I have a small list of films I think are essential viewing. This is on it, only one of two allowed for that year.
Looking at my list, there are a few animated shorts, and I think that makes sense. Animators can play games with narrative that wouldn't read in conventional presentations.
This little think is only seven minutes long, but that space quite a few narrative folds are presented.
Daffy is forced to be someone different as the animator changes his context. This we saw decades before with "Sherlock Jr," but Keaton's identity didn't change so radically. Here, the identities are movie stereotypes, in fact stereotypes that only exist in movies.
But then Daffy is redrawn directly to be a different being, first in the same shape with different colors and then in a radically different shape, part flower. Flying from his tail/flagpole is a flag with a screw and a ball on it. Screwball comedy.
Then we play with the animator manipulating the camera, far and close. Remember that this was the period of Hitchcock's developments of camera awareness, and the short may well have played in front of "Dial M" or "Rear Window."
(Remember also that this was after the two similar cartoons that spoofed the rerelease of "Robin Hood," so the cartoon ABOUT movie notion was established.)
Then we have the noir black curtain falling on our duck, protected temporarily by a prop, but he fights back against noir, first against the black curtain itself and then its cause, an unresolved ending.
After this, we have the duck encountering a mirror image of itself and subsequently being destroyed, noir winning (as it always must). At this point in movie history, noir had.
And finally, we zoom back in narrative space to see the cartoonist who has been manipulating the cartoon by pencil, brush and eraser that we see as themselves drawn elements. And behold, we see the narrator is... a cartoon character!
Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.
Looking at my list, there are a few animated shorts, and I think that makes sense. Animators can play games with narrative that wouldn't read in conventional presentations.
This little think is only seven minutes long, but that space quite a few narrative folds are presented.
Daffy is forced to be someone different as the animator changes his context. This we saw decades before with "Sherlock Jr," but Keaton's identity didn't change so radically. Here, the identities are movie stereotypes, in fact stereotypes that only exist in movies.
But then Daffy is redrawn directly to be a different being, first in the same shape with different colors and then in a radically different shape, part flower. Flying from his tail/flagpole is a flag with a screw and a ball on it. Screwball comedy.
Then we play with the animator manipulating the camera, far and close. Remember that this was the period of Hitchcock's developments of camera awareness, and the short may well have played in front of "Dial M" or "Rear Window."
(Remember also that this was after the two similar cartoons that spoofed the rerelease of "Robin Hood," so the cartoon ABOUT movie notion was established.)
Then we have the noir black curtain falling on our duck, protected temporarily by a prop, but he fights back against noir, first against the black curtain itself and then its cause, an unresolved ending.
After this, we have the duck encountering a mirror image of itself and subsequently being destroyed, noir winning (as it always must). At this point in movie history, noir had.
And finally, we zoom back in narrative space to see the cartoonist who has been manipulating the cartoon by pencil, brush and eraser that we see as themselves drawn elements. And behold, we see the narrator is... a cartoon character!
Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.