Cartoon Movies: Acting Their
Age?
(continued from page 4)
Best Foot Backward?
A common sentiment among older Disney fans is that the way forward
is the way back; that if one really wants fine art and maturely-written
films, the gold standard remains the quintet of pre-fifties classics
from Snow White to Bambi. On this argument, the mistake
is to conflate 'serious' and 'mature' with 'complex' and 'edgy.'
A film like Bambi, with its simple, lyrical treatments of
life and death, is far more valuable than a dozen "Circle of
Life" numbers.
If the older films are regarded as childish, this is only for shallow,
incidental reasons: an old-style cuteness that embarrasses some
newer animators, a treatment of women that runs against PC fashions.
The classics deal with archetypes and myth; to demand they be more
like live-action is like slamming Philadelphia Story for
not resembling Saving Private Ryan. Far more heinous, on
this line, are the shortcomings of new Disney - not just stylistic
faults such as bad character animation, but also the reliance on
info-dumping songs, high-speed slapstick without grace or timing,
and patronising, over-explanatory dialogue.
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One
of the most articulate defenders of the virtues of 'Old Disney'
is The Iron Giant's director Brad Bird. © Warner
Bros.
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This is putting the case at its most extreme,
but the virtues of 'Old Disney' have been trumpeted more and more
in recent years. Interestingly, one of their most articulate defenders
is The Iron Giant's director Brad Bird. Bird clearly leans
toward old-school Disney, but with ideas for development that in
some ways chime with Katzenberg's. Iron Giant's film framework
can be seen as a similar reconciliation of new and old, combining
a shameless fairy-tale with an unusually realistic, down-to-earth
setting. (Bird acknowledges E.T. as a big influence.)
Talking to Starlog, Bird commented, "If Iron Giant feels
like Disney to some people, I hope they say it feels like an older
Disney movie, because I think their rhythms are more like mine.
Meaning that there isn't this manic jabbering and quick cutting,
as if the audience has a remote and is going to change the channel...
It's not about the dewdrops, the glistening eyes or the 400 cranes
flying; it's about seeing emotion in character's faces even though
they're drawn."
So far, so old Disney, but Bird continues, "There are other
kinds of animated film that would be very successful that could
be rougher. Not R-rated rougher, but possibly PG-13 rougher. The
problem is that there's a big gulf between slightly more adult-oriented
material and quality animation. It's like if you have material aimed
a little more at teenagers and adults, it has to be animated for
$1.98. If it's animated really well, then it must be a formula.
There's a tendency to take the intensity out of animated film simply
because it might freak out a three-year-old. In doing that, they're
missing out on everyone else. Old Disney movies used to have moments
that really freaked children out...
"I hate the fact that animation can't sit at the grownup table.
I don't mean removing the innocence, romance, wonder or any of the
things that make mainstream storytelling delightful. I'm just asking,
'Why do we always have to do it the same way?'" ['A Boy and
His Robot,' Bill Warren, Starlog 266, September '99, p54.]
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The
Iron Giant is a sad reminder that films can't live by
critical acclaim, or indeed audience reaction. © Warner
Bros.
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A Final Word
On which note, this cursory overview of the issues `round current
feature animation must come to an end. It would take a bold animator
to predict the course of cartoon films in the next few years confidently.
As with so many media, much of its history will always consist of
false dawns. Iron Giant is a sad reminder that films can't
live by critical acclaim, or indeed audience reaction. (Brad Bird
quoted on Giant's release: "Our exit poll results have
been outstanding -- once we get people into the theater from the
first minute, they love it. But the challenge has been getting them
into the theater at all -- a lot of people simply aren't aware the
film is even out there." ["It's Here: Why Aren't You Watching?,"
Charles Solomon, Los Angeles Times, Calendar Section, August
27, 1999.])
It may be the next few years decide a 'survival of the fittest'
among pseudo-real cartoons, 'ironic' cartoons, and those which follow
the conventions of either old or new Disney (the latter perhaps
sticking closer to Beauty or Lion King than subsequent
experiments). A more attractive possibility is of films combining
the virtues of all these approaches, or a cinema, and public, sustaining
a variety of animated features. The co-existence in the last few
months of pics as diverse as The Prince of Egypt, Disney's
Tarzan,
South
Park, The
Rugrats Movie, The Iron Giant and the US version
of the Japanese import Princess Mononoke, is surely a ground
for optimism. In the meantime, one only hopes Solomon is right in
his account of the impatience and adventurousness of the feature
animation community.
In a recent editorial, AWN's Heather
Kenyon said, "[Iron Giant] is another lost opportunity
for animation, and we'll have to sit patiently and wait for the
next wave of features. Maybe Aardman's Chicken Run will be
the one to break out." Or Henry Selick's Monkey Bone,
or Universal's Frankenstein, or DreamWorks' Shrek,
or Disney's Atlantis... One thing that can be said for the
current animation environment is that there's indeed no shortage
of new potential trendsetters, and with them new hope.
Andrew Osmond is a freelance writer specialising in fantasy media
and animation.
