The Critic

At first I didn't understand anything about the work (mainly because I'm Brazilian, I don't have subtitles and I still understand little English), however, when I listened more carefully and tried to know the context in which the work was conceived, I understood the message that is a joke with all of us lovers of the seventh art.

This Oscar-winning 4-minute cartoon beat the recently-viewed AUTOMANIA 2000 (1963), which I had rated ***1/2! That said, it is a classic and undeniably original. The premise could not be simpler: a grumpy critic on the soundtrack – voiced by a pre-stardom Mel Brooks! – assesses a variety of shapes that come up on the screen. He is understandably exasperated by their constant striving for attention or, if you like, to create meaning (which is often indecipherable anyway!) out of nonsense. It is a pretty sharp and witty jab at art-house cinema, then in something of a worldwide creative peak, which found the adulation of intellectual film reviewers but were deemed pretentious by – and went over the heads of – mainstream American audiences. Conversely, however, this can also be seen as an indictment of the unsophisticated tastes of casual moviegoers.

This short film by Ernest Pintoff is probably the funniest short ever made. It stars Mel Brooks as an Old Man from Russia who watches a series of abstract cartoons. He can make neither head nor tail of them, and comments outrageously the entire time, much to the disturbance of the other patrons. Here is some of the earliest Brooks humor, and already it keeps your rolling in the aisles! Produced in association with Brooks' Crossbow Productions (the precursor of Brooksfilms).

Heaven only knows what Mel Brooks might have made of half of Norman McLaren's animations - indeed this might even have been inspired by them a little, He's paid $2 to go the cinema and so now provides us with a running commentary of the abstract images he sees on screen. He reckons it's a cartoon but is unsure as some of the images look real, others rude, and by the conclusion I think he just feels that the designer - must be over thirty - hadn't a clue what was going on either. Regular viewers of all things surreal might appreciate his candour here - a layman's hatchet job on artistic pomposity or just an ignorant fool?

Mel Brooks, narrating as an old man, is watching a film where various geometric figures are projected. They aren't all that clever or interesting, and he says so. He is obviously annoying others, but if you accept art for art's sake you may be on his side. Anyway, it is fun and thought provoking.