one another and had a distinct personality. Singer Roger Daltrey was the macho pretty boy. Bass player John Entwistle was the quiet anchor who let his play do the talking. “Moon the loon”, naturally, was the clown/wildman. Then there was Pete Townshend, the band’s guitarist and main songwriter. This gangly big nosed geek was the sensitive, moody one. The Who’s uniqueness stemmed from their wildly diverse personalities. Together they brewed a storm of emotions that seemed to articulate all my own confusion and rage towards myself, my parents, and the world.
I soon became enthralled with Townshend. What made him so unique was not only that he was the driving force behind The Who’s music, but that he seemed so familiar. In a sense, Townshend lived through the other members of The Who. Each of them possessed attributes that Townshend wished he possessed. As such, he was a chameleon of sorts, a drunken clown like Moon one minute, a macho man like Daltrey the next. Through his interviews and lyrics, I discovered a multifaceted and fragile character prone to moodiness, contradiction and an obvious identity crisis. Like the rest of us, Townshend is equally brilliant, stupid, funny, crass, caring and cold. He’s prone to pretensions, is a hypocrite, contradicts himself, and says and does things that make you cringe (e.g. He once said he knew what it was like to be a woman; then there was the whole child pornography fiasco). That’s the beauty of Townshend and the Who. More than the Stones and The Beatles, they were all there for the world to see: zits, warts and all. What made him so special was that he was aware of his complexities and contradictions. They were all their in the songs.
In the 1970 song, “The Seeker”:
I’m looking for me
You’re looking for you
We’re looking in at other
And we don’t know what to do
Then in “The Real Me” from Quadrophenia:
I went back to my mother
I said, “I’m crazy ma, help me.”
She said, “I know how it feels son,
‘Cause it runs in the family.”
Can you see the real me, mother?
And perhaps most famously, “Who Are You”
Well, who are you?
I really wanna know
Tell me, who are you?
‘Cause I really wanna know
But for me the song that said it all was a relatively obscure little solo track that Townshend recorded in 1977 called “Misunderstood”:
Just wanna be misunderstood
Wanna be feared in my neighborhood
Just wanna be a moody man
Say things that nobody can understand
I wanna leave open mouths when I speak
Want people to cry when I put them down
Don’t wanna be either old and young
Don’t like where I ended up or where I begun
As my parent’s marriage came crashing down in the late 1980s, Townshend became the Greek chorus of my youth, guiding me through divorce, depression, anger, and alcoholism. Like Tommy, I became the deaf, dumb, and blind boy. I shut myself off, locked away in my room with The Who. I learned to play guitar and spent most days and nights trying to play every Who song I could while sneaking beers and drinking myself to sleep. Like the protagonist in the band’s first hit, “I Can’t Explain,” The Who expressed the words and feelings that I couldn’t yet find.
The one major disappointment of my Who obsession was the lack of, well, Who. With the exception of a sloppy Live Aid performance, the band had remained ‘retired.’ I had to make do with old Who bootlegs or the occasional Townshend solo album. Then, in 1989, a small miracle happened. The Who were reuniting for their 25th anniversary. Once again they were ignoring Ottawa for Toronto. It didn’t matter. This time I was going. In the moment, it was a great thrill to hear them live, but in hindsight, it was a big disappointment. Entwistle, Daltrey and Townshend were accompanied by about a fifteen-piece band. The result was a tempered, watered down performance. This wasn’t The Who. This was like seeing a good Who cover band backed by the Benny Goodman orchestra.
The Who’s influence on my life lessened as I got older. There would be a Who period every year where I’d blast a few albums, strum a few power chords. Maybe a disappointing new Townshend recording, a box set, a memory, or booze triggered it. Whatever it was, the Who never quite left my side.
I had another opportunity to see them again in 2000. A friend bought me a ticket to see them in New York (cause once again they weren’t coming to Ottawa). This time it was worth it. We had great seats on the floor and the atmosphere was electric. Gone was the Benny Goodman orchestra. All that remained were Townshend, Entwistle and Daltrey. Accompanying them were longtime keyboardist Rabbit Bundrick and Ringo Starr’s son, Zac Starkey on drums. Starkey was an amazing find. He had idolized Keith Moon as a boy and was the perfect replacement. Starkey brought stability and energy. His playing seemed to transform the others. They played with a fire that had been lacking for a long, long time. That night in New York was my Who heaven.
The band’s revitalized performances encouraged Townshend. On his blog, he began hinting that a new Who album was not out of the question. Every Who fan took these words with a grain of salt. Throughout the band’s history, Townshend had a love hate relationship with this thing called The Who. Every few years, he’d say that the band was his albatross and that he would never play with them again. Then he’d just as quickly turn around strap on his guitar and hit the road with them. Even this I understood. It was similar to my relationship with my parents and brother. Every year, we’d tell each other to get out of our lives. Time would pass and suddenly we found ourselves back in each other’s lives. Then there’d be another fight and we’d be on the outs again. Our dysfunction was simply because none of us could be truthful with one another. No one could say anything but hate. Was it the same with Townshend?
Things might have gone on like this if not for the death of John Entwistle on the eve of their 2002 North American tour. Always the man between Daltrey and Townshend, the bridge so to speak, Entwistle’s death forced Daltrey and Townshend to deal with each other once and for all. Then and there, The Who was reborn. They released their first two original songs (including a tribute to Entwistle called “Old Red Wine”) since 1982 on a greatest hit’s compilation. The songs weren’t classics, but they showed that there was still a spark left.
Finally, this year, some twenty-four years since it began for me and (apparently) ended for them, it’s started again. The Who’s first album since 1982’s “It’s Hard” is due in October and they’re embarking on a world tour that includes, for the first time since a 1969 performance at Capital Cinema, a stop in Ottawa.
I’m almost 40 now. I’ve overcome booze, found my real father, got married and have two kids. I’m living in a very different world than I did in 1982. I have no idea if Townshend’s new songs will speak to me. It doesn’t matter. It’s a bit like family and friends. You don’t necessarily agree with everything they do, but at the end of the day there’s an unshakable core that connects you, a spark that keeps the flame going. All that matters is that after 24 years of chasing ghosts and demons, The Who and me are here, now.
Ottawa Citizen review of local poet, Shane Rhodes.
In an increasingly fragmented world that often suffers from historical amnesia life is often, as Ottawa poet Shane Rhodes writes, “a story, like most, built by absences and fleeing.”
In The Bindery, Rhode’s new collection of poetry, he examines these themes through both literal and mental travel. “Chunks of the book germinated from my travels in Mexico, India, across Canada and in Argentina,” says Rhodes. “Other parts of the book came from a more complex thinking of travel — what travel means now, how travel is linked to colonization, the history of places and the subjective surface living that travel necessitates.”
In the first part of the book, Rhodes writes from Mexico and Argentina. The poems dash back and forth between the lyrical and the historical as Rhodes weaves the personal and public, fusing the romanticism of the past with the reality of the present. In “A Note from Zacatecas,” Rhodes moves through a painting of Saint Francis in a convent in Zacatecas, through the rich history of the convent itself to its barren present where “bells continue to ring, …gathering what remains of the faithful.”
“This is one of my main concerns in the book,” says Rhodes, “living within a continuous present where historical depth impacts and is part of the here and now. Certainly this is true with art and the art I refer to in the poems — I am fascinated that we so often, in our consumption of art — do not regard the historical landscape in which they were produced and the mesh in which they fit.”
In “A Picture of Brueghel: Landscape with Icarus Falling”, Rhodes uses the famous painting to ask if we are even capable of seeing the truths around us. As Icarus falls from the sky and crashes to the water, slave ships sail nearby. Both actions go unnoticed by a farmer. “Everyone,” writes Rhodes, “sees nothing at least once in the life of a tragedy.”
“Icarus,” adds Rhodes, “is unimportant in the painting both to recall the myth but also because he really is unimportant when you see the historical moment he is falling into. For me, this need to go beyond surface understanding of things, events, subjects and the lyrical/artistic understanding (which does not, at its worst, understand politics, social movements, historical event and even the means of production as part of what something is but only as contextual filler for art pamphlets) that has built up around them is vital to better understand where we are in relation to the past that got us here.”
The title piece is a collage of 99 fragments that are reminiscent of the philosopher, Heraclitus (who is quoted in the poem), the Gospel of Thomas, and notebook scribbles. The fragment that perhaps best sums up the poem is #97 where Rhodes writes: “Small pieces of the world snap together fall apart.” Through these series of broken passages, thoughts, and quotes, we experience the world as a fleeting series of moments. There is a sense of longing for a connection as we are drowning in a changing, fleeing tide of absences.
“The Bindery,” says Rhodes, “ is a play, an experiment, a feature on dispersion and cohesion — how fragmented an argument can get but also how an argument can emerge from fragmentation. A weakness of so much literature I read (and art I see) is its inability to invite the chaos in — there is something that happens in highly fragmented pieces that you don’t get with conventional lyrics.”
Rhodes’ writing is also an attempt to demythologize poetry and shake it from the shackles of the high brow. His poems are, as he says, “the jottings of a person living, moving through art, through history, through places, through books.” They don’t need to be read in cloistered solitude. “It is travel poetry,” says Rhodes. “It is also poetry to read while watching TV — those useful numbers helping you so you don’t lose your place (and even if you do lose your place, so what) and so you can also easily eat your TV dinner.”
Pretty familiar rant from me. This is basically a variation on some old Pimps that were turned into a piece for The Ottawa Citizen.
I’ve never liked the term “adult animation” because it suggests that animation is then by nature something for children; a dominant presumption that couldn’t be further from the truth. We don’t call The Departed or Capote or Brokeback Mountain ‘adult’ cinema -we all know what ‘adult’ cinema really means anyway – so why on earth must animation be defined as such?
As the latest releases of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection and, to a lesser degree, Walt Disney Treasures reveal, if you go back to the very beginnings of animation you see that cartoons were actually made for the amusement of adults. All of these classic Warner Bros. cartoons that many of us grew up watching as kids were originally made primarily for an adult audience. Even the early Walt Disney films weren’t made for kids. Goofy, Donald, and the Warner Bros. cast of characters were in fact parodies of adults. Through their exaggerated antics (e.g. Donald’s insane temper), the animators playfully mocked just how pathetic and foolish human beings could be. In that sense, the only thing ‘kiddie’ about these works was that they revealed the child in the adult.
Even before Warner and Disney, animation Pioneers like The Fleischer Brothers (did you really think that Betty Boop was made for kids!?), Winsor McCay (Gertie The Dinosaur), Emile Cohl, and Otto Messmer (creator of Felix The Cat) all made animation films for an adult audience.
Somewhere along the way things changed. Disney started making features like Pinocchio, Bambi and Dumbo that appealed to adults, but were now softened for children. Then came television and Saturday morning cartoons and the rest is history.
Animation has certainly grown enormously during the last fifteen years. Today, animation is everywhere: commercials, video games, music videos, and mobile phones. In truth, animation has become so prominent that there are few feature films that exist which do not contain some form of animation. King Kong, Spiderman, Revenge of the Sith could easily qualify as animation films. This growth spurt has also seen animation’s palette widened considerably. Two decades ago, animation was dominated by the realistic Disney style. Today, we can find an array of techniques and styles being incorporated into commercials, TV shows, and films. The one thing that, unfortunately, hasn’t changed is the content. Each year I see almost 2000 new animation films from around the world. Many of them are beautiful, poetic works that rival any of the great arts. Unfortunately, unless you go to festivals, you probably won’t see these films. Television and cinemas aren’t all that interested in this kind of animation because they believe that animation is made for kids, tweens, teens, and twits.
We’ve heard all this talk about animation growing up and how there is more adult animation being produced than ever. But just how adult are they? Every so-called adult animation show that has aired over the last decade (from Pond Life and Bob and Margaret to Family Guy, South Park, King of the Hill and, of course, The Simpsons, all rely on gags and laughs. I don’t mind having some laughs, but now not only is animation forced to live with this infantile label, it’s also expected to always be funny. It’s pretty much the same with feature animation. With the exception of Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, and a handful of obscure foreign features (e.g. The District from Hungary), adult animation is limited to a few lame in-jokes (e.g. Shrek, Ice Age, Hoodwinked) so that mom and dad can enjoy the ride too. However, the idea of making serious animation about real-life issues seems alien to television and movie producers, and by extension, most of their audience.
Now, I’m not asking for heavy-handed Ingmar Bergman chamber dramas. What I’m looking for is something that has personality, humour and yet is mature and reflective. The Sopranos, Lost, The Wire, Deadwood all deal with those issues of life, death, sin, salvation, loyalty, violence, sex, power, etc. They sometimes lead you to reflect on an issue in your own life (e.g. Deadwood, The Sopranos and Lost might trigger reflection on morality and personal responsibility). It’s as though making serious animation is about real life issues is a sin of sorts.
In a sense, the situation resembles what animators in former communist countries had to go through to get their films produced. In Estonia (a former Soviet republic), for example, some animators made subversive films that criticized the struggles and brutality of Soviet society. To escape the wrath of the censors, the artists had to cloak these critiques behind obscure symbols and metaphors. The few shows I’ve seen that touch on adult themes (e.g. Batman: The Animated Series, Samurai Jack) do so superficially, as though they’re afraid of being too mature.
It’s not like it hasn’t been done before. Ralph Bashki made a number of animated features (Fritz the Cat, American Pop) in the 1970s that were aimed squarely at adults. Japanese anime – which has a massive worldwide following – produces an array of complex, serious films (e.g. Akira, Ghost in the Shell) and shows). In the 1990s, Peter Chung’s MTV series, Aeon Flux - which was a cross between science-fiction, James Bond, Roadrunner and Coyote, and Michelangelo Antonioni films - found a sizeable cult following (and was recently made into a live-action feature film).
And of course, if you want a real gauge of just how mature and articulate animation can be, just check the list of prizewinners at any international animation event. Some of the most recent Academy Award winners like provocative, poetics animation works like Ryan, The Man Who Planted Trees, The Moon and the Son,, and Father and Daughter.
Animation is routinely hailed as the great liberator, an artform that can take us to new realms of possibilities. Animation can shatter the laws of physics and excavate the imagination and soul like no other art, so why is it that television and feature animation remains stuck in that old habit (now masquerading as truth) of being nothing more than a raucous, naughty, cutesy, infantile medium for toddlers, pre-pubescent man-boys and other associated virgins. It’s about time that someone came along and shook this oh so tiresome ga-ga giggling snort snort fart chuckle muffled laugh medium out of its semi-soiled training pants.
Perhaps it’s not animation that needs to grow up, but us.
Do facts alone convey the essence of a story? Isn’t it just as likely that a person, object or event remains unseen, uncovered only through our senses and imagination? Four recent works that fuse elements of documentary, art-house narrative and animation—Ann Marie Fleming’s The Long Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini’s American Splendor, Paul Fierlinger’s A Room Nearby and Chris Landreth’s Ryan–challenge our understanding of what can be revealed dramatically in a film. They demonstrate that animation, unbound by rules of gravity and logic, can be used to take us towards a deeper understanding of the world around and within us.
Today, more than ever, we’re seeing documentary and fiction films using animation to enrich projects by giving them new possibilities of space, texture and humour. Even TV animation has taken the authentic route with MTV’s Downtown, which, for the pilot episode anyway, used actual street recordings from a New York neighbourhood. Oxygen network’s Drawn From Life by Paul Fierlinger used real interviews to tell stories of everyday American women. And Saturday Night Live continues to feature an animated segment called Fun with Real Audio, which takes actual recordings of celebrities and political figures, and places them in a different context in order to satirize the speaker.
Perhaps the most famous animation hybrid is Richard Linklater’s Waking Life. The rotoscope-style animation software created by Bob Sabiston serves a variety of technical and conceptual purposes for Linklater. First, the rotoscope technique – which, in a sense, allows the filmmaker to trace over the photographic image - complements the ambiguous dream/wake duality of the film: it’s reality and yet it’s not. Secondly, the animation serves as a visual springboard into the minds of the various characters, bringing their theories and perspectives to life. Finally, the animation becomes an active participant in the film in that it caricatures the characters as they speak. Different artists were used for each scene, giving each space and character a unique personality. This adds another layer of existential fragmentation while, at times, playfully poking fun at some of the characters. At the same time, the lack of a cohesive style along with the shifting, floating, dislocated backgrounds and landscapes keeps the viewer on edge, at a distance.
The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam
Ann Marie Fleming’s new feature-length documentary The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, ‘stars’ her great-grandfather, a world famous vaudeville artist, magician and acrobat. In it, she uses animation for transition scenes, animates old photographs and comic books, and re-creates some of Sam’s old acts.
“I first started using animation because I didn’t have any actual footage of his act,” says Fleming. “I had incorporated animation into many of my other films and I am always drawn to use it to represent things that cannot be represented by live-action: counter-stories that show metaphorical political and emotional states.” Sam becomes an almost living, breathing character. In old photographs we see eyes, hands and legs move. “Somehow animating the gorgeous old photos and illustrations gave the film a contemporary look,” adds Fleming. “I didn’t want Sam to be some historical footnote.”
Like her great-grandfather, Fleming is also a magician of sorts. “Animation is the legacy of magic, the great grandchild,” states Fleming. “The first filmmakers were magicians. The first films were collaborations between photographers and magicians. In some ways, animation is the magic in the film.”
American Splendor
While animation doesn’t play a major part in American Splendor, it serves as an important tool in conveying the film’s themes of perception and identity. When the “real” writer Harvey Pekar, played by Paul Giamatti, anxiously waits in line behind a slow old lady at a grocery store, an animated version appears as his conscience. Very quickly, the scene shows us that Harvey’s anger has less to do this with the old woman than with his own existential frustrations.
In a key scene, when Joyce, Pekar’s future partner, arrives at a bus station to meet Harvey for the first time, she is unsure which drawn version will greet her. Pekar had famously worked with many different artists, and each had their own take on him. As she waits, we see a trio of cut-out and drawn versions of Harvey.
The film is bookmarked by two scenes that place Paul Giamatti’s Harvey within shifting animated and composited backgrounds. These are minor parts, but they add humour to American Splendor and could not have been conveyed as effectively in live-action. The use of animation also enriches the ongoing notion that there is literally, no single Harvey Pekar, but many.
Paul Fierlinger
One of the most consistent users of the animation documentary is American Paul Fierlinger. While animating for Sesame Street in the 1970s, Fierlinger worked with voice actor Jim Thurman whose direct speaking delivery was warm and unaffected. Fierlinger was influenced by Thurman’s technique, eventually using it for a film called And Then I’ll Stop (1989), which featured a handful of alcoholics recounting their battle with addiction. Much of the film’s power comes from often harrowing, unscripted first person voices. Fierlinger’s drawings are stark and minimal as they take us into the minds of each addict. Fierlinger has since made many interview or direct speaking films: the autobiographies Drawn From Memory and Still Life with Animated Dogs, the Drawn From Life documentary series and the recent PBS production, A Room Nearby.
“When you turn on the radio,” says Fierlinger, “within two seconds you can tell if the voice you hear is that of a news reader, an actor or an authentic human being who was recorded on location. The pictures I draw to our sound tracks are just illustrations of the voice. Of course it’s not all that authentic by then, because the pictures I present, the music, the editing–all of those old crafts–will distort reality nicely so that we can have a credible story, too.”
Similar in structure and tone to earlier animated documentaries, A Room Nearby mixes Fierlinger’s own insights about loneliness with stories told by real people, including film director, Milos Forman. Fierlinger’s sketchy, unpretentious drawing style accompanies each of the stories. Fierlinger’s greatest strength is his ability to find interesting, articulate and sympathetic people. The unaffected nature of each speaker derails any speck of sentimentality. The exception is Forman’s tale, which at times betrays the authenticity of the other stories because we see that he’s reading from pages he has written.
Oddly enough, Fierlinger is finding more success with his work on the documentary circuit. “Perhaps it’s a fresher way of presenting personal observations,” suggests Fierlinger. “Talking heads are to be avoided as much as possible in real documentaries. Everybody knows those to be a cop-out, unless you find a talking head of Rasputin. But talking heads in animation are fun and quirky; just think of Creature Comforts.”
Animation’s cold shoulder is somewhat surprising given the power and uniqueness of Fierlinger’s work. Fierlinger does tend to repeat himself stylistically, but that can be said of most animators. Perhaps there’s a feeling that Fierlinger relies too much on his soundtracks. Without the unaffected, warm voices, would Fierlinger’s images be enough to hold our interest?
Ryan
Chris Landreth’s (The End, Bingo) project, Ryan is one of the most anticipated short animations of the year. Ryan is based on interviews Landreth conducted with former NFB animator, Ryan Larkin. A one time Oscar nominee, Larkin fell on hard times and now lives at the Old Brewery Mission in Montreal. He earns his living as a panhandler. The interview in the film takes place in an old, run down cafeteria, which is filled with an assortment of, literally, broken characters.
Landreth, using Maya software, recreates Larkin as a fragile, incomplete person. We see a portion of a face, but much of Ryan’s body is twisted busted or just not there. As Ryan reflects on his life, Landreth uses animation to create spaces that simply would not be possible in live action. In one poignant scene, we see a young, complete Ryan, with hippie threads and long hair, come to life in his award-winning film Street Musique. He is filled with joy and soon begins dancing with his creations. Occasionally, we hear from other observers. Landreth also shows us his motivation: he sees elements of his mother in Ryan’s life.
Chris Landreth has created a technical and conceptual marvel with Ryan. In revealing Larkin’s inner landscape, Landreth has delivered us into a deeper, richer reality. We see the ‘real’ Ryan Larkin that our eyes cannot see.
A Hybrid Future?
When Disney announced in 2003 that it wouldn’t be making drawn animation films anymore, some began to fear that the form itself might disappear, to be assimilated into a new digital world. Certainly, with the onset of recent technological developments, animation is changing but it’s always been changing. Like any art form, animation is not – or at least, should not be - some staid process. It has always been in a constant state of flux; facing new technologies and concepts is not exactly new.
There is no doubt that animation is taking on a new hybrid-like form. However, films like Waking Life, Ryan and The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam show that the genre and its techniques – not to mention its concepts - are far from extinction.
In embracing old and new technologies, leading-edge artists and their films show that animation - for all its potential paradoxical and fantastical possibilities - can actually take viewers to deeper, more realistic, levels of human understanding than conventional live-action or documentary work.
In this sense, animation might just be the pivotal ingredient in a new 21st century art form.