While in New York, recently, I met up with two of my favourite animated people...
Firstly, I got to spend time with the legendary
JOHN CANEMAKER (left), artist, Oscar-winning filmmaker and one of the most erudite scholars of the art of Disney and animation in general.
John's powerfully poignant film,
The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film explored the difficult emotional terrain of father/son relationships as seen through John’s own often turbulent, sometimes explosive, relationship with his father.
Beating Pixar's
One Man Band to the Oscar (in a category that was first won by Walt Disney in 1931 for
Flowers and Trees)
The Moon and the Son featured powerful vocal performances by Eli Wallach and John Turturro and employed stylised animation techniques to tell what is a challenging and deeply moving autobiographical story.
You can read more about the film and see a preview on
HBO.
John not only shares my passion for the Golden Age of Disney animation (we followed one another in front of the cameras for the
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs DVD interviews) but also with the historical and contemporary variety of what is a truly international -
universal - medium.
Talking about our shared obsessions over dinner reminded me of the frustration I frequently feel about the way in which animation is - or, rather,
isn't - understood and acknowledged in the sphere of popular art.
It's always got my goat that whilst
even the most unsophisticated cineast understands that 'films' comes in many different guises and genres: Westerns, thrillers, mysteries, fantasies, comedies, musicals etc, whereas when it comes to
animation, most people simply think of 'cartoons' without realising the extraordinary breadth and depth of styles and techniques that have been - and
are being used - to create films that can run for anything from a few minutes to a couple of hours.
Fortunately there are people such as John who, through his books on such giants as
Windsor McCay (Gertie the Dinosaur),
Otto Mesmer (Felix the Cat),
Tex Avery (Porky Pig, Daffy Duck et al),
and
Disney's 'Nine Old Men', as well as his own filmmaking, have provided an antidote to this shortsighted take on animation.
Visit John's website to find out more about his
films, books and
artworks.
My second animated encounter was with animator and blogger friend,
ELLIOT COWAN...
Elliot, of course, is the cartoony-looking one in the foreground!
I've written about Elliot's work
on and off,
here and there and
now and again, so long-standing/sitting readers will be familiar with his animated duo,
Boxhead and Roundhead who are finally beginning to get the notice they deserve among aficionados of the quirky...
Boxhead and Roundhead inhabit a constantly threatening, cross-hatched, George-Orwell-meets-Edward-Gorey world and are (as I've said before and will keep
on saying until it becomes a reality) destined for that unique form of
Greatness that is reserved for those who truly suffer!
I adore their pessimism, their ruthlessness and their manic desperation in the face of Fate: they inhabit our bleakest nightmares; they are the dark soul of the Toon!
Check out their two most recent and very different exploits...
And you'll find all Boxhead and Roundhead's adventures (along with Elliott's other animations) on
YouTube.
That's all folks, but do remember, there's more to animation than just
Shrek,
Finding Nemo and
The Simpsons!
Images: Artwork from
The Moon and the Son: John Canemaker © 2005; Photo of Cowan & Sibley: Elliot Cowan © 2009
