Abstract
Narrative in animation often follows classic film narrative structure and style, yet it can also demonstrate certain freedoms in the visual treatment of place, space and character. Working with three exemplary, stylistically and narratively distinct films, that take place in domestic spaces, in ‘Telling “What Is”: Frame Narrative in Zbig Rybczynski’s Tango, Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis’s When the Day Breaks, and Yuri Norstein’s Tale of Tales, Mary Slowik explores their different frame narratives using elements of literary theory, including James Phelan’s frame story, that describes a narrative containing other narratives within it. After and establishing her argument, Slowik concentrates on the layers visual material available in the animated films. This ranges from diegetically embedded stories and their relations to an examination of the relationships between the animation artists, the narrator, and audiences. She defines narrative strategies for the films: Tango’s addition/subtraction; When the Day Breaks’ A-B-A structure, and the “character/narrator as observer/participant” of Tale of Tales, and then each film is subject of extended descriptive and interpretive analysis of character, animation style, mise-en-scène, specificities of space to reach conclusions about their shared and unique frame narratives, and how the spectator is variously engaged, emotionally, cognitively and otherwise.
There are other forms of narrative, literary and cinematic, that the techniques and artistic styles of animation can emphasise or enhance through the form’s potential to present imaginative worlds, figures and events that do not originate in a physical reality. Co-authors Manisha Mishra and Maitreyee Mishra’s ‘Animated Worlds of Magical Realism: An Exploration of Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress and Paprika’, with an explicit focus on the experience of mainly female Asian animated figures. They frame this in social and postcolonial debates specific to Asian, and Japanese, experience, and pay attention to continuities and discontinuities in dream, cultural histories, desire and self, space and narrative. These markers of magical realism in literature and film are effectively applied to these two feature anime by Kon, and, in a similar way as does Slowik in her article, the authors conclude that the director’s stories also engage, even instrumentalise, the spectator. Readers interested in Kon’s work may find correspondences and complements to this article in Jen-Yung Chang’s ‘Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress: A Feminine Journey with Dream-like Qualities’ (Vol 8 No 1, 2012: 85-97) that explores dream experience, story and editing techniques.
Since the introduction of digital technologies, animators, and, increasingly, non-animation makers have access to a dizzying number of software applications and tools to facilitate production. A stalwart since 1998, Autodesk Maya continues to be popular with a wide range of users, and much as been written about its uses in cinema, advertising and animation. In her article ‘Behind the Scenes: A Study of Autodesk Maya’, Aylish Wood’s interest is in the complementary creativity between automation and the artist’s agency, that challenges notions of a domination of automation over user agency. She starts with an informative background and contextualisation of the software, offering helpful explanations of how it functions, production methods and some simple but clear examples of what it can achieve. Wood’s methodology draws on software scholars Noah Wardrip-Fruin’s and Adrian MacKenzie’s research and includes a number of interviews with animators, that informs her concentration on the user interface (UI) with accounts of first-hand experience of working with Autodesk Maya (one prosaically describes learning to use it is ‘like animating with boxing gloves’). Wood, who has published widely on digital technologies, makes difficult technical concepts and language understandable and imaginable to non-technical readers; it is like sitting at the desktop with the artists she interviewed.
Animation can present anthropomorphisation of virtually anything; ranging from caricatures of well-known figures to more recent satirical offerings, animated films often depict human behaviours melded with those of a particular animal species. Much has been written about the abundance of anthropomorphised animals in Classic and conventional cartoons since early days. An element underlying many of Walt Disney’s animated shorts featuring anthropomorphised animals is one of ideology, and many authors have laid bare critiques of gender and family values to politics and hegemonies. In ‘Walt at War - Animation, Transformation and Indoctrination: The Hypothetical Image of Disney’s Animal Soldiers’, Timothy Cooper scrutinises Disney’s World War 2 shorts, with a particular interest in bodily and political transformation of human-based animal figures. After establishing the tradition of animals in early graphic political caricature, Cooper then addresses a number of scholars, including Sergei Eistenstein, Esther Leslie’s reading of his writings, one of my own essays on spectatorship, and Scott Bukatman’s 2000 essay on morphing, to develop an approach that uses a concepts of a hypothetical image, transformation and utopianism. One can understand Cooper’s discussion as loosely located in C.P Snow’s ‘nature/culture’ conflict, whereby the inclusion of nature (animals) in war (a nefarious constituent of culture) creates both conflicting ideologies and an ideological puzzle as to Disney’s intentions; the animated animals are anthropomorphic, but feel no pain.
Book Reviews
At the ‘Magic of Special Effects’ conference organised by André Gaudreault and Martin Lefebvre in Montreal November 2013, there was much debate about distinctions between, animation, special effects and digital FX. In terms of the latter, Stephen Prince’s, Digital Visual Effects in Cinema (The Seduction of Reality) was often cited, not least as Prince draws a clear line between visual and digital effects. Pierre Flouquet’s review of Prince’s 2012 publication starts with pointing out some positive features of the book, and then he makes two critical observations; one is about Prince’s separation of documentary from the discussion, and the second is what Floquet feels is a lack of attention to the book’s subtitle: ‘The Seduction of Reality’. He then engages with specific themes of the book, including how Prince considers animation and animation scholars he works with, the ongoing discussions about animation and live action, and of realism in cinema, concluding with an overall positive evaluation. Amy Davis’ review of Chris Pallant’s Demystifying Disney: A History of Disney Feature Animation anticipates Pallant’s book as a future classic. Her positive review points out the author’s ability to discern and demystify common general notions about the Disney empire and how his organisation and thematic sections are helpful to both general readers and those looking for specialist topics. Davis’ review is also helpful in her concise reading and exposition of what the book can offer. Our final review by Chris Carter is of Tom Sito’s Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation. Carter takes us through the book’s main sections, summarising why he regards Sito’s text useful for both teaching computer animation and as a history of animation, as it spans animation’s pre-digital history to the present. Carter praises Sito for including artists in his discussion that complements those who tend to be included on computer animation writings, and the review also notes the attention Sito pays to the contexts of research units, games and companies and their implications on the histories of computer animation.