Authors: David Bordwell,Kristin Thompson
B0041VYHGW EBOK (161 page)
The films came in many genres. Science-fiction efforts such as
Macross, Gundam,
and
Fist of the North Star
proved particularly popular, as did postapocalyptic cyberpunk sagas, most notably
Bubblegum Crisis
and
Akira.
There were also fantasy comedies (
Urusei Yatsura, Ranma ½
), serious dramas (
Grave of the Fireflies
), and children’s films of a quiet charm rarely achieved by the brash Disneys (notably Hayao Miyazaki’s
Kiki’s Delivery Service
and
My Neighbor Totoro
). Some anime defies description, including the nutty
Project A-Ko
and the erotic-mythical
Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend.
Lacking the funding of the big U.S. companies, Japanese animators learned to do more with less. They couldn’t duplicate the incessant bustle and flashy depth effects that Disney preferred, so they worked with static shots enhanced by slight motions: winds rustling a dress, a tear rolling down a cheek, even just the shimmer in a character’s eyes. Directors also concentrated on
mecha
figures—robots and giant machines, which with their chunky outlines and stiff movements are easier to animate than the flexible human body. When required to animate humans, the Japanese often encased them in hard-body space suits (in effect turning them into robots) or rendered them as fairly flat shapes, as in comic strips. And many works of anime explore subtle changes in color produced by light, liquid, mist, and reflections—all easier to depict than a landscape teeming with figures.
Some TV anime made their way to television in Europe and North America, and
Akira, Ghost in the Shell,
and
Pokémon: The First Movie
had successful English-language releases. Still, video has been the source of anime for Western
otaku
(obsessive fans), who hold conventions and spend hours online discussing their favorites. For historical background, see Helen McCarthy’s
Anime! A Beginner’s Guide to Japanese Animation
(London: Titan, 1993) and
The Anime Movie Guide
(London: Titan, 1996). McCarthy has also written a detailed study of the creator of Kiki, Totoro, Princess Mononoke and the fantastic creators of
Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation
(Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge, 1999). Two reference books are Gilles Poitras,
The Anime Companion: What’s Japanese in Japanese Animation?
(Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge, 1999), and Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy,
The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animeation Since 1917
(Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge, 2001). John A. Lent, ed.,
Animation in Asia and the Pacific
(London: John Libbey, 2001), contains several essays on anime, as well as related Asian animation.
www.documentary.org
The site of
International Documentary
magazine. A clearinghouse of information about professional documentary filmmaking, with announcements, festival news, and reviews.
dmoz.org/Arts/Movies/Filmmaking/Experimental
A portal to various websites on experimental cinema.
www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/flicker.pl
The Flicker web-site is a clearinghouse for information about experimental ci nema: artists, films, and upcoming programs around the world. Filmmakers also post short films here. The companion site, Frameworks,
www.hi-beam.net/fw.html
, hosts lengthy and ongoing discussions of experimental film.
www.keyframeonline.com
Provides information on various aspects of the current animation industry.
www.public.iastate.edu/∼rllew/animelinks.html
Animation directing you to many specific sites.
www.awn.com/?int_check=yes
Animated World Network, a site with directories, current news, and feature articles.
Recommended DVD Supplementswww.bcdb.com
The Big Cartoon Database, with information on American animation. A comparable site,
www.toonopedia.com
, includes data on comic strips and comic books as well as films.
DVDs of documentaries and experimental films seldom include supplements, so for these two types of films, we’ll list some major films that are available.
Feature-length documentary films on DVD include
4 Little Girls
(HBO Home Video),
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
(New Video Group),
The Story of the Weeping Camel
(New Line Home Video),
Enron—The Smartest Guys in the Room
(Magnolia; this disc includes a making-of supplement),
The Cruise
(Live/Artisan),
Grizzly Man
(Lions Gate),
Control Room
(Lions Gate),
Winged Migration
(Sony),
The War Room
(MCA Home Video),
Born into Brothels
(Think-film),
The Gleaners and I
(Zeitgeist),
The UP Series
(1964 onward, First Run Features),
Super Size Me
(Hart Sharp Video),
Burden of Dreams
(Criterion), and
Sans soleil
(Criterion). Short films are collected in
Full Frame Documentary Shorts,
vols. 1–5 (New Video Group).
Classic documentaries on DVD include
Why We Fight
(1943, Edi Video),
Memphis Belle
(1944, Aircraft Films),
Triumph of the Will
(1934, Synapse),
Kon-Tiki
(1951, Image Entertainment),
In the Year of the Pig
(1969, Homevision),
Point of Order!
(1964, New Yorker Video), and
Salesman
(1969, Criterion). Pioneering documentary maker Robert Flaherty is represented by
Nanook of the North
(Criterion) and
Man of Aran
(Homevision).
Listen to Britain and Other Films by Humphrey Jennings
(Image) collects works by the great British filmmaker.
An extensive, seven-disc, 155-film survey of experimental cinema is
Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894–1941
(Image Entertainment; a book of the same name, published by the Anthology Film Archives, was printed separately). There is some overlap in contents between this and
Avant Garde–Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s
and
Avant-Garde 2: Experimental Cinema 1928–1954
(Kino Video), but the latter concentrates largely on European films.
American Treasures IV: Avant-garde Film
1947–1986 (Image) contains many classic experimental films from the postwar era. Luis Buñuel’s
Un Chien andalou
(1928, Transflux Films) and
L’Age d’or
(1930, Kino video) are Surrealist classics.
Individual full-length experimental films available include
Koyaanisqatsi
(MGM),
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
(Image Entertainment), and
Man with a Movie Camera
(Image Entertainment).
Collections of individual experimentalists’ work include
By Brakhage: An Anthology,
with 26 films by Stan Brakhage (Criterion; this collection also includes interviews with the filmmaker),
Maya Deren: Experimental Films
(Mystic Fire Video),
The Guy Maddin Collection
(Zeitgeist),
The Brothers Quay Collection
(Zeitgeist), and
The Films of Kenneth Anger,
vols. 1 and 2 (Fantoma). Documentaries about experimental filmmakers include
In the Mirror of Maya Deren
(Zeitgeist Films) and
Brakhage
(Zeitgeist Films).
“The Making of
Bambi:
A Prince Is Born” discusses the technique and style of the design. The “Art Design: Impressions of the Forest” section includes an excellent explanation of the multiplane camera that was used to create depth effects in this and other Disney films. The “Tricks of the Trade” excerpt has more on the multiplane camera, discussing depth cues and demonstrating the use of the technique in the opening of
Bambi.
“Inside the Disney Archive” shows examples of both cels and backgrounds, including lengthy backgrounds used to simulate camera movement. “
Bambi:
Inside Walt’s Story Meetings” has actors reading transcriptions of meetings from the period of the film’s production, discussing a wide variety of narrative and stylistic possibilities as scenes from the film itself play.
“No Strings Attached: The Making of
Pinocchio
” is another excellent documentary on a Disney classic.
“The Hatching of
Chicken Run
” has a little background information on Aardman animation, also responsible for the “Wallace and Gromit” and “Creature Comforts” series. It deals with the specifics of animation, including how three-point lighting works on a very small scale. (The “Poultry in Motion” supplement, aimed at children, is far less informative.) The DVD of
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit
includes several informative and entertaining pieces: “How Wallace and Gromit Went to Hollywood,” a history of director Nick Park’s career with Aardman; “Behind the Scenes of ‘Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit’”; “A Day in the Life of Aardman: Studio Tour”; and “How to Make a Bunny,” a demonstration of how Plasticine figures are created.
The DVD of
The Incredibles
contains two making-of supplements. The first, “Making of
The Incredibles,
” is only mildly informative, focusing mainly on how wacky and eccentric the Pixar team is. The second, “More Making of
The Incredibles,
” is an excellent overview of the basic techniques for making a complex CGI film, from character design, to three-point lighting, to sound effects.
Some major animators have been profiled in DVD supplements. “Jiří Trnka: Puppet Animation Master”
(The Puppet Films of Jiří Trnka)
offers a sketch of the great Czech animator’s career. The DVD set
Norman McLaren: The Collector’s Edition
contains a feature-length biography, “Creative Process: Norman McLaren,” including many clips. McLaren used so many imaginative filmmaking methods that “Creative Process” suggests the vast range of animation possibilities.
Criticism isn’t an activity limited to those people who write articles or books about films. If you seek to understand a film, you’re engaged in a process of criticism. You may be unsure, for example, why one scene was included in a film; your search for the function of that scene in the context of the whole is a first step in a critical examination. People who discuss a film they have seen are participating in criticism.
Up to this point, we’ve looked at concepts and definitions that should enable a filmgoer to analyze a film systematically. The critic approaches a film already knowing that formal patterns, such as repetitions and variations, will probably be important and should be examined. The critic will also be alert for principles of narrative and non-narrative form, and she or he will watch for salient uses of the various film techniques. The critic will also ground his or her claims in specific evidence from the film.
So far, we’ve looked at all the techniques that constitute a film; we have also laid out basic principles that govern a film’s narrative or non-narrative form. Our examples and analyses have shown how elements of a film function in an overall system. But the only way to gain an ability to analyze films is through practice—in viewing, reading criticism, and writing about films yourself. Today thousands of young people are writing about films on the Internet, so you have no excuse for waiting! To guide you in the sort of writing that constitutes film analysis, we conclude our look at films as formal systems with a series of brief sample essays on individual films.
An analyst usually scrutinizes a film with some sort of purpose in mind. You may want to understand a film’s perplexing aspects, reveal the process that created a pleasurable response, or convince someone that the film is worth seeing. Our sample analyses have two primary purposes. First, we want to illustrate how film form and film style work together in a variety of films. Second, we seek to provide models of short critical analyses, exemplars of how an essay might illuminate some aspects of a film’s workings.
Because an analyst is limited by his or her purposes, there is little chance of getting everything, of accounting for each facet of a film. As a result, these analyses don’t exhaust the films. You might study any one of them and find many more points of interest than we have been able to present here. Indeed, whole books can be and have been written about single films without exhausting them.
