The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Project)

[swo17]

Norman McLaren - I need to do an immersive rewatch, but I'm sure to be voting for Begone Dull Care and Blinkity Blank.

What do you think about Pas de deux? Because IMDb classifies it as animation. Perhaps something about the way it was made borrows from animation techniques, but it isn't manifestly animation to my eyes. I do consider Neighbours to qualify though--I think I'd call it humanimation. Is that a word? Did I just invent a word?

[zedz]

Pas de deux is one of my favourite films, and will be figuring high in my 1960s list, but it's definitely not animation. (Don't trust IMDB!) It's clearly just live action played on an optical printer by a virtuoso.

Neighbours definitely is animation: single frame pixillation, but it just so happens that McLaren is using human beings rather than clay figures or paper cutouts.

[swo17]

White Calligraphy reminded me of another one: What about Sharits' Word Movie? (IMDb says yes!)

[zedz]

Same deal for me: the point of these films is that there is no deliberate continuity from image to image, which for me is the antithesis of animation. But I do acknowledge that there are a lot of films that play on the tension between signal (continuity) and noise (discontinuity), but without the intent of creating the illusion of continuity (which could be entirely abstract), I don't count it as animation. Mothlight might be a good test case: any continuity of image is purely arbitrary - though there's plenty there if you're looking for it. So if you consider that animation, all this other stuff is too.

I suspect that 'animation' is IMDB's default call for any film that incorporates drawn / painted / scratched imagery.

[swo17]

OK, one more question for tonight: What exactly is Schwechater? Rotoscope?

Speaking of which, I don't need to remind anyone that Waking Life is one of the most amazing things that's ever happened in the history of the world, do I? (Not to mention being significant in the history of animation, being the first digitally rotoscoped feature film.)

[knives]

Waking Life is totally on my preliminary list. I totally think rotoscope (and therefore the Kubelka) should count/

[Steven H]

some notes on films that will probably be in my top twenty:

Shijin no Shōgai aka A Poet's Life (Kihachiro Kawamoto, 1974). I find this short film deeply moving. I'm not a big fan of Kawamoto's stop-motion animation, but this Abe adaptation is something I think about very often. His animated The Trip will probably also make my list, though not near the top 20. Dailymotion (eng subs)

La Traversee de l'Atlantique a la rame aka Rowing Across the Atlantic (Jean-Francoise Laguionie, 1978). Beautiful, strange, and funny story about a couple taking a dangerous and surreal journey across an ocean on a rowboat. The animation in this short is both fluid and affectingly awkward, and there is very little dialogue. I may include more Laguionie, but I'm not sure yet. I will need to rewatch some and see some for the first time. Youtube (no subs). I think I'll make this my Spotlight since the other films I'm recommending highly here are probably much better known.

La Roman de Renard aka The Story of the Fox (Starewicz, 1939ish). Probably a contender for my number one slot. This is his most kinetic and cinematic film, and in addition to that great strength also builds a world inside the film like no other. While I love all of Starewicz's work, I usually think "well now I want to watch La Roman de Renard again" after seeing any of his films that aren't La Roman de Renard. It's on Youtube in multiple parts with English subtitles.

Da Nao Tian Gong aka The Monkey King aka Uproar In Heaven (Wan Laiming, 1964). The music alone should be enough to draw anyone into this fantastic animated film from 60s China. Once you start watching, it's hard to take your eyes off of this hypnotic and unique animated film where much of the movement seems to be inspired by equal parts Disney and shadow puppetry. Youtube (part 1 of 11) (Second Spotlight possibility? Are we allowed two?)

Hedghog in the Fog (Yuri Norstein, 1975). Hopefully this film needs no introduction here on the forum, but you never know. See this Russian animated short film. It's perfect. Youtube. Many of Norstein's other films will easily make my list as well.

Minnie the Moocher & Snow White (1923, 1933, Fleischer). I can't decide which Cab Calloway I like more, but both of these cartoons will be probably be featuring on my list and highly.

I think I'm generally going to stay away from experimental animation for this list. I'm going to meditate on how I feel about some Anime favorites (Ghiblis, Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Perfect Blue, Ghost in the Shell, some others) and decide if some childhood favorites like Alice in Wonderland and Watership Down have stood the test of time. Watership Down has likely survived the years and I'll probably pick up that German blu-ray of it. I have a lot of collections to watch through again for this project. Looney Tunes and Karol Zeman's works spring to mind.

[zedz]

OK, one more question for tonight: What exactly is Schwechater? Rotoscope?

Speaking of which, I don't need to remind anyone that Waking Life is one of the most amazing things that's ever happened in the history of the world, do I? (Not to mention being significant in the history of animation, being the first digitally rotoscoped feature film.)

The Kubelka looks to me like another case of live action footage being manipulated on an optical printer and / or through extreme processing. Again, it's not a case of turning still images into moving ones. Len Lye does this in Trade Tattoo (though he also incorporates animation techniques in that film, so it's fair game), Pat O'Neill does it all over the place.

I hadn't thought of Waking Life, but mainly because I don't like it much, content-wise, but it reminds me that I do need to include A Scanner Darkly, which I consider one of Linklater's best films.

[swo17]

OK, one more question for tonight: What exactly is Schwechater? Rotoscope?

The Kubelka looks to me like another case of live action footage being manipulated on an optical printer and / or through extreme processing. Again, it's not a case of turning still images into moving ones. Len Lye does this in Trade Tattoo (though he also incorporates animation techniques in that film, so it's fair game), Pat O'Neill does it all over the place.

Do you think it would qualify as animation under my more loose definition though? (I'm not trying to be difficult, I just legitimately don't know much about how this particular film was made.)

A few other borderline cases for which I'm curious what others think:

Oh! I Can't Stop!: You already commented on this, zedz, but I wasn't entirely clear how you were classifying it. Is the idea that it's creating the illusion of movement out of still photographs, and thus animating them?

Outer Space: This has frame manipulation along with some obvious animation over found footage, but does it have enough to qualify?

Plague Summer (on Kino's Avant-Garde 3 set): There is literally no movement here, but the entire film is drawn (intentionally crudely) and the film still tells a conventional story.

Rubber Johnny: A few minutes in, we are treated to the bizarre breakdance karate stylings of a terribly disfigured, wheelchair bound monstrosity. If you go frame by frame, you can (sometimes) tell that this effect is achieved through single frames of not disfigured people contorting their bodies in odd ways. In other words, the normal is animated into the abnormal.

Danse serpentine: Can tinting constitute animation? Here, it creates the illusion that the dancer's dress is constantly morphing color. Beautifully done (in the 19th Century!)

[Gregory]

Kubelka made Schwechater on a hand-cranked scientific camera, using layering and repetition of shots of various lengths in positive and negative. Discussions of creating illusions of motion seem to leave animation behind when there is no drawing, painting, stop-motion technique, etc. used, because (as I believe Kubelka recognized) cinema on the whole uses the mere illusion of movement.

[zedz]

That's well-put, Gregory.

Swo, I think the problem will be that when you start letting in things like Outer Space (did Tscherkassky really draw on individual frames from The Entity? Most of the graphic effects in that film look like processing / optical printing work to me) you're basically opening the floodgates of experimental film. How about A Movie?

Oh! I Can't Stop. . . is straightforward stop-motion animation. Usually it's a static camera taking a single frame, then whatever's in front of the camera moves slightly, creating the illusion of movement; here, the camera moves as well (same thing with Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies, come to think of it, though less outrageously).

There's a great Australian film from the 90s in which the camera eye progresses forward at a frantic clip, closing in on various photographs pinned to posts / walls / trees etc. When the photo fills the frame, the camera enters the world of that photo and seeks out the next one. It's a bit like Wavelength conceived as a multi-dimensional amusement park ride. (Actually, I seem to recall that the filmmakers did this trick twice, but can't recall the name of either film).

Tinting is clearly something else, or almost every silent film would qualify. The serpentine example is much more like a primitive special effect.

I don't remember Plague Summer, but I'm personally not counting tracking / panning / zooming over drawings / paintings as animation, hence my reluctant exclusion of A Walk through H, which would otherwise be in my top 10.

EDIT: Oh, and it hasn't come up yet, but it's sort of related. I wouldn't count simply drawing / scratching on live action footage as animation, as it's such a common trope, but there are conceivably instances when it's done to such an extent that it crosses over into animation.

Actually, here's a great one, and another music video I'll probably include on my list.

[Calvin]

A few films that will almost certainly end up on my final list:

The Hand (Jirí Trnka, 1965) - Czech puppet animator Trnka's last film is quite unusual in his oeuvre or at least, what I've seen of it. Until The Hand, Trnka adapted Czech folktales, Shakespeare and Hans Christian Anderson but his final statement was a political one - an allegory of life under totalitarianism, the tale of a potter who's happy life is ruined by the invasion of a large hand left little to the imagination of the Communist government who promptly banned it.

5 Centimeters Per Second (Makoto Shinkai, 2007) - Consisting of three vignettes, Shinkai's visually beautiful anime visits the protagonist, Takaki, at different stages of his life (childhood, adolescence, early adulthood) and show us how he moves on (or rather doesn't) from a childhood infatuation.

Tale of Tales (Yuri Norstein, 1979) - This has topped numerous best animation lists so it will no doubt make a healthy showing here too. It's structured like human memory à la Tarkovsky's Mirror and has little plot to speak of but Norstein himself has said it is "about simple concepts that give you the strength to live." Recommended is Clare Kitson's book about the film and Norstein.

Has there been any update recently on the progress of Norstein's The Overcoat? I'm praying that when it's finally complete, we can get a Blu-Ray collection of his work.

[antnield]

Tale of Tales (Yuri Norstein, 1979) - This has topped numerous best animation lists so it will no doubt make a healthy showing here too. It's structured like human memory à la Tarkovsky's Mirror and has little plot to speak of but Norstein himself has said it is "about simple concepts that give you the strength to live." Recommended is Clare Kitson's book about the film and Norstein.

Kitson's British Animation: The Channel 4 Factor is also well worth a look. And those seeking a more general overview of animated features could do worse than perusing Andrew Osmond's 100 Animated Feature Films. (He notes in his introduction that his selections were mostly governed by DVD availability, so the majority should be easy to hunt down.)

[swo17]

Tinting is clearly something else, or almost every silent film would qualify. The serpentine example is much more like a primitive special effect.

I don't remember Plague Summer, but I'm personally not counting tracking / panning / zooming over drawings / paintings as animation, hence my reluctant exclusion of A Walk through H, which would otherwise be in my top 10.

Plague Summer doesn't even pan over the images. It's primarily just static shots of crude drawings. The lack of motion is of a piece with the film's ultra-low budget/effort aesthetic--it's an animated film that no one bothered to animate. There's a better description of what's going on at this blog here (though I like the film a lot more than that reviewer!) Actually, that review mentions that there are some moments of traditional animation going on--they must have escaped my memory.

I should say, I'm not trying to open the floodgates for all experimental or silent films. But I guess I'm more interested in coming up with a list of a variety of films that do interesting things with their animation or that I like primarily for their look, rather than films that happen to be animated that I would probably like just as much if they'd been live action, or animated completely differently. (Which is why I don't see the need to vote for more than a few key Disney, Pixar, or Ghibli films, when a lot of their animation style is similar across numerous films.) My definition of animation includes painting, drawing, or etching on filmstock, if I feel that that's the primary interest of the film. To me, Danse serpentine provides a very early example of an animation of this type, it's a film that I love, and, perhaps most importantly, the reason I love it has everything to do with the hand-coloring that was done and how this complements the source image to create movie magic.

The Hand (Jirí Trnka, 1965) - Czech puppet animator Trnka's last film is quite unusual in his oeuvre or at least, what I've seen of it. Until The Hand, Trnka adapted Czech folktales, Shakespeare and Hans Christian Anderson but his final statement was a political one - an allegory of life under totalitarianism, the tale of a potter who's happy life is ruined by the invasion of a large hand left little to the imagination of the Communist government who promptly banned it.

Much of Trnka leaves me a bit cold, but I heartily second your recommendation for The Hand.

[domino harvey]

Norman McLaren - I need to do an immersive rewatch, but I'm sure to be voting for Begone Dull Care and Blinkity Blank.

Synchromy would be near the top of my list if I was voting

[karmajuice]

The McLaren Master's Edition box set is a revelation, and an indispensable set. It's got a steep price tag unless you can find it on sale, but it's exhaustively comprehensive, and includes a wealth of contextual material and outtakes, test footage, documentaries, etc.
Pas de deux is easily my favorite McLaren film, but the film mentioned by Domino and the others are also great and may well place on my list, especially since Pas de deux doesn't really qualify as animation. It's worth digging deep with McLaren, because the man was so versatile that you're destined to find something that suits you.

I'd like to make recommendations, but my computer is out of commission and I'm transitioning to another, so my film logs aren't available to me, so I'm running on memory. For now I'll mention a few features which will definitely rank highly on my list. I'll save the shorts for later; they'll constitute the majority of the list.

The Thief and the Cobbler (Richard Williams, 1993) - A botched masterpiece, but one that still dazzles and more than merits your attention. It's one of the most immaculately crafted animated films ever made in terms of its technique, and no corners were cut to save time or money. The production went over budget and was in production for about 30 years when they yanked the film from Williams and cut it down into an incomprehensible mess. But a fan version of the film has come out, The Thief and the Cobbler: The Re-Cobbled Cut, and while imperfect, it's an heroic act of perservation/reconstruction and an attempt to look at what the film might have been. They include animatics and sketches for the unfinished portions of the film. Anyway, the film is graphically inventive and non-stop visual wit and beauty -- it is very much a film about form.
The Re-Cobbled cut can be found via youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E62ibzd8WX4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
or via torrent here, which I recommend: http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/4112127/ ... obbled_Cut" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(Williams was the animation director on Roger Rabbit, by the way.)

Fehérlófia (Marcell Jankovics, 1981) - If The Thief and the Cobbler approaches pure form, this film achieves it while still retaining some narrative structure. It's based on an Hungarian folktale, and the folktale structure allows for some radical experimentation in terms of its visual design. Check out the first few minutes on youtube and I'll guarantee you'll end up watching the entire film. It will almost definitely end up someplace in my top 10.
It's available in its entirety, with subtitles, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dN_vwI8Vqg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Jankovics' short films also deserve attention, and I'll discuss them later on.

Allegro non troppo (Bruno Bozzetto, 1977) - An Italian parody of Disney's Fantasia, setting a wide variety of animated shorts to classical music. It has a black and white live action framework holding the separate shorts together, all of which vary wildly in tone and quality, but as a whole it's a satisfying effort: funny, irreverent, and yet often moving, with a critical eye toward mankind's inclinations toward selfishness and the folly of war. For my money, its sequence set to Ravel's Bolero surpasses anything in Fantasia.
The DVD seems to be out of print, but it's easy to come by online.

The Plague Dogs (Martin Rosen, 1982) - By the same director of Watership Down, and taken from a source novel written by the author of Watership Down, but in my eyes the superior of the two, though the less well known. It's the account of two dogs who escape from a lab in the north of Britain, only to be hunted through the hills by people who fear they're dangerous. It is an unrelentingly bleak film, but one filled with compassion and a persistent, almost delusional sense of hope. I was beaten down and awed by the film the first time I saw it, coming into it completely unaware, and it's stayed strong in my memory since.
Be sure to get the full 103 minute cut of the film, which is available in Australia on DVD.



Also, I posted a brief survey on some filmmakers I like in the Old Animated Films thread, which I'll repost here. These aren't my recommendations, necessarily, just a resource for anyone who is interested.
Canadian and Russian animators:
http://criterionforum.org/forum/viewtop ... 75#p294071" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Western Europe (Danish/French/Italian/German/English/Swiss/Belgian)
http://criterionforum.org/forum/viewtop ... 75#p295803" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Eastern Europe (Estonian/Czech/Croatian/Hungarian)
http://criterionforum.org/forum/viewtop ... 00#p335712" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[swo17]

A few rare treats to supplement the excellent CVM discs for Oskar Fischinger and Jordan Belson:

Studies 8 (The Sorcerer's Apprentice) & 11 (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik) (Fischinger)

Phenomena (Belson)

[stroszeck]

I've never been much of an animation enthusiast, but boy this genre project is quickly becoming my favorite! The links you guys have provided to great works of animation have been eye opening and transformative for me. The only animation film I saw as a youth that deeply devastated me, and which is one that I don't think has been mentioned as of yet is Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies. Everything about this one works beautifully and its the best example of a work made which can be appreciated by both adults and children alike. Incredibly moving, poetic, and with one of the saddest endings to any tale I've ever seen. Takahata uses the backdrop of World War 2 and a brother-sister story of survival to make one of the greatest anti-war movies ever made. Definitely going to be my number one.
Another film I saw in school in the 3rd or 4th grade having to do with an imagined UK/Soviet Union nuclear war, was 1986's When the Wind Blows, based on Raymond Brigg's graphic novel and was told from the viewpoint of an elderly couple. Very graphic and disturbing scenes depicting radiation sickness. I definitely need to rewatch this one.

[knives]

In that case you should also try to check out Takahata's Only Yesterday which is a very different work of intense maturity not often associated with mainstream animation and the legendary Barefoot Gen which while not as devastating as Graveyard of the Fireflies is still a powerful statement on wartime Japan that will leave you shocked.

[stroszeck]

Thanks for the tip knives, I definitely will locate that for this project.

[colinr0380]

Another film I saw in school in the 3rd or 4th grade having to do with an imagined UK/Soviet Union nuclear war, was 1986's When the Wind Blows, based on Raymond Brigg's graphic novel and was told from the viewpoint of an elderly couple. Very graphic and disturbing scenes depicting radiation sickness. I definitely need to rewatch this one.

It is a little like Bed Sitting Room in the sense that the characters are so trapped in their delusions that even a nuclear war cannot really shift them! I think I told the story elsewhere on the forum that when I recorded the film off television the first time the tape stopped just at the point where the radiation sickness really kicks in for the bleak potato-sacked conclusion! In a strange way it was rather apt that the film just stopped at the point where the old man is having his final World War II reverie about being a fireman during the Blitz and saving people from the burning buildings!

The Plague Dogs is utterly shattering, far more so than even Watership Down because of the essential futility of the two escaped experimental dog's plights. It also doesn't help that the dogs have been experimented on so much that they are struggling with mental problems (John Hurt puts in a nervous performance to complement Richard Briers' precogniscent Fiver from Watership Down). Also the amusing gull from Watership Down is replaced with a more creepily pragmatic fox, which doesn't do much to lighten the tone.

They have no perfect green meadow to aim for, and the authorities are bent on tracking them down due to the diseases they have presumably been infected with. In the end it comes down to a choice between a man-made death (by bullet, or in the horrific incinerator scene surrounded by corpses of other animals - Toy Story 3 has nothing on this!), or a delusional journey to an inevitable death of their own making.

(Interestingly, given he does a lot of animation voice acting at the moment in the likes of American Dad, this I think has Patrick Stewart's first voice acting role as the Major tracking the animals down)

If you are looking for something else in a similarly upsetting bleak vein (!), I would highly recommend The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb, a stop motion animation short which updates the fairy tale into a dystopian run down setting, with an escape from a lab that slightly reminds me of the one from Plague Dogs.

[dustybooks]

I also recommend the two Martin Rosen films. As karmajuice mentioned, it's vital to catch the uncut version of The Plague Dogs if you can; it makes a massive difference in its narrative strength. Also thrilled to see the Fleischers' surreal and gorgeous "Snow White" come up already.

But talking of upsetting, I'm not sure how well-known Paul Berry's 'The Sandman' is, so if I'm trotting out overly familiar stuff I apologize, but as someone seldom affected by horror films and such, this deeply disturbed and thus somewhat delighted me when I saw it on MTV (!) as a teenager.

[Gregory]

I left the CVM Belson disc out of my DVD guide back on the first page. Here's an article that addresses his relationship to animation. Mystifying, amazing work about which Belson probably took most of his secrets to his grave, so to speak. I wouldn't consider it animation for the purposes of this list, but could conceivably understand if others are using different criteria.

[swo17]

Very interesting read, thanks.

[zedz]

A few rare treats to supplement the excellent CVM discs for Oskar Fischinger and Jordan Belson (quality isn't the best):

Studies 8 (The Sorcerer's Apprentice) & 11 (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik) (Fischinger)

Phenomena (Belson)

Thanks swo. I've always LOVED Studie Nr. 8, since it was in the first Fischinger programme I saw 20 years ago. It's one of the many high water marks of Fischinger's craft and a dead cert for my top ten if he hadn't directed three other dead certs for my top ten. Genius could still out.