Animating Love and Courtship

Cartoon-blogging, essay 4 of 21 blog entries on
250 great animated short films

The Little Soldier (1947), directed by Paul Grimault.

This is the fourth of 21 essays inspired by a list of 250 great animated short films, composed in August 2012 by Scott Bussey, Jorge Didaco, Waldemar Hepstein, Bill Kamberger, Robert Reynolds, Sulo Vatanen, and Lee Price, with additional assistance from participants on the IMDb Classic Film message board.

“They’re kissing again.  Do we have to read the kissing parts?”

The grandson in The Princess Bride (1987)

Yes, we have to read the kissing parts.

I unashamedly love the idea of love.  When watching movies, I want my love stories to end in either of two ways:  1)  with a kiss or...  2)  with both lovers dead or tragically separated.  For me, Shakespeare got it right with his comedies—ending in wedding scenes—and with the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.  Those are the models for me.

Courtship is a slightly different matter.  Courtship is the mechanics while love is the magic.  With courtship, you get the comedy of mix-ups, bad timing, and awkwardness, as well as moments of unexpected grace.  Romantic comedies find laughs in courtship along the route to love.  Did I mention that I like romantic comedies?  Yeah, I’m confessing that I’m a guy who likes chick flicks.

Courtship is a fairly easy subject for animated short films.  Explorations of love are a little tougher.  Nevertheless, our panel of seven animation enthusiasts uncovered a nice assortment of animated short films that handle romance with a sensitivity that you’ll find in few feature films.  As just one example, the portrait of a marriage that runs through the background of Frédéric Back’s wonderful short film Crac (1981) swiftly captures a lifetime’s worth of love and loss—and it’s not even the primary subject of the film!  (Note:  The real subject is a chair.)

For the three films that I’m highlighting, two take the Shakespearean comedy approach (ending in bliss) and the third travels the Romeo and Juliet route.  I can guarantee this:  They are all extremely romantic.

The Tender Game (1958):  Three years after John and Faith (Elliott) Hubley married, they jointly made The Tender Game, one of the sweetest celebrations of courtship ever filmed.  Initially trained at Disney, John Hubley was one of a small group of animators who revolutionized American animation through his spare and stylized animation style at UPA, a new animation studio, in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  His distinctive stamp was on the early Mr. Magoo shorts, Gerald McBoing-Boing, and Rooty Toot Toot.  But he lost his job at the studio in 1952, blacklisted when he refused to name names at the McCarthy hearings. 

John and Faith teamed up personally and professionally in 1955, eventually collaborating on 22 independently-produced films (and four children).  The Tender Game was their fourth film.  In it, they reduce character to the movement of a few lines and squiggles.  But simple shapes have rarely been so eloquent—these artful lovers flirt with wit and passion.  Accompanied by the Oscar Peterson Trio, singer Ella Fitzgerald establishes a wistful mood in the opening minutes before the two characters meet and fall for each other, drawing the viewer into a courtship brimming with joy.

Support the artists and the art of the animated short film! The Tender Game is available for purchase on Art and Jazz in Animation.

The Little Soldier / Le petit soldat (1947):  Hans Christian Andersen’s story of “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” has been animated many times but never as romantically as in this French version.  Director Paul Grimault and his screenwriter Jacques Prévert made several changes to the original Andersen tale.  The soldier becomes an acrobat, the ballerina becomes a proactive and resourceful heroine, and a frozen-river climax is borrowed from the old D.W. Griffith silent classic Way Down East.  In the background, Grimault and Prévert place a somber French landscape in ruins, bombed out and desolate.  But the biggest change of all is that love triumphs in the final fade-out.

I’m fascinated by the participation of the great Jacques Prévert in this production.  Prévert was both a popular poet and screenwriter.  Before and during World War II, he served as the main screenwriter for Marcel Carné, a leading figure in the French film industry.  They made nine movies together, including Children of Paradise (1945), a romantic masterpiece set in the 19th century theater scene of Paris.  With The Little Soldier, Prévert found a welcome new collaborator in animator Paul Grimault.  Although The Little Soldier has no dialogue, the charm and compassion of the adaptation are hallmarks of Prévert’s work.  Prévert and Grimault continued to work together until Prévert’s death in 1977.  When Grimault attended the premiere of their last collaboration, The King and the Mockingbird, in 1980, he reserved an empty seat next to him in remembrance of Prévert. 

Voices of a Distant Star / Hoshi no koe (2003):  Voices of a Distant Star is an anime with giant robots, aliens, and spectacular explosions.  But these typical anime elements are secondary to the real event which is a love story that will tear your heart out.  I don’t cry that easily, but Voices of a Distant Star devastates me.

This short anime is the virtuoso work of a single person—director Makoto Shinkai.  I love the way he meets all genre expectations while keeping them entirely subordinate to the emotional powerhouse love story.  His central theme of communication over interstellar distance reminds me of Ray Bradbury at his most insightful and poignant.

I’ve watched Voices of a Distant Star three times now and it’s become stronger and more emotionally affecting with each viewing.  In this way, it reminds me of one of my favorite books, The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg.  I loved The Polar Express from the first time I read it and so decided to share it as a read-aloud with my children every Christmas Eve.  But after the first couple of times, I could no longer get through it without choking up at the end.  Well…  that’s the way I think it’s going to be with Voices of a Distant Star.  I’m not sure how many more times I’ll be able to get through it.

Link to English dub of Voices of a Distant Star on veoh.

Support the artists and the art of the animated short film! Voices of a Distant Star is available for purchase at Amazon and other dealers.

Here’s a list of some other films from our list that touch upon themes of love and courtship.  Not all are romantic—some cast a jaundiced eye on the dating scene—but all repay close attention.

Who Killed Cock Robin? (David Hand, USA, 1935) 

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (Chuck Jones, USA, 1965)

My Green Crocodile / Moy zelenyy krokodil (Vadim Kurchevskiy, USSR, 1966) 

Café Bar (Alison De Vere, UK, 1974) 

Boy and Girl / Malchik i devochka (Rozaliya Zelma, USSR, 1978) 

Poor Lisa / Bednaya Liza (Ideya Garanina, USSR, 1978) 

Crac (Frédéric Back, Canada, 1981) 

George and Rosemary (David Fine & Alison Snowden, Canada, 1987) 

Knick Knack (John Lasseter, USA, 1989) 

Achilles (Barry Purves, UK, 1995) 

A Summer Night Rendez-vous / Au premier dimanche d’août (Florence Miailhe, France, 2002) 

Destino (Dominique Monfery, France/USA, 2003) 

The Danish Poet (Torill Kove, Norway/Canada, 2006) 

My Love / Moya lyubov (Aleksandr Petrov, Russia, 2006) 

Invention of Love (Andrey Shushkov, Russia, 2010) 

The Silence Beneath the Bark / Le silence sous l'écorce (Joanna Lurie, France, 2010)

© 2012 Lee Price

Animating Time and Memory

Cartoon-blogging, essay 3 of 21 blog entries on
250 great animated short films

Glassy Ocean (1998), directed by Shigeru Tamura.

This is the third of 21 essays inspired by a list of 250 great animated short films, composed in August 2012 by Scott Bussey, Jorge Didaco, Waldemar Hepstein, Bill Kamberger, Robert Reynolds, Sulo Vatanen, and Lee Price, with additional assistance from participants on the IMDb Classic Film message board.

The House of Small Cubes, Rowing Across the Atlantic, and Glassy Ocean:  For exploring the subject of time and memory, I’ve chosen to highlight these three films not only because they’re favorites of mine but also because each of them creatively plays with a common metaphor—time as water.

Time is a stream, a river, it flows into a larger ocean that is vast beyond our comprehension.  Time slips like water through our fingers;  you can’t hold on to it.  It’s such an accessible image that the metaphor has become a cliché, yet gifted animators keep finding new and inspired variations to play on the theme.  Memory is like a deep sea diving descent into the depths.  Decades of marriage are like a marathon rowboat crossing of an ocean.  If time in motion is like flowing water, would frozen time appear like… glass?

Taking a count of the animated short films on our list that touch on themes of time and memory, I’m struck by the respectable percentage of our 250 shorts that wrestle with this subject.  Maybe it’s because most memories are of short duration—quick yet freighted with meaning like a good animated short.  We retrieve memories, even treasure them, only to see them slip away as we return to the real world and time implacably carries us forward.

The subject of time and memory is inevitably tinged with loss.

The House of Small Cubes / La Maison en Petits Cubes / Tsumiki no ie (2008):  The opening setup might fool you into thinking this is a film about global warming.  The seas are rising.  An old man has added story upon story to his house, endeavoring to keep his living space above the rising waters.  When the water laps across his floor, he climbs to the roof to build his next room.  The result is that he lives in a tower, with only one small room peeking out above sea level.

It’s only when he dons scuba gear and descends to the rooms below that we realize this concept is an audacious metaphor for time.  As he descends from room to room, he recalls his past.  The images are haunting.

Vividly imagined by director Kunio Katô, The House of Small Cubes is an exquisitely-pitched masterpiece on memory and loss.  As we glimpse images of the old man’s wife and family in earlier and happier days, an overwhelming sense of loneliness pervades the film.  The final clink is sublime.

Support the artists and the art of the animated short film! The House of Small Cubes is available for purchase on Piecesof Love, Volume 1.

Rowing Across the Atlantic / La Traversée de l’Atlantique à la rame (1978):  Like The House of Small Cubes , Jean François Laguionie’s Rowing Across the Atlantic examines a married couple over time.  However very unlike Kunio Katô’s short, the portrait in Rowing Across the Atlantic is cynical and bleak.  Being a hopeless sentimentalist, I'm naturally more fond of The House of Small Cubes than Rowing Across the Atlantic.  Nevertheless, I have to admit to being awed by the audacious metaphor of marriage as a marathon voyage in a small boat across a seemingly endless sea.  The ocean currents are our metaphor for time.

The beginning is rather sweet (weddings tend to be and I assume we’re supposed to interpret the public launching of the rowboat as a metaphor for the wedding ceremony) but any hope of a happy-ever-after tale is crushed in a singularly grotesque scene of black comedy featuring—of all things—the Titanic.  Where The House of Small Cubes remembers small domestic moments of bliss, Rowing Across the Atlantic highlights the pettiness and selfishness of the boat’s two occupants.  I love the way the couple spends most of their time with their backs to each other, no longer speaking.  Time drifts them forward as their lives go nowhere.

Glassy Ocean / Kujira no Chouyaku (1998):  While The House of Small Cubes and Rowing Across the Atlantic depict their characters moving through time in a relatively conventional way, Glassy Ocean takes the water metaphor in an entirely different direction.  After a brief conventional prologue, it shifts into an extended exploration of our world reimagined as a surreal landscape where time moves at a glacial pace.  In this alternative time frame, the surface of the ocean is rendered glassy-solid enough to sustain the weight of a mysterious people who catch flying fish that appear suspended in air and build fires on the waves.  The images of a whale breaching the water in deep slow motion constitute one of the most magical sequences in modern film.

There’s not much of a plot—just the suggestion that life is filled with beauties and complexities that we fail to appreciate in our rushed lives.  An artist wants to capture the image of the breaching whale suspended in air above the glassy ocean.  He sets his easel up beneath the whale, seizing the opportunity to make art out of the moment.  In bringing this concept to life, director Shigeru Tamura is such an artist himself.  Primarily known in Japan for his children’s books, Tamura occasionally ventures into animation, exploring other strange worlds in the short Ursa Minor Blue (1993) and the anime series A Piece of Phantasmagoria (1995).  His vision is extraordinary.

Support the artists and the art of the animated short film! Glassy Ocean is available for purchase as a Region 2 DVD.

Here’s a list of some other films from our list that touch upon themes of time and memory.  It’s an unusually challenging, and often poignant, selection of shorts.

Frank Film (Caroline & Frank Mouris, USA, 1973) 

The Street (Caroline Leaf, Canada, 1976) 

Tale of Tales / Skazka skazok (Yuriy Norshteyn, USSR, 1979) 

Milk of Amnesia (Jeffrey Noyes Scher, USA, 1992) 

Repete (Michaela Pavlátová, Czech Republic, 1995)

Father and Daughter (Michael Dudok de Wit, UK/Belgium/Netherlands, 2000) 

Black Soul / Âme noire (Martine Chartrand, Canada, 2001) 

Voices of a Distant Star / Hoshi no koe (Makoto Shinkai, Japan, 2003) 

The Dream of an Old Oak / Quercus (Vuk Jevremovic, Germany, 2004) 

Ryan (Chris Landreth, Canada, 2004)

The Legend of Shangri-La (Chen Ming, China, 2006) 

My Love / Moya lyubov (Aleksandr Petrov, Russia, 2006)

Printed Rainbow (Gitanjali Rao, India, 2006) 

Orgesticulanismus (Mathieu Labaye, Belgium, 2008) 

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (William Joyce & Brandon Oldenburg, USA, 2011)

© 2012 Lee Price

Animating Our Place in the Universe

Cartoon-blogging, essay 2 of 21 blog entries on
250 great animated short films

The Bead Game (1977), directed by Ishu Patel.

This is the second of 21 essays based on a list of 250 great animated short films, composed in August 2012 by Scott Bussey, Jorge Didaco, Waldemar Hepstein, Bill Kamberger, Robert Reynolds, Sulo Vatanen, and Lee Price, with additional assistance from participants on the IMDb Classic Film message board.

Restrictions can trigger creativity.  Naturally, the biggest restriction on an animated short film is length.  By definition, an animated short film has to be short.

When you only have ten minutes to make your case, it has to be daunting to tackle major philosophical questions like…

          What is man’s place in the universe?

          Is there a larger meaning to our lives?

          Why must there be suffering in the world?

These are the themes loved by ambitious mavericks like Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Carl Dreyer, and Terrence Malick—directors who slowly and gracefully unfold their ruminations on the screen.  They are artists.  They can’t be rushed.  Two hours is often too short for them.

Duck Amuck (1953), directed by
Chuck Jones.

Directors of animated short films don’t have that luxury.  Chuck Jones has seven minutes to put Daffy Duck through existential hell in Duck Amuck and the rush is on from the first shot.  Thirty gags later, the short is over, the audience is exhausted from laughter, and—as a side bonus—some pretty interesting philosophical thoughts have been broached. 

Working at their peaks, Jones and numerous others of his peers have fearlessly tackled the tough questions in short bursts of dizzying animated genius.  It turns out you can say quite a bit in seven minutes.

Powers of Ten (1968):  Two animated short films were released in 1968 that challenged viewers to consider their relationship to both the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of an atom’s nucleus.  These are big concepts—but one’s that lend themselves surprisingly well to a purely visual presentation.  Created independently of each other, Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames and Cosmic Zoom by Eva Szasz consider infinity from a very human perspective.

Both Powers of Ten and Cosmic Zoom were inspired by “Cosmic View,” a 1957 illustrated essay by Kees Boeke, a Dutch educator.  Many years later, NASA returned for their take on Boeke’s essay with the IMAX film Cosmic Voyage (1996) and even more recently there was a 2012 iOS app remake of Powers of Ten called Cosmic Eye.  Only Powers of Ten made our list but all are impressive achievements (and readily accessible on YouTube).

A formidable husband-and-wife partnership, Charles and Bernice Alexandra “Ray” Eames are probably better known for their innovative modern architecture and furniture than their films, but it was in their nature to explore any creative format that presented itself.  The concept of Boeke’s essay must have appealed to their sense of design, with its streamlined visual approach to a vast subject.  The Eames completed their first version of Powers of Ten in 1968 and then returned to update it in 1977 (the version now in general release).  Two decades later, its importance in film history was acknowledged with its selection to the National Film Registry in 1998.

Support the artists and the art of the animated short film! Powers of Ten is available for purchase on The Films of Charles and Ray Eames, Volume1: Powers of Ten.

Jumping (1984):  Like Powers of Ten, Tezuka Osamu’s Jumping starts small then steadily expands the frame.  But Jumping’s attitude is very different from the scientific stance of Powers of Ten.  Osamu’s vision is edgy and ironic, sharp-edged with dark humor.  Instead of a graceful trip outward to the edges of the universe, Tezuka bounces his film merrily into hell.

Support the artists and the art of the animated short film! Jumping is available for purchase on The Astonishing Work of Tezuka Osamu.

The Bead Game (1977):  An astonishing visual delight from opening to close, Ishu Patel’s The Bead Game (1977) finds beauty in unusually harsh material.  Swiftly tracing the evolution of life on earth, the film’s subject could be pared down to Alfred Lord Tennyson’s description of “Nature, red in tooth and claw.”  Life in The Bead Game is a constant stream of devouring, climaxing with escalating human violence and the development of atomic weapons.  But the visual and aural tone of the film belies the seeming pessimism of the subject matter.  The animation grants us the ability to perceive beauty and patterns everywhere.  The final effect is strikingly ambivalent—perhaps it’s meant as a God’s eye view of a world deemed good, even while being undeniably red in tooth and claw.  With its remarkable closing shot, The Bead Game certainly suggests that a formal beauty underlies all.

Support the artists and the art of the animated short film! The Bead Game is available for purchase through the National Film Board of Canada.

From our list of 250 great animated short films, here’s a selection of some other films that boldly tackle philosophy’s most daunting questions.  It’s a formidable selection, filled with movies designed to provoke thoughtful meditation.

Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones, USA, 1953) 

Butterfly / Babochka (Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, USSR, 1972) 

The Sand Castle / Le château de sable (Co Hoedeman, Canada, 1977) 

The Circle / O kyklos (Iordanis Ananiadis, Greece, 1981) 

Crac (Frédéric Back, Canada, 1981) 

Paradise (Ishu Patel, Canada, 1985) 

The Man Who Planted Trees / L’homme qui plantait des arbres (Frédéric Back, Canada, 1987) 

Feelings of Mountains and Waters / Shan shui qing (Wei Te, China, 1988) 

Balance (Christoph Lauenstein & Wolfgang Lauenstein, West Germany, 1989) 

Grasshoppers / Cavallette (Bruno Bozzetto, Italy, 1990) 

Manipulation (Daniel Greaves, UK, 1991) 

The Monk and the Fish / Le moine et le poisson (Michael Dudok de Wit, France, 1994) 

Quest (Tyron Montgomery, Germany, 1996) 

Glassy Ocean / Kujira no Chouyaku (Shigeru Tamura, Japan, 1998) 

Adagio / Adazhio (Garry Bardin, Russia, 2000) 

Black Soul / Âme noire (Martine Chartrand, Canada, 2001) 

Rocks / Das Rad (Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel & Heidi Wittlinger, Germany, 2003) 

The Dream of an Old Oak / Quercus (Vuk Jevremovic, Germany, 2004) 

The Man With No Shadow / L’Homme sans ombre (Georges Schwizgebel, Canada/Switzerland, 2004) 

Restart (Miao Xiaochun, China, 2010) 

© 2012 Lee Price

250 Great Animated Short Films

Cartoon-blogging, essay 1 of 21 blog entries on
250 great animated short films

Brothers Bearhearts (2005), directed by Riho Unt.

Over the next two months, I propose to celebrate one of the great art forms to emerge during the past century:  the animated short film.

Working with a panel of seven self-confessed admirers of animated shorts (and assisted by other regulars at the IMDb Classic Film message board), I recently led the development of a list of 250 great animated shorts.

We’re not claiming these 250 films are necessarily the “best” and we made no attempt at ranking them.  Our goal was simply to select some of the greatest for celebration.  As a guide for making our selections, I asked my fellow panelists to make an effort to keep the list chronologically balanced (with a representative sampling of shorts from each decade), geographically diverse, and with a reasonable proportion of female to male directors.  Our definition of a short film was 40 minutes or less, and we worked without a set definition of what constitutes an animated film.

My sincere thanks to the six panelists who joined with me to create the list:  Scott Bussey, Jorge Didaco (jdidaco), Waldemar Hepstein (Rollo Treadway), Bill Kamberger (bkamberger), Robert Reynolds (Iltdesq), and Sulo Vatanen (sulinjal).  The names in parentheses are our IMDb monikers (mine is lee-109).

So here’s the list.  See what you think!  And then stick around for the next 20 essays as 21 Essays celebrates the art of the animated short film.

250 GREAT ANIMATED SHORT FILMS

The Early Years (1895-1919)

Little Nemo (1911), directed by Winsor McCay.

Around a Bathing Hut / Autour d’une cabine (Émile Reynaud, France, 1895) 

The Electric Hotel / El hotel eléctrico (Segundo de Chomón, Spain, 1908) 

Fantasmagorie (Émile Cohl, France, 1908) 

Little Nemo / Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics (Winsor McCay, USA, 1911) 

The Cameraman’s Revenge / Mest kinematograficheskogo operatora (Wladyslaw Starewicz, Russia, 1912) 

How a Mosquito Operates (Winsor McCay, USA, 1912) 

Gertie the Dinosaur (Winsor McCay, USA, 1914) 

Captain Grogg’s Wonderful Journey / Kapten Groggs underbara resa (Victor Bergdahl, Sweden, 1916) 

The 1920s

Felix in Hollywood (1923), directed by Otto Messmer.

The Frogs Who Wanted a King / Les grenouilles qui demandent un roi (Wladyslaw Starewicz, France, 1922)

Felix In Hollywood (Otto Messmer, USA, 1923) 

Opus III (Walter Ruttmann, Germany, 1924) 

Symphonie diagonale (Viking Eggeling, Germany, 1924) 

Now You Tell One (Charley Bowers, USA, 1926) 

Spiritual Constructions / Seelische Konstruktionen (Oskar Fischinger, Germany, 1927)

Steamboat Willie (Walt Disney, USA, 1928) 

Ghosts Before Breakfast / Vormittagsspuk (Hans Richter, 1928) 

Hell’s Bells (Ub Iwerks, US, 1929) 

The Skeleton Dance (Walt Disney, USA, 1929) 

The Stolen Lump / Kobu-Tori (Chuzo Aoji and Yasuji Murata, Japan, 1929) 

The 1930s

A Dream Walking (1934), directed by Dave Fleischer.

The Idea / L’idée (Berthold Bartosch, 1932) 

Night on Bald Mountain / Une nuit sur le mont chauve (Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker, France, 1933) 

Snow-White (Dave Fleischer, USA, 1933) 

Three Little Pigs (Burt Gillett, USA, 1933) 

A Dream Walking (Dave Fleischer, USA, 1934) 

The Mascot / Fétiche (Wladyslaw Starewicz, 1934) 

The Joy of Living / La joie de vivre (Anthony Gross & Hector Hoppin, France, 1934) 

The Band Concert (Wilfred Jackson, USA, 1935) 

Papageno (Lotte Reiniger, Germany, 1935) 

Who Killed Cock Robin? (David Hand, USA, 1935) 

Rainbow Dance (Len Lye, UK, 1936) 

Escape (Mary Ellen Bute, USA, 1937) 

The Little Match Girl (Arthur Davis, USA, 1937) 

The Old Mill (Wilfred Jackson, USA, 1937) 

Clock Cleaners (Ben Sharpsteen, USA, 1938) 

Ferdinand the Bull (Dick Rickard, USA, 1938) 

Porky in Wackyland (Bob Clampett, USA, 1938) 

Peace on Earth (Hugh Harman, USA, 1939) 

The 1940s

High Diving Hare (1949), directed by Friz Freleng.

Mr. Duck Steps Out (Jack King, USA, 1940) 

The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company “B” (Walter Lantz, USA, 1941) 

The Night Before Christmas (Joseph Barbera & William Hanna, USA, 1941) 

Rhapsody In Rivets (Friz Freleng, USA, 1941) 

Blitz Wolf (Tex Avery, USA, 1942)

Der Fuehrer’s Face (Jack Kinney, USA, 1942) 

Tulips Shall Grow (George Pal, USA, 1942) 

Donald’s Tire Trouble (Dick Lundy, USA, 1943) 

Education For Death (Clyde Geronimi, USA, 1943) 

Porky Pig’s Feat (Frank Tashlin, USA, 1943) 

Red Hot Riding Hood (Tex Avery, USA, 1943) 

Weatherbeaten Melody / Scherzo - Verwitterte Melodie (Hans Fischerkoesen, Germany, 1943) 

The Adventures of Baron Münchhausen / Abenteuer des Freiherrn. von Münchhausen: Eine Winterreise (Hans Held, Germany, 1944) 

The Chimney Thief / Le voleur de paratonnerres (Paul Grimault, France, 1944) 

Daffy Doodles (Robert McKimson, USA, 1946) 

Kitty Kornered (Robert Clampett, USA, 1946) 

The Cat Concerto (Joseph Barbera & William Hanna, USA, 1947) 

King-Size Canary (Tex Avery, USA, 1947) 

The Little Soldier / Le petit soldat (Paul Grimault, France, 1947) 

Motion Painting No. 1 (Oskar Fischinger, USA, 1947) 

Bad Luck Blackie (Tex Avery, USA, 1949) 

Begone Dull Care (Norman McLaren, Canada, 1949) 

High Diving Hare (Friz Freleng, USA, 1949) 

Inspiration / Inspirace (Karel Zeman, Czechoslovakia, 1949) 

The 1950s

Gerald McBoing Boing (1951), directed by Robert Cannon.

Rabbit of Seville (Chuck Jones, USA, 1950) 

Gerald McBoing Boing (Robert Cannon, USA, 1951) 

Rooty Toot Toot (John Hubley, USA, 1951) 

Neighbours (Norman McLaren, Canada, 1952) 

Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones, USA, 1953) 

The Tell-Tale Heart (Ted Parmelee, USA, 1953) 

Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (Ward Kimball & Charles A. Nichols, USA, 1953) 

The Unicorn in the Garden (William T. Hurtz, USA, 1953) 

One Froggy Evening (Chuck Jones, USA, 1955) 

What’s Opera, Doc? (Chuck Jones, USA, 1957) 

Free Radicals (Len Lye, UK, 1958) 

House / Dom (Walerian Borowczyk & Jan Lenica, Poland, 1958) 

The Tender Game (John Hubley, USA, 1958) 

The Lion and the Song / Lev a písnicka (Bretislav Pojar, Czechoslovakia, 1959) 

The 1960s

Labirynt (1963), directed by Jan Lenica.

Little Tadpoles Search for Mama / Xiao ke dou zhao ma ma (Wei Te, China, 1960) 

The Ash-Lad and the Good Helpers / Askeladden og de gode hjelperne (Ivo Caprino, Norway, 1961) 

Surogat / Ersatz (Dusan Vukotic, Yugoslavia, 1961) 

Story of a Certain Street Corner / Aru machikado no monogatari (Eiichi Yamamoto & Yusaku Sakamoto, Japan, 1962) 

Labirynt (Jan Lenica, Poland, 1963) 

Le nez / The Nose (Alexander Alexeieff & Claire Parker, France, 1963)

The Hangman (Paul Julian & Les Goldman, USA, 1964) 

The Thieving Magpie / La gazza ladra (Emanuele Luzzati and Giulio Gianini, Italy, 1964) 

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (Chuck Jones, USA, 1965)

Gymnopédies (Larry Jordan, USA, 1965) 

The Hand / Ruka (Jirí Trnka, Czechoslovakia, 1966) 

My Green Crocodile / Moy zelenyy krokodil (Vadim Kurchevskiy, USSR, 1966) 

The Seventh Father in the House / Sjuende far i huset (Ivo Caprino, Norway, 1966) 

The Snowman / Snehulák (Hermína Týrlová, Czechoslovakia, 1966) 

Curiosity / Znatizelja (Borivoj Dovnikovic, Yugoslavia, 1967) 

Life in a Tin / Una vita in scatola (Bruno Bozzetto, Italy, 1967) 

The Mitten / Varezhka (Roman Kachanov, USSR, 1967) 

Ball of Yarn / Klubok (Nikolai Serebryakov, USSR, 1968) 

Pas de deux (Norman McLaren, Canada, 1968) 

Storytime (Terry Gilliam, UK, 1968) 

Ballerina on the Boat / Balerina na korable (Lev Atamanov, USSR, 1969) 

Walking / En marchant (Ryan Larkin, Canada, 1969) 

Schody (Stairs) (Stefan Schabenbeck, Poland, 1969) 

The 1970s

Crane Feathers (1977), directed by Ideya Garanina.

Film, Film, Film (Fyodor Khitruk, USSR, 1970) 

Is It Always Right To Be Right? (Lee Mishkin, USA, 1970) 

Pixillation (Lillian Schwartz, USA, 1970) 

The Roll-Call / Apel (Ryszard Czekala, Poland, 1971) 

The Battle of Kerzhenets / Secha pri Kerzhentse (Ivan Ivanov-Vano & Yuriy Norshteyn, 1971) 

A Christmas Carol (Richard Williams, USA, 1971) 

Evolution (Michael Mills, Canada, 1971) 

How a Sausage Dog Works / Jak dziala jamniczek (Julian Józef Antonisz, Poland, 1971) 

The Selfish Giant (Peter Sander, Canada, 1971) 

Butterfly / Babochka (Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, USSR, 1972) 

Tchou-Tchou (Co Hoedeman, Canada, 1972) 

Coeur de secours (Piotr Kamler, France, 1973) 

Frank Film (Caroline & Frank Mouris, USA, 1973) 

Heavy-Light (Adam Beckett, USA, 1973) 

Café Bar (Alison De Vere, UK, 1974) 

Closed Mondays (Will Vinton, USA, 1974) 

The Diary / Dnevnik (Nedeljko Dragic, Yugoslavia, 1974) 

Fuji (Robert Breer, USA, 1974) 

Great (Isambard Kingdom Brunel) (Bob Godfrey, UK, 1975) 

Hedgehog in the Fog / Yozhik v tumane (Yuriy Norshteyn, USSR, 1975) 

Dojoji Temple (Kihachiro Kawamoto, Japan, 1976) 

Mindscape / Le paysagiste (Jacques Drouin, Canada, 1976) 

The Street (Caroline Leaf, Canada, 1976) 

The Bead Game (Ishu Patel, Canada, 1977) 

Crane Feathers / Zhuravlinye per'ya (Ideya Garanina, USSR, 1977) 

David (Paul Driessen, Netherlands, 1977) 

The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa (Caroline Leaf, Canada, 1977) 

Powers of Ten (Charles & Ray Eames, USA, 1977) 

The Sand Castle / Le château de sable (Co Hoedeman, Canada, 1977) 

Boy and Girl / Malchik i devochka (Rozaliya Zelma, USSR, 1978) 

Poor Lisa / Bednaya Liza (Ideya Garanina, USSR, 1978) 

Rowing Across the Atlantic / La Traversée de l'Atlantique à la rame (Jean François Laguionie, France, 1978) 

Satiemania (Zdenko Gasparovic, Yugoslavia, 1978) 

Asparagus (Suzan Pitt, USA, 1979) 

Every Child (Eugene Fedorenko, Canada, 1979) 

Harpya (Raoul Servais, Belgium, 1979) 

House of Flame / Kataku (Kihachiro Kawamoto, Japan, 1979) 

Tale of Tales / Skazka skazok (Yuriy Norshteyn, USSR, 1979) 

The 1980s

Balance (1989), directed by Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein.

Fisheye / Riblje oko (Josko Marusic, Yugoslavia, 1980) 

The Three Inventors / Les 3 inventeurs (Michel Ocelot, France, 1980) 

Tyll the Giant / Suur Tõll (Rein Raamat, USSR, 1980) 

Who Will Comfort Toffle? / Vem skall trösta knyttet? (Johan Hagelbäck, Sweden, 1980) 

The Circle / O kyklos (Iordanis Ananiadis, Greece, 1981) 

The Fly / A Légy (Ferenc Rófusz, Hungary, 1981) 

The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Mark Hall, UK, 1981) 

Skyscraper / Neboder (Josko Marusic, Yugoslavia, 1981) 

Tango (Zbigniew Rybczynski, Poland, 1981) 

Crac (Frédéric Back, Canada, 1981) 

Block / Blok (Hieronim Neumann, Poland, 1982) 

Dimensions of Dialogue / Moznosti dialogu (Jan Svankmajer, Czechoslovakia, 1982) 

Ex Libris (Garik Seko, Czechoslovakia, 1982) 

The Snowman (Dianne Jackson, UK, 1982) 

There Once Was a Dog / Zhil-byl pyos (Eduard Nazarov, USSR, 1982) 

Three Monks / San ge heshang (Jingda Xu (A Da), China, 1982) 

The Vanished World of Gloves / Zaniklý svet rukavic (Jirí Barta, Czechoslovakia, 1982) 

Esperalia (Jerzy Kalina, Poland, 1983) 

Memories of War (Pierre Hébert, Canada, 1983) 

Anna & Bella (Børge Ring, Netherlands, 1984) 

The Dark Side of the Moon / Obratnaya storona luny (Aleksandr Tatarskiy, USSR, 1984) 

Film-Wipe-Film (Paul Glabicki, USA, 1984) 

Jumping (Osamu Tezuka, Japan, 1984) 

There Will Come Soft Rains / Budet laskovyy dozhd (Nozim To'laho'jayev, USSR, 1984) 

Paradise (Ishu Patel, Canada, 1985) 

The Big Snit (Richard Condie, Canada, 1986) 

Door / Dver (Nina Shorina, USSR, 1986) 

George and Rosemary (David Fine & Alison Snowden, Canada, 1987) 

How Wang-Fo Was Saved / Comment Wang-Fo fut sauvé (René Laloux, France, 1987) 

Lodgers of an Old House / Zhiltsy starogo doma (Alexei Karev, USSR, 1987) 

The Man Who Planted Trees / L’homme qui plantait des arbres (Frédéric Back, Canada, 1987) 

Street of Crocodiles (Stephen & Timothy Quay, UK, 1987) 

Your Face (Bill Plympton, USA, 1987) 

The Cat Came Back (Cordell Barker, Canada, 1988) 

Death and the Mother (Ruth Lingford, UK, 1988) 

Face Like a Frog (Sally Cruikshank, USA, 1988) 

Feelings of Mountains and Waters / Shan shui qing (Wei Te, China, 1988) 

Pas à deux (Monique Renault & Gerrit van Dijk, Netherlands, 1988) 

Prometheus’ Garden (Bruce Bickford, USA, 1988) 

The Public Voice / Den offentlige røst (Lejf Marcussen, Denmark, 1988) 

Walls / Sciany (Piotr Dumala, Poland, 1988) 

Balance (Christoph Lauenstein & Wolfgang Lauenstein, West Germany, 1989) 

The Cow / Korova (Aleksandr Petrov, USSR, 1989) 

Darkness/Light/Darkness / Tma/Svetlo/Tma (Jan Svankmajer, Czechoslovakia, 1989) 

The Hill Farm (Mark Baker, UK, 1989) 

Knick Knack (John Lasseter, USA, 1989) 

Mind the Steps! / Vigyázat, lépcsö! (István Orosz, Hungary, 1989) 

The 1990s

The Wrong Trousers (1993), directed by Nick Park.

Grasshoppers / Cavallette (Bruno Bozzetto, Italy, 1990) 

Manipulation (Daniel Greaves, UK, 1991) 

The Sandman (Paul Berry, UK, 1991) 

Strings (Wendy Tilby, Canada, 1991) 

When the Leaves Have Fallen Down from the Oak / Az opadá listí z dubu (Vlasta Pospísilová, Czechoslovakia, 1991) 

Franz Kafka (Piotr Dumala, Poland, 1992) 

Hotell E (Priit Pärn, Estonia, 1992) 

Milk of Amnesia (Jeffrey Noyes Scher, USA, 1992) 

Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase (Joan C. Gratz, USA, 1992) 

The Restaurant of Many Orders / Chumon no ooi ryori-ten (Tadanari Okamoto, Japan, 1993) 

The Wrong Trousers (Nick Park, UK, 1993) 

Carmen Trilogy (Carmen Torero, Carmen Habanera, Carmen Suite) (Aleksandra Korejwo, Poland, 1994 – 1996) 

Felix in Exile (William Kentridge, South Africa, 1994) 

The Monk and the Fish / Le moine et le poisson (Michael Dudok de Wit, France, 1994) 

Triangle (Erica Russell, UK, 1994) 

Achilles (Barry Purves, UK, 1995) 

Repete (Michaela Pavlátová, Czech Republic, 1995)

Famous Paintings / Beroemde schilderijen (Maarten Koopman, Netherlands, 1996) 

Genre (Don Hertzfeldt, USA, 1996) 

Quest (Tyron Montgomery, Germany, 1996) 

Christmas / Rozhdestvo (Mikhail Aldashin, Russia, 1997) 

Glassy Ocean / Kujira no Chouyaku (Shigeru Tamura, Japan, 1998) 

More (Mark Osborne, USA, 1998) 

The Old Lady and the Pigeons / La vieille dame et les pigeons (Sylvain Chomet, France, 1998) 

The Old Man and the Sea (Aleksandr Petrov, Russia, 1999) 

The 2000s

Black Soul (2000), directed by Martine Chartrand.

Adagio / Adazhio (Garry Bardin, Russia, 2000) 

At the Ends of the Earth / Au bout du Monde (Konstantin Bronzit, France, 2000) 

Le chapeau (Michèle Cournoyer, Canada, 2000) 

Father and Daughter (Michael Dudok de Wit, UK/Belgium/Netherlands, 2000) 

Tuning the Instruments / Strojenie instrumentów (Jerzy Kucia, Poland, 2000) 

Aria (Pjotr Sapegin, Canada/Norway, 2001) 

Black Soul / Âme noire (Martine Chartrand, Canada, 2001) 

Cat Soup / Nekojiru-so (Tatsuo Sato, Japan, 2001) 

Down to the Bone / Hasta los huesos (René Castillo, Mexico, 2002) 

Dream Work (Peter Tscherkassky, Austria, 2002) 

A Summer Night Rendez-vous / Au premier dimanche d’août (Florence Miailhe, France, 2002) 

Destino (Dominique Monfery, France/USA, 2003) 

Fast Film (Virgil Widrich, Austria/Germany/Luxembourg, 2003) 

Harvie Krumpet (Adam Elliot, Australia, 2003) 

Rocks / Das Rad (Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel & Heidi Wittlinger, Germany, 2003) 

Voices of a Distant Star / Hoshi no koe (Makoto Shinkai, Japan, 2003) 

The Dream of an Old Oak / Quercus (Vuk Jevremovic, Germany, 2004) 

The Man With No Shadow / L’Homme sans ombre (Georges Schwizgebel, Canada/Switzerland, 2004) 

Ryan (Chris Landreth, Canada, 2004)

Brothers Bearhearts / Vennad Karusüdamed (Riho Unt, Estonia, 2005) 

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (Anthony Lucas, Australia, 2005) 

The Danish Poet (Torill Kove, Norway/Canada, 2006) 

Dreams and Desires (Joanna Quinn, UK, 2006) 

The Legend of Shangri-La (Chen Ming, China, 2006) 

My Love / Moya lyubov (Aleksandr Petrov, Russia, 2006) 

Never Like the First Time! / Aldrig som första gången! (Jonas Odell, Sweden, 2006) 

Peter & the Wolf (Suzie Templeton, UK, 2006) 

Printed Rainbow (Gitanjali Rao, India, 2006) 

The Tale of How (The Blackheart Gang: Ree Treweek, Jannes Hendrikz & Markus Wormstorm, South Africa, 2006) 

Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor / Kafuka: Inaka isha (Koji Yamamura, Japan, 2007) 

False Aging (Lewis Klahr, USA, 2008) 

The House of Small Cubes / La Maison en Petits Cubes / Tsumiki no ie (Kunio Katô, Japan, 2008) 

My Childhood Mystery Tree (Natalia Mirzoyan, Russia, 2008) 

Orgesticulanismus (Mathieu Labaye, Belgium, 2008) 

Skhizein (Jérémy Clapin, France, 2008) 

This Way Up (Adam Foulkes & Alan Smith, UK, 2008) 

Quimby the Mouse (Chris Ware, USA, 2009) 

Invention of Love (Andrey Shushkov, Russia, 2010) 

Pandane to Tamago-hime (Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 2010) 

Restart (Miao Xiaochun, China, 2010) 

The Silence Beneath the Bark / Le silence sous l'écorce (Joanna Lurie, France, 2010)

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (William Joyce & Brandon Oldenburg, USA, 2011)

© 2012 Lee Price

The Upcoming Animation Celebration

Film, Film, Film (1970), a short animated film by Soviet director
Fyodor Khitruk, was chosen as one of our 250 great animated short films.

During the past two months, I’ve been working with some friends on the IMDb Classic Film message board to create a list of 250 great animated short films.  It’s our follow-up to our 2009 list of 100 Important Directors of Animated Short Films.  Two days ago, we completed our new list and announced it on IMDb.  Now I’m preparing to share and explore the list here over the course of 21 days, an essay per day.

Our 21 Essays celebration of great animated shorts begins September 10.  The first essay will provide the entire list and then subsequent entries will approach the list thematically.  Naturally, there’ll be plenty of links to the films for all to enjoy.

After that series, I’m anticipating that the months of October, November, and December will be relatively quiet on 21 Essays.  I’ll return to a relaxed schedule of randomly selecting years in search of quality essay series.  Then, for Christmastide (December 25 to January 5), I hope to run a 21 Essays series on a Christmas topic, much like last year’s exploration of Christina Rossetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

After that…  well, we’ll see.  There are lots of possibilities.

© 2012 Lee Price

1812 and the Fairmount Water Works

1811-1815 Blogging, Part 5 of 5
Fairmount Water Works

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I relax by considering possibilities for future series.  I spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  1811-1815. 

So here’s my fourth 1811-1815 series possibility:  21 essays on the Fairmount Water Works in Philadelphia.

The Fairmount Water Works in December 1984.
U.S. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Source:  Wikimedia Commons

Designed by Frederick Graff, the Fairmount Water Works was instantly acclaimed for both its state-of-the-art engineering and for its aesthetic beauty.  The engineering supplied clean water to the entire city through a giant new reservoir built on the top of Faire Mount, a hill directly behind the Water Works.  In order to create the inviting and attractive appearance of the Water Works, Graff proposed a Classical Revival exterior that created an oasis of Arcadian beauty amid the growing industrial city.  Tourists flocked to it.

Recently restored to feature an interpretive center and restaurant, the Fairmount Water Works are still a beautiful Philadelphia attraction… with one caveat.  Originally, the Water Works was designed to be the visual centerpiece of this section of the Schuylkill River.  However, with the construction of the enormous Philadelphia Museum of Art in the 1920s, the perfectly proportioned yet much smaller Fairmount Water Works was dwarfed.  To get the appropriate 19th century image, view the Water Works from across the Schuylkill River and mentally photoshop out the colossal museum towering above it.  If you squint just right, you’ll get a glimpse of Arcadia on the banks of the Schuylkill.

It would take a full 21 essays to begin to cover the science, architecture, and history of the Fairmount Water Works, one of Philadelphia’s most enduring institutions.  I’d even be following in the footsteps of Charles Dickens, who was mightily impressed by the Water Works during his 1842 visit to Philadelphia:  “The Water-Works, which are on a height near the city, are no less ornamental than useful, being tastefully laid out as a public garden, and kept in the best and neatest order.”

Fairmount Water Works, 1860-1910, from the Robert N. Dennis
Collection of Stereoscopic Views at the New York Public Library.
Source:  Wikimedia Commons

This is the last of my official 1811-1815 ideas (with no promises that I’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…).

Next year(s) up on the random year(s) generator:  1401-1425.  But you’ll need to be patient.  Our tour of the early 15th century must wait at least a month because I’m planning something special for 21 Essays in September.  More about that tomorrow…

© 2012 Lee Price