The Animation Pimp

This was originally done in January 2002 for the now-defunct Belgian magazine, Plateau.

There is nothing remotely remarkable about bringing together two people who have very different opinions about art and commerce. If I were to walk along any street corner or eavesdrop within any gallery or office wall, we could easily find a multitude of polarized voices eager to articulate the validity of their utterances. But when these two people are celebrated independent animators who both abhor corporate numbing, it is indeed a unique gathering.

Bill Plympton, the creator of The Tune, I Married a Strange Person, How To Make Love to A Woman and the Oscar nominated, Your Face, is arguably one of the few animation celebrities. Plympton’s absurd, violent, and sexual snapshots of modern America have earned him both critical acclaim and public adulation. What separates Plympton’s blatantly commercial work from Disney or Warner Bros. Is their decidedly unique, ‘anti-slick’ aesthetic, and perhaps more importantly, his fierce independence. Not only does Plympton write, direct and animate his films, he also owns and funds all of his work using the profits from his short films and commercials.

George Griffin, on the other hand, couldn’t be more different. Griffin’s films are, with the possible exception of the infamous 1975 film, The Club and A Little Routine (1994), are decidedly non-commercial. Unlike Plympton, there is no real ‘Griffin’ style. And while Plympton’s work is often more a monologue than a dialogue, Griffin’s films weave together personal and collective histories within a self-reflexive landscape that continually, and fiercely, questions and reveals itself to its audience.

With this in mind, I met with these two revered artists to discuss, not their films, but their ideas, passions, and visions of art, animation, and life.

What does the word art mean to you?

G: Disney said [that when] he heard the word ‘art’, he goes for his gun. I feel kind of the same way because it has as certainly changed enormously since the arrival of Warhol. I mean Duchamp and then Warhol. It’s like anything goes. In a sense everything we do in our culture is art. From the art to the archeologists. I think it’s we who make these very subtle distinctions about whether it truly qualifies to be in a museum. I find those distinctions often quite bogus.

B: In a sense I agree with George. When I think of the word art, I think of art museums and generally I try and stay away from that sort of filmmaking. I’m more of an entertainer than an artist and quite frankly I’m proud of that. I think the adulation of the fans is more important than breaking new ground and breaking new territories of conceptualism or minimalism.

G: But Bill if you are claiming that you are an entertainer not an artist then you are defining it in a very limited way because clearly you are an artist. You want to reach a broader audience and you use a kind of language that’s a more popular language. We all kind of speak, write and draw in a visual language that we can understand and maybe some kinds of animation reach a smaller audience, a chamber audience. There are so many wonderfully inventive films that satisfy on both levels that it’s a shame to define things [in this way]. I think that Bill is a good case in point because you’re drawing style is a kind of rough, pencil style. You brought something into cartoon animation that wasn’t really there before and that was an aesthetic quality as well as how you deal with comedy and subject matter.

What does animation mean to you?

G: For me, it’s changed an awful lot that last few years because of computers. It used to be something that you sort of stitched together frame by frame, but now with the computer doing its own stitching and its own organization, you could very easily say, “well, there are no frames anymore”, there’s a kind of continuum. Gosh, I think it’s got something to do with a synthetic organization that animators control, but beyond that all of my preconceptions have been washed away over the past few years.

B: What’s more important to me is the potential of animation against live action filmmaking. For me, animation is really liberation and the limits are neverending. It’s amazing that I can sit at my drawing board and do anything that I want with these people and with my story.

G: But you know there are so many instances of the live action film being re-structured, re-painted, and re-animated in a sense. So, you can scarcely say that one is animated, one is not. They’re all worked over on a frame by frame basis with digital technology. It’s hard to make a distinction.

Is this change a good thing? Is it good that people can now make their own films on their computer.

B: I definitely think it’s a good thing. I see a lot of people who probably never would have thought of doing animation and getting involved in animation. When I started doing animation in the mid-1980s it was extremely difficult just to get a pencil test. You had to shoot it in 16mm, take it to the lab, you had to wait a couple of days, you had to have a projector, you had to have all this technical equipment. Now any idiot with a computer can play with animation. I don’t use a computer for animation but I like the fact that it’s more democratic and it opens up the career of animation to everybody.

G: I’m not sure that I would agree with that last part because that’s one thing that has altered the scene enormously: the re-birth of the studios. Where does that place film students and art students who want a job? And if that’s what they want then they’re offered jobs quite early on in their creative life and I think that can be a problem for the independent.

B: England is producing the best independent films in the world right now as far I know and I wonder what the hell is wrong with the States? How come we’re not producing independent filmmakers? The studios are gobbling them up right out of film school. Guys are making lots of money. A couple of decades ago these same people would have been making independent films. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. If I was a young kid now I would probably jump to one of these big studios and have the time of my life. I recommend that young animators work for 5-10 years at a studio. Then I recommend that they leave the studio and, now [that] they have experience, start making their own films.

G: I think that’s pretty idealistic because if you’re working ten years, you’re getting a fat salary. Generally if you’ve worked your way up in the hierarchy, you give it your all and you won’t have enough energy to do both.

I’ve actually heard animators say that they would like to continue with their own projects, but they’re too burned out at the end of the day.

G: I think it would hurt. I actually was very fortunate because I worked in studios, but I never really became like a top flight animator or director. I was always kind of like still an apprentice. Even as an apprentice I started making my own films, so by the time I was finely fired I had enough under my belt so I could do small jobs and then eventually some commercials here and there.

Do you think about the audience when you are making a film?

G: I do, but it’s an audience of one usually. For me, it’s this little imp sitting on my shoulder that says, “well, do you really want to do that?”. It’s kind of a little monitor. But Bill, if I can speak for you, you really use laughter as one of things to define the audience’s response in a positive way for you. Where it’s not so much that for me. So it’s hard to gauge what makes a successful presentation of my work. In other words, I don’t think of the audience that much.

B: I think that’s a really important question that every filmmaker should ask themselves when they’re making a film because that does reflect on what eventually is the end product. For my own purposes, I generally think the audience is fifty percent me and fifty percent the people in the screening room. Initially, I try to make myself laugh and then I’ll do some testing and show it to some friends and people. They’ll give me feedback and then I’ll make changes because I do want the audience to like it. I think it’s important that the audience likes it. If the audience is not important then you shouldn’t bother showing it to an audience. For example, and I think George that you were there for this. It was in the Stuttgart Festival about 4-5 years ago. They did an American animation series and showed Under the Sea by Paul Glabicki. Real abstract. A bunch of circles, and lines and dots After about 2-3 minutes the audience got really angry and it just kept going and they kept yelling and this thing ended up being 24 minutes long. At the end of the film you saw that it was funded by all these organizations: the AFI (American Film Institute), Arts of the Humanities, and you know he was not thinking about the audience. His audience was the board of directors of all these funding organizations, not the people who would see the film. And I wondered why do they bother to show this film to an audience when obviously he didn’t want it to be shown to an audience.

G. Well Bill, I can recall getting into an argument with you in Stuttgart over that very issue. Not so much the film, but whether art should be funded. And I take exception to that point of view because the funders often are just people who write a cheque. The people who decide who gets the money are other filmmakers. They obviously liked what he was doing. And I would say that having an audience screaming and trying to kick in the projection doors is a very good reaction. The worst reaction would be stony silence and polite applause.

B: But it saddens me that our tax money was going to art work that no one wanted to see.

G: That’s really where we draw the line in the sand because you know the amount of money that goes to funding bombers and so forth and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.

B: I totally agree.

G: I reach for my gun when I here that line. Art is an endangered species.

B: But it’s not. I think there are artists out there like you who have really new ideas, styles, and techniques, but they’re entertaining. People like them. What’s so revolutionary about that. The Beatles did music that was unheard of and people liked that. Picasso did stuff that was unheard of and offensive, but people liked it. Why do art that nobody likes? Why finance art that nobody likes?

G: When you define it that way you are saying that not enough people like it and I think it’s a mistake to use a market approach to art.

B: It’s not a market approach.

G: You can say that Picasso was well liked. You will find many people who did not like Picasso and in fact Picasso was purchased and supported by an elite minority of rich folks. To say that no one likes the work is just an assumption on your part. Some films are not going to make you laugh. Some films are going to be quiet and thoughtful and they’re going to engage you in some way, maybe embarrass you in some way, and those are important works too.

B: I don’t want people to think that I want to please everyone. I Married a Strange Person is very graphic in terms of sex and violence and it offends a lot of people. A lot of reviews said that this was offensive trash, so I’m not out to please everybody, but I do want to do drawings that I find amusing and that other people find amusing too. That to me is the bottom line.

G: Yeah, but Bill what if you did something that you thought was really funny and you showed it to people who don’t laugh…what would you do? Take it out?

B: Absolutely. I’m not going to bore people.

G: But what if ten years later it’s shown that you were so far ahead of the time?

B: I’ll sneak a bunch of scenes in there that are really super and sometimes people don’t laugh. I can live with that, but if the whole film gets a negative response from an audience then I’m not going to show it. I don’t want to turn people off.
G: I don’t want to bore people either. But if someone at my film cried I would say that I did something right.

Tell me about your influences.

B: I think that this tells you a lot about the differences between George and I. It’s the Warner Bros. people like Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. Actually there are a couple of artists who have influenced me: Rene Magritte and Roland Topor. I find their stuff very influential. I was a fan of a lot of illustrators of course. Andrew Wyeth and those people. Of the filmmakers today I like John Woo, Quentin Tarentino, Peter Jackson, the Hong Kong filmmakers, the action directors. Terry Gilliam of course. David Lynch. People like that.

G: My list is real small. I revise it every so often too. I would say Sol Steinberg, an illustrator/cartoonist/artist who does work occasionally for the New Yorker magazine. What I like about his work is the spare sense of his design. It’s witty. It’s about language and he seems to have resurrected the use of the colour pencil and basically used drawing as a way of hitting at something very psychological and very appealing. His work is often about making art which I’m quite drawn to. There’s a live action filmmaker I really like named Atom Egoyan, who is Canadian. He made The Sweet Hereafter and many other films before that. Then I would mention Charlie Parker because I happened to be obsessed with his music. The whole sense of improvisation and thinking on his feet. Working within a kind of idiom that was new and sort of sounded like noise but with his instrument it made it come out together in a unified whole. Now that to me is a wonderful goal to have in making films. Actually there are a lot of animators who are musicians or frustrated musicians. That indicates a sense of rhythm and a spontaneity of performance that we all kind of enjoy.

How do you survive as an independent animator?

G: I do commercials. I do industrials. Whatever comes over the transom as they say. And then at one point there was some government money. Art councils that funded independent filmmaking, and still does on a very limited degree. But for the most part it’s using your own money to do it. And I have rarely made money back from the films I’ve done. You make sales to Europe. There’s some programmes here in the States. I’m not very good at marketing so I really haven’t pursued that as successfully as Bill. You have to accept the fact that it’s either going to be a labour of love and not expect it to pay for itself and just do other things to pay for it; or do films that really are geared to one market that you are aware of.

What kind of government funding is there?

G: The New York State Council of the Arts is one example where they’re way underfunded from their level of the 1970s, but they still do it. PBS (Public Broadcasting System) has some ways of funding, but it’s not very much. The NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) is pretty much comatose at this point and the AFI is too. They were funded by the NEA. So it’s virtually dried up.

B: Let me go back on one thing. I don’t want to misrepresent myself. I’m not bothered by Rockefeller Grants or private trusts funding art. When the taxpayer money goes to projects then I feel that it’s a waste of public money. In terms of my own films, initially when I started doing animation after Boomtown and had a little bit of success, this guy, he was a Russian emigre came to me and said “I’d like to finance your next film. Here’s $1000.” I was so excited. And then I was thinking about it and said, “Wait a minute I’ve got a $1000 and if this guy pays a $1000 and he owns the film and he’ll get to decide what the final cut will be.” And I thought, “I don’t like that.” So I decided to finance my films from the beginning and it always turned out well. Each short film has made more and more money. I’ve been fortunate that the animation explosion happened just when I started and there was a ready market for all my films. The shorts right now do very well. The feature films, which are financed through commercials, however have all lost money except for Mondo Plympton.

So, you’ve never had government funding at all?

B: No. I spit on government funding.

G: Grrr…let me go back. We’re never gonna solve this thing, but it’s a mistake to criticize government funding. The government does a lot of things that you think it shouldn’t do.

B: But anytime you ask the government to be the arbiter of art you’re asking for trouble. Look at Jessie Helms and people like that. These people do not want to decide America sees and they shouldn’t be the people who decide what America sees.

G: That’s in fact the problem. That’s its become politicized and it really shouldn’t have been. . Jessie Helms [is] appealing to the base passions of people and I think he’s woefully mistaken.

Bill, you talked about how fortunate you were to arrive in animation just as the animation ‘boom’ was starting. The Tournee of Animation, and Spike and Mike’s festival must have been key ingredients in your success.

B: That and MTV. Everywhere I go people know who I am because of MTV or Terry Thoren or Spike and Mike. And I have to thank them all for being there at exactly the time I started doing animation.

G: Are those sources active now. I know that of course MTV is a monster, but to what extent are the others helpful or harmful to independent animators now?

Well, the Tournee is non-existent.

B: With Spike and Mike, the festival of animation is not as popular as their Sick and Twisted, so in terms of artists, you’re right, they’re not that good. Manga is looking for interesting stuff. They are very healthy and have a big budget and are getting the films out there.

What about the animation channels? I haven’t seen the Cartoon Network, but in Canada, we have a channel called Teletoon. I thought they might provide an outlet for independent aniamtors. But they are primarily showing old Hanna-Barbera, limited animation shows from the 1960s and 1970s. Has it been that way with the Cartoon Network in the U.S.A.?

B: Yeah.

G: You know I think there’s a problem there. It’s kind of the war I’m talking about. I mean I think that the Tournee and Spike and Mike served a wonderful function getting work out. It grew and grew and then it just popped. Just as MTV supported a lot of independent animators and then just stopped. Or it tried to get them to do work for very low budgets. I just think that when you make a pact with business interests, unless you are a very clever about it, you can get burned.

B: Yeah, but George look at Bravo and the Sundance Channel. There are always looking for stuff and they have open pocketbooks.

G: There are people doing their own series or pilots and so forth to fill the content void. I think that the re-use of the library is going to be the main money maker for these people. As it was for Nickelodeon. That’s going to be their cash cow and I don’t think they’re really committed. Am I gonna wait for Absolut Vodka to come around and help me become an independent filmmaker? I just think that that’s an avenue that is fraught with peril.

B: Well let me ask a bold question, George. Are you one of these guys who is waiting around for ten or twenty years for people to all of a sudden say…’wow! this George Griffin, all of a sudden we’ve caught up to his sensibility. Now he’s a brilliant filmmaker’?

G: Oh….good question. Do I detect a note of criticism there?

B: Yeah…that’s what you said to me. Don’t you feel like doing something boldly popular?

G: Well…let’s talk about that because I think you have made a decision to reach a certain audience that…but you’ve done feature films and I don’t plan to do that. But that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t like to be appreciated. That is a very strong carrot that is held up to a lot of animators.

B: Little Routine was popular.

G: Yeah, but I’m talking about feature-length film. That’s the main game in film. As short filmmakers we are marginalised. We are not very highly regarded. Sometimes I think there is this attempt to compensate by pushing out and doing a feature film as you’ve done. It does offer an illusory kind of avenue for some animators.

While we are discussing feature films…let me ask you this, Bill. Why do you continue to make feature films if you are losing money?

B: Because I think in the long run it will pay off big. You look at something like Snow White. It keeps coming out and making more money each time. I think that these features will be a gold mine in ten to fifteen years. Also, I like doing features. You get taken more serious when you do a feature. You’re almost on equal footing with a live-action director.

Do either of you that you’re making more compromises now?

G: I think that one could make that statement. I made stuff in the 1970s that was more for gallery audiences. I maybe took more chances then because it wasn’t really meant to entertain. I like to think that I haven’t become more conservative. I like to think that I have included some of these experimental techniques and tendencies in my work while trying to get to a broader audience. It’s always a danger of course. As you grow older you think, can I really muster up the juices and prime the pump once again. That’s a fear that I have.

B: For MTV or commercials, I’ll make compromises because the money is so good I don’t mind doing that, but in my own stuff I think that there is a little bit of self-censorship simply because no one is going to buy it if its totally obscene.

Where does your inspiration come from?

B: I did do drugs back in the 1960s and 70s. That freed up my mind. Also, I live in New York city, a very cartoon-like city. I find a lot of inspiration on the sidewalks of New York. But also every morning before I get up I like to lie in bed for two hours sometimes and let my mind wander and think of the weirdest things I can think of. I jot them down and make notes of them and one way or another they wind up in my films.

G: I actually find making films and drawing quite difficult. It doesn’t come naturally for me. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing, but I keep slogging through and then I find some kind of narrative thread that helps me through.

How has the New York animation ‘scene’ changed over the years?

G: There was more than one scene in the 1970s. There was ASIFA-East which I used to think of as being the uptown group. When I belonged to it I would show my films and other people showed experimental and independent films. They called it non-sponsored films. We met on our own and showed work and people came through town with their films. So there was kind of a feeling of a colleagiality. We got films shown at the New York film festival and we organized some gallery screenings and published this book called Frames. For me that was kind of the highlight. It seemed to dissipate in the 1980s just as things got more and more popular. MTV came on the scene. It’s not to clear whether there is a ‘scene’ now. There are still people doing things. There’s a scruffy element that’s breaking rules and trying new stuff that doesn’t always work. There are many more students now. There are animation programmes at every school and that was certainly not the case in the 1970s. Schools have really taken and delivered a lot of talented people to the outside world. And New York is a very big town. It’s possible that there are lots of factions turning out manifestos the way we were, but I haven’t seen them.
How do you see the future of your own work and animation in the U.S.A.?

B: I actually don’t think that the future for independent animation in New York or the States is that bright because the studios are gobbling up all the really talented people. In the past there were a lot of really interesting films coming out, but the younger generation is unfortunately going for the big bucks. For my own future, I’m happy to do one or two shorts a year and maybe a feature every three years and continue making money that way and maybe a couple of commercials.

Bill, you have a unique style, but don’t you ever just want to make something completely different?

B: No. I’ve been doing this style for 25 years and I really like it. I can do it fast. I really would not want to change my style. I’m not looking forward to computers or any other technique than the one I have now.

G: I had a burst of making a lot of films all at once. I ruminate longer for a film. I’m working on something now, but I suspect it will take me another year to finish it. I took 5 years between independent films. That’s kind of a long breathing spell. I share Bill’s pessimism though. Television programming is a problem. The writer becomes ascendent to the animator. As good as The Simpsons were, it’s a writer’s programme. The design and animation doesn’t show me much. And it’s great satire. It’s going to be script driven projects. I see very few exceptions to that. That’s the way television works. If you got some interesting new thing it might look great as a pilot and then there’s the deadening prospect of churning out thirteen of these things.

The pendulum has swung away from government funding. Will there be a time where it might swing back?

G: I don’t think so. I mean you had it in Canada because you have basically a socialist attitude towards government. We had money because there was enough of it to go around. People like Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were the forerunners of it. Before that it didn’t exist, except in the depression. I think that it was a blip that came and I’m sorry to see it going. But that’s not what has affected the retreat of independent animation. You have to look at the business of animation and how it grew, how it thrived and how it took over a certain momentum that was established long before. I made my first film before I got funded. I think that’s true of most animators. They just did it because they had to do it. As long as you have that kind of impulse you can still have interesting work coming out.

Have the recent incidents of Alec Baldwin and David Hasselhoff crossed the line between public and private or is it good that we see the unexpurgated humanity of celebrities?

In April, a recording of a phone message Baldwin left for his daughter was mysteriously leaked to the world. On the message, a fuming Baldwin blasted his daughter and referred to her as a “thoughtless little pig.” In May, video of an intoxicated David Hasselhoof, taken by one of his daughters, was leaked to the press. Neither incident flatters the stars but has the line between public and private been pushed too far?

Gossip and inane public behaviour is one thing, but does the public really need to know how these people act in their personal lives? In our daily lives, we are always involved in gossip about colleagues, friends, and neighbours. We all imagine what others might be like. We occasionally witness unfortunate moments in a person’s life, but rarely do we want to go any further. In the recent cases of Michael Richards, Don Imus, David O. Russell (who is shown in a video leaked on the net berating Lily Tomlin and behaving like a lunatic on the set of his film, I Heart Huckabees) and Mel Gibson, these were celebrities doing or saying something stupid in public. Tough break for them, but that’s life, whether you’re a celebrity or not.

However, the leak of Baldwin and Hasselhoff’s material takes us into a rarely seen private world, one that it likely too close to our own. In one sense, we enjoy gossip and idiotic public moments because on a relatively superficial level it shows us that these celebrities are just like us. However, the Baldwin and Hasselhoff tapes containing harrowing material that few of us want to see perhaps because it too shows us a side of humanity that we all know too well. Who hasn’t shouted at their kids or lost their cool in public? Let’s keep in mind that is always missing from the incident: context. Whether it’s Baldwin or Joe Blow down the road, an unfortunate incident is not isolated. Who really knows what prompted Baldwin’s rant? We only have a slice of a tape. Had his wife and daughter been playing games with him (as he asserts)? Had repeated efforts to reach his daughter been thwarted? If so, then it’s understandable that the man would get frustrated. With Hasselhoff, the video of his drunken ramblings isn’t really a bad thing. The guy has a drinking problem. Best thing to show an alcoholic is footage of themselves while they’re sauced. However, did it really need to go public? Wouldn’t it have been enough for Hasselhoff alone to see how pathetic he looked? Why should he endure public humilation? He didn’t commit a sin by being an alcoholic. These two men, it seems, are being punished, not because they have a temper or drinking problem, but because they’re celebrities. That seems unfair and unnecessary.

Conversely, this shows us of the problematic nature of celebrity. Celebrity filters out difference. It is homogenous. It paves over the rubble to make everything flat and smooth. Celebrity reduces people to types, removing the complexities and contradictions (or, as Jack D. Ripper called it in Dr. Strangelove, the “essence of their bodily fluids.”). We create false myths and elevate people to a status that filters out their essence.

We simple slugs often strive to live up to statures that are inherently false. As such, we continually chase something that isn’t there and never was. That’s where drinking, diet pills, television, botox and paxil come in. And yet, we’re not fools. The dirt of the hero constantly fascinates us because we know it’s there. We’ve been in the slime ourselves. Yet, when we seek it out in these ‘heroes,’ it’s frowned upon (because it’s reduced to gossip magazines); we’re called vultures, gossip mongers. But it’s wrong because we are just seeking a bit of ourselves in our ‘heroes.’ We don’t want to know how perfect they are, we want to know how faulty, fucked up and human they are. We want to know, paradoxically, that David Hasselhoff and Alec Baldwin are are just like us.

A cynic might say that neither argument is valid. The real motivation behind these private incidents is publicity. Does anyone remember Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson’s home sex movie? This “accidently” leaked movie didn’t harm either career. In fact, it likely gave Tommy Lee new life. Alec Baldwin certainly wasn’t shy about grabbing some airtime on The View to discuss the issue and defend himself. Given that Hasselhoff’s career in North America was basically non-existent, the video can’t really do any harm. And if Germans (where Hasselhoff has carved out a successful music career) can tolerate his chintzy pop music, surely they can handle another embarrassing video.

Maybe we should all follow suit and start airing our dirty laundry. With all our faults, complexities, and contradictions out in the open perhaps we could get on with living our own lives instead of constantly desiring or emulating others.

Rough draft - June 2007

There was a time when animation features were a rarity. That has changed dramatically in the last ten years. Here’s a guide to some of the jewels and junk of animation feature history.

Jewels

The Iron Giant, 1999, Dir: Brad Bird
Iron Giant tells the tale of a giant robot that crashes to earth and is befriended by a lonely boy. Thanks to Warner Bros. complete neglect of this film, Iron Giant went virtually unnoticed in cinemas. It’s a shame because this engaging story features fantastic 1950s inspired designs, no songs, and, surprisingly, a bit of a critique of the U.S. government and military.

Bambi, 1942, Dir: David Hand
The animation is lovingly and meticulously crafted and this is one of the few animation films that deals with death in a mature manner. Unlike so many films that depict violence without consequences, Bambi shows us that death is a part of life that we all must confront.

Yellow Submarine, 1968, Dir: George Dunning
The Beatles travel to Pepperland in their yellow submarine to save the people from the dastardly Blue Meanies. What makes this film so important in the history of animation is Heinz Edelman’s wildly imaginative psychedelic design, which released animation from the shackles of Disney and brought it crashing into the world of pop art.

Fritz the Cat, 1972 Dir: Ralph Baski
If Yellow Submarine unlocked the door of the possibilities of animation features, Fritz the Cat busted it down. Based on comics by Robert Crumb, the X rated film follows the life of Fritz, a college student, as he experiences sex, drugs, race riots in late sixties America. The first animation feature to attempt to tackle serious and relevant social themes.

Akira, 1989 Dir: Katsuhiro Otomo
In this landmark film that introduced the world Japanese anime to American audiences. A gang of teens living in post-apocalyptic Neo-Toyko try to save one of their members after he becomes a telekinetic psychopath. Like Baskhi’s work, Akira addresses themes of social unrest, youth culture, and the prevailing fear of nuclear power and technology.

Waking Life (2001) Dir: Richard Linkletter/Bob Sabiston
A young adult drifts through a dream-like existence encountering many characters who discuss philosophy. Sabiston’s unique digital rotoscope technique enchances Linkletter’s philosophical/existential themes, giving the film a disturbing state of instability, as though one is caught between life and death.

Grave of the Fireflies, 1988, Dir: Isao Takahata
It’s rare to recommend a movie you never want to see again, but that’s how many people feel about this absolutely gut twisting film about the two Japanese children forced to fend for themselves during World War II.

Spirited Away, 2001, Dir: Hisao Miyazaki
A whiny young girl sees her parents turn into pigs. To save them, she must enter a bizarre world filled with an assortment of good and bad characters. What’s remarkable about the film is not only Miyazaki’s rich imagination that fuses fairy tales, myth and ancient history, but his refusal to divide the world into simplistic notions of good and bad.

Mind Game, 2005 Dir: Masaaki Yuasa
A young man (Nishi) runs into his ex-girlfriend and they go to her family’s restaurant. While they talk, gangsters bust into the place and kill Nishi. From here on, the story goes nutty. Nishi goes to heaven, argues with God, escapes back to earth and gets swallowed by a whale. This remarkable film is a celebration of life with all it’s surreal, violent, absurd, smutty and wonderful moments.

Raining Cats and Frogs 2003, Dir. Jacques-Remy Girerd
A family’s peaceful life is disrupted by a huge flood that threatens to destroy the planet. As the family rushes to save themselves and the animals, they learn that if the world is to survive, the animals and humans must learn to live together. A mesmerizing family film that is beautifully animated with striking character designs, likeable characters and songs that aren’t annoying.

Junk

A Goofy Movie, 1995, dir, Kevin Lima
Remember when The Simpsons had that episode where the producers of Itchy and Scratchy added the dog named Poochie to make the show more hip to younger viewers? Well, Goofy has a son named Max. Enough said?

Anastasia, 1997, Dir: Don Bluth and Gary Goldman
Set in the days of the last Tsar (Nicholas II) of Russia, an orphan named Anya, hoping to find out her true identity. Littered with bad songs and historical inaccuracies, it’s probably best that the real Anastasia didn’t survive her family’s slaying.

A Shark Tale, 2004, Dir: Bibo Bergeron, Vicky Jenson, Rob Letterman
This tepid Finding Nemo inspired film follows a bit city fish who is mistaken for a shark killer, gets in trouble with the mob and meets his runaway son. Like Sharks, it’s probably best that you avoid this embarrassment of fishes.

The Trumpet of the Swan, 2001 Dir: Richard Rich & Terry L. Noss. A mute Swan learns to read and write, and finds success with a trumpet. Gee, I didn’t know Swans were supposed to read and write.

A Man Called Flintstone, 1966 Dir: William Hanna, Joseph Barbera
Long before their offspring The Simpsons made the jump to features, The Flintstones made a rather bungled attempt in this parody of spy films. Can’t really remember what happens because I was sleeping after about 10 minutes.

Ice Age, 2002, Dir: Chris Wedge/Carlos Saldanha
The opening pre-credit sequence is the best thing in this dull and rather bland looking film about a sloth, mammoth and a sabretooth tiger that trek across the frozen tundra to return a child to his tribe.

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron
Some nifty background design is destroyed by awful writing and a lame plot about horses. Sure, to their credit the producers don’t make the horse speak, but everything else about this jingoistic ‘just like us’ syndrome reeks of horse manure.

Looney Tunes: Back in Action, 2003, D: Joe Dante/Eric Goldberg
Just when thought Warner Bros. had hit rock bottom with Space Jam, they released this live action/animation feature. It’s bad enough that these once respectable characters are being forced through this muck, but what’s Steve Martin’s excuse?

The Polar Express, 2004, Dir: Robert Zemeckis
This film scares me and reveals everything wrong with most computer and motion capture animation. It’s in the eyes. No matter how realistic the landscape and characters are, there’s something dead in the eyes, like zombies walking among us. But, hey, if you’re looking to creep your kids out or punish them then this is your kinda movie.

Rock A Doodle, 1992, Dir: Don Bluth
I can’t really find the words to describe the pain so let me just give you the synopsis: an Elvis-like rooster moves to the city and becomes a star. Without the rooster, the farm falls under the control of an evil owl. A little boy, transformed into a cat, leads the farm animals to the city to bring the rooster back.

Originally appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, July 2007

Ace in the Hole
Directed by Billy Wilder
Criterion Collection $59.99

Ace in The Hole (also known as The Big Carnival) was the biggest bomb of Billy Wilder’s career. Like Wilder’s wonderfully sleazy Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), Ace in The Hole was ahead of its time. This dark and cynical critique of the media proved too much for viewers in 1951 and was a box office disaster. Since it’s original release, the film has appeared sporadically on TV remains overlooked and overshadowed by Wilder’s more popular efforts, Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment. Hopefully, Ace in the Hole’s status will change now that Criterion has released this masterwork on DVD.

Kirk Douglas plays Chuck Tatum, a greaseball reporter so desperate to get his career back on track that he takes a job working for a smalltown paper. Chuck figures that all he needs is one golden story to get him back in the bright lights. A year passes and the best Chuck can get our “ginger peachy” stories about rattlesnake hunts. Everything changes though when a man gets trapped in a cave. Chuck sees his golden opportunity and with the help of a Sheriff, manipulates the man into staying in the cave longer so that they milk the story into a nationwide sensation (The Simpsons paid homage to the film in a 1992 episode when Bart falls down a well).

Over half a century after its release Wilder’s blistering critique of media sensationalism and our monomaniacal fetish for human tragedy has finely found it’s time and place.

When George Bush Sr said in 1992 that he wanted American families to become more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons, he was probably more astute than he realized. As much as liberals, academics and youth culture love to embrace the show (and it’s smarty pants Harvard educated writers) as a sort of “fuck you” to conservative, “mainstream’ society, the show has really always been a bastion of conservative thought. In fact, the most likely people to vote for Bush and the Republicans would be the wingnuts that occupy the show’s fictional town of Springfield.

I remember watching the show loyally in the mid-1990s. It was our weekly dose of satire, a show that made us sit back and have a big laugh at how much better we were than these Springfield (i.e. American) idiots.

During its eighteen-year run – that has recently expanded into feature film -, The Simpsons has been hailed as the benchmark for subversive satire of American culture. Through the people of Springfield, the show has ridiculed family, religion, politics, education, celebrity and big business. But just how subversive has the show been? Eighteen years later and nothing has changed. Homer and Wiggum remain idiots, Burns and Quimby are still corrupt. Mo is still a xenophobic. Celebrities now line up to be parodied by the show (not unlike the way politicians use Rick Mercer) for “street cred” with viewers.

It’s fine line between satire and stereotyping and the show seems to be sitting squarely on the fence, perhaps leaning now towards tired stereotype. On one hand, yes, the show clearly criticizes the idiots and systems of Springfield. Nothing in Springfield ever changes. Homer never learns. Burns never stops being corrupt. Bart is still an ass. Only Barney has showed some semblance of change (and kudos to the show for trying to deal with his alcoholism in a semi-serious manner). But no matter how far the writer’s take a character, they never develop. Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, no matter how far the characters get, they return to the same place after 22 minutes. It doesn’t matter how far from themselves they go, the family is always reunited in the end. The family is always celebrated as the essential point of union and community—at least until the next episode when a character goes and does something stupid again. It doesn’t matter what Homer does, he is always welcomed back by his family, always forgiven. This has gone on for 18 years with Homer never actually progressing. This is where things go from being subversive to tired conservatism. Where once we laughed at Homer because he was such an idiot, now many are laughing with him, accepting his stupidity, perhaps justifying their own idiocy now. Similarly with Mo, he has gone from the cliché of the ugly American (“get your ass back to Eurasia”) to a loveable nihilistic racist who rants are just accepted.

This is a town with no backbone, a community that is constantly manipulated by church, state and business and does little to combat it. In the end, they always return home to their salvation: Television.

The Simpsons seems to suggest that change isn’t possible, that there is no hope for serious personal or social change or improvement (even in the episode that celebrates gay marriage, Patty comes out of the closet but isn’t permitted to marry. Her wife to be turns out to be a guy. Is that comedy or chicken shit conversatism?). That, in itself, is a rather myopic conservative attitude.

In a sense, The Simpsons reveals the failure of the “left”. While they’ve pinpointed everything wrong with the “right”, they’ve done very little to provide constructive alternatives. For proof we need not just look to the Americans, just take a gander at Canadian politics. Critics love to parody Harper’s ineptitude and his stilted mannerisms, but hey, the guy won. Which is more than we can say for the robotic Layton who could say nothing more than “there is a third option” or the corrupt and feckless Liberals.

Don’t get me wrong. I still watch the Simpsons and have gone to see the movie (which follows the same ol’ pattern). It affords me a nice chance to laugh at the ugly man inside me.

(Originally appeared in The Ottawa Xpress, July 2007)

For a guy with anxiety disorders and A.D.D., I’m continually amaze myself that I actually achieve anything. Anyhow, for those who care and for those who don’t, here’s a bit of news about what I’m working on over the next year or so (I also need to list this for myself so I can keep a grasp on things).

Looking for A Place to Happen: On the Road with Canadian Animators (Sept 2008, John Libbey Publishing)
In early 2007, I traveled across Canada interviewing independent Canadian animators. This book won’t quite be your average history, it’s more in the vein of a gonzo/beat thing filled with impressionist stuff about the animators, country, industry, me, taxi drivers and hotel rooms.

Animators Unearthed (Continuum Publishing, 2009)

Sort of a sequel to Unsung Heroes of Animation (2005), Animators Unearthed will profile 20 independent animators including: Joanna Quinn, Rosto A.D., Suzie Templeton, Bob Sabiston, Chel White, Jib Jab, PES, Pat Smith, Bill Plympton, John Canemaker, Koji Yamamura, Joanna Priestly, Theodore Ushev, Michaela Pavlatova, Aaron Augenblick, Skip Battaglia, Run Wrake, Eun-Ha Paek.

Drivin’ (Bunkhouse Press, 2008)
Narratives about cars and the people inside them.

The Ballad of a Thin Man (possibly with AWN/Course Publishing, 2008) 

Inspired by experiences with Ryan Larkin and my biological father (both of whom I met the same week of June 2000), this book will delve into themes of certainty, responsibility and identity. Guest appearances by Gospels of Thomas, Philip, Bob Dylan and more.

Contemporary Japanese Animation (working title) (John Libbey Publishing, 2010) 

Likely to be in the gonzo vein of Looking for a Place to Happen, this book will delve into the pretty strange world of Japanese animation. Don’t be looking for Anime though. This is strictly about the indie animators like Yamamura, Furukawa, Yoji Kuri etc..

Beyond that you can sometimes see my writings in The Ottawa Citizen and, as I mentioned already, there will be The Lit Pimp beginning in November 2007 in The Ottawa Xpress.

You’d think I’d be making enough money from all this to quit the OIAF. Ha ha ha.
ha

Starting on November 1st, I’ll be starting a new column called The Lit Pimp. No, it’s not very original, but a Pimp is a whore too. The new column will appear in the weekly Ottawa Xpress newspaper. The column, as you might guess, will deal with books.

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, I will still say that ‘when I was a kid’ we did things differently. Sure, I collected hockey cards and Star Wars action figures, but not to store them behind some glass cases or keep them in their boxes. They were used and abused. Hockey cards existed to be played and traded. Star Wars figures allowed us to imagine re-enact movie scenes or create our own storylines with Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Most importantly, these toys were important social and communal tools. This was how I made friends.

What little remains of my hockey stash is torn, bent, damaged and re-configured. The Star Wars toys are long gone. I didn’t earn a dime from them. They’re value to me was not material, but communal and emotional. These were items of a moment in a life. That’s it and yet that’s all.

Today’s kids, for the most part, aren’t that different. My kid’s toys are thrown, tossed, dented and damaged. Give a kid a toy and they’ll play it till it’s busted. Unfortunately, kids can’t always get a hold of the toys because mom and dad have locked them up in glass cases inside their original containers. Our house is no different. My wife has vintage unused Pee Wee Herman figures behind glass doors well out of reach of our boys. Another friend of mine has a house filled with an assortment of figures, dolls, movie figures. My kids love the place. It’s like a toy shop. Well, okay, more like toy museum. Cause, sadly, kids can’t play with the toys. Instead, they sit quietly on shelves, untouched my human hands.

My most recent experience with collector types came as my eldest and I were heading into a local big chain toy store. I was all set to buy him this Star Wars vehicle. As we entered the store, I see a guy in his early 30s leaving with a cart piled about 6-7ft high with boxes containing this very Star Wars toy. We carry onto the Star Wars section but sure enough this fugger had bought up the remaining stock.. The guy will probably turn a profit by reselling them to collectors. All the while, these cheap plastic things will remain untouched by a human hand. Most kids won’t even get a chance to play with this stuff unless mom or dad fork up big bucks on Ebay.

Now, when I say that these hoarders and collectors are sick, I’m not blowing hot air. Collecting is a sign of obsessive-compulsive behaviour, depression, anxiety, or plain ol’ greed. Some folks, like the Toy Store twerp, are just collecting for the cash. Others do it for sentimental reasons. All of us keep a few mementos from our past. Perhaps the item takes the person back to a happier, simpler time – usually in their childhood. I still have my beloved Loblaws NHL sticker album from 1974. I keep it because I loved this book as a kid plus I love reading about all those old players and teams. But, really, at the end of the day, the book isn’t worth squat. It’s just a quaint item I keep handy when I feel sorry for myself. And, as corny as it sounds, my mental images are much stronger than any material keepsake. I don’t need the book to remember.

These connections are also superficial. Most of us like to recreate our past, make it rosier than perhaps it was. If I’m truthful with myself, for example, I can admit that in fact the time when I had my Loblaws NHL sticker book was a miserable time in my life. So, collecting can be away to paint over a past, to reimagine it as a rosier time than it was.

Most of us laugh at ‘pack rats’ and hoarders, but if we sit back a distance and think about it for a minute, it’s really not all that funny. It can be a symptom of a sick or unhappy person; someone who has shut themselves away from social contact. It’s simplistic perhaps to say that “you can’t take it with you,” but there’s also no greater truth.

As for my son and I, we just went home and ripped open Mom’s Pee Wee Herman figures and spent the afternoon playing with them.

1. Alexander Petrov

After the Cow it was all downhill to kitschland.

2. The Brothers Quay

-sure, Street of Crocs was nice, but then they fell in love with themselves and believed what everyone was saying about them.

3. Jan Svankmajer

-irrelevant since the fall of Communism

4. Tex Avery

-look I love some of his work as much as the next guy, but half of Avery’s work is just regurgitating what he did before.

5. Faith Hubley

-All the mystical shit. Yuck.

6. Norman McLaren

-yes. in the context of the being a civil servant, what he did was remarkable. but you try watching that stuff again (except the jazz films. they’re cool) without laughing like two persian girls on a booze bender.
7. Barry Purves

–all technique, no life

8. Priit Parn

-been playing the same fiddle for too long now.

9. Yuri Norstein

there’s no excuse for taking 20 years to work on a fucking film. Get it on with it you precious wank. Has a smelly beard too.
10. Raoul Servais

-He’s Belgian. that’s reason enough.

http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/0912-or-20-questions-with-chris-robinson.html