250 great animated short films
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| The Mitten (1967), directed by Roman Kachanov. |
Artists often mine their childhood for inspiration. Charles Dickens and Mark Twain recreated
their childhood world in classic books;
Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes
and Charles Schulz’s Peanuts explored
life through the eyes of children in classic comic strips. I’m friends with a minister who often wears Snoopy
and Charlie Brown ties to church, acknowledging their spiritual depth.
Schulz used the world of childhood to grapple with his own adult questions and
struggles. He tapped into deep wells by immersing himself in
childhood.
When drawing together our list of 250 great animated short
films, our panelists found a small yet rich selection of movies where artists
recreate and creatively explore the world of childhood. Animation is
particularly effective at tapping into the recesses of the brain where our deepest
memories reside. An animated image can instantly summon up strong emotions tied to our past.
Of course, many people erroneously believe that animation is
nothing more than a medium for entertaining children, probably because
children are naturally drawn to the world of the cartoon. In the early days of
television, advertising and marketing salesmen quickly capitalized on the new captive audience. Short bursts of 30-second animation can be very effective at
lodging sales messages into the brains of children, creating an urgent need for the hot new toy or the sweetest breakfast cereal. All film is manipulative, but there seems to
be something especially crass about manipulating children through animation, whispering
in their ears as they relax on a Saturday morning.
Fortunately, my topic isn’t “Animating for Maximum
Manipulation” but the much more agreeable “Animating Childhood,” where the intent
is to express an idea or vision. Each of
today’s selections opens into universality. The Dr. Seuss-penned Gerald McBoing Boing widens to express
ideas about creativity, Tulips Shall Grow
begins and ends with children yet is dominated by war and loss in its middle
passage, Boy and Girl explores gender and relationships, and Mikhail Aldashin’s Rozhedstvo
(Christmas) brings a childlike
innocence to the Jesus nativity story. Very big themes can be explored through
the eyes of childhood.
Little Tadpoles
Search for Mama / Xiao ke dou zhao ma ma (1960): Director Te Wei (1915-2010)
made Little Tadpoles Search for Mama
(also known as Where is Mama?) for very
young children but its technique transcends its content. Published in the same year (1960), P.D.
Eastman’s classic American picture book Are
You My Mother? has the same plot yet it remains rooted in its child
audience. Te Wei’s short film offers a
deeper experience with nearly identical material, thanks to the miraculous
beauty of its imagery. The simple
narrative of tadpoles in search of their mother becomes an exercise in brush
painting in motion.
Te Wei made this groundbreaking film with important
assistance from Tang Cheng and animators Duan Ziaoxuan and A Da (who directed Three Monks on our list). Produced
at the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, Little
Tadpoles Search for Mama was the first film to employ brush painting
animation and it received much acclaim for its effects. The school of
tadpoles moves through the water with a delightful random feel as certain adventurous
tadpoles venture out while others shyly hold back. The exquisite brush
work conveys the pond environment through carefully chosen details. The
other denizens of the pond each receive charming personalities, from birds on
the shore to a catfish, shrimp, and a crab in the depths. The fifteen
minutes pass like an enchanted dream — childhood evoked in a delicate flow of museum-quality
images.
Support
the artists and the art of the animated short film! Little Tadpoles Search for Mama is available for purchase on Chinese Classic Animation – Te Wei Collection.
The Mitten / Varezhka
(1967): A puppet animation by Soviet director Roman Kachanov (1921-1993),
The Mitten carefully and wordlessly
establishes its plot in the opening minutes (a girl desperately wishes she
could have a dog of her own) before discreetly shifting into the girl’s
imagination. From her point of view, we see a mitten transform into an
adorable knitted dog and share in her joy at his doggy behavior. There’s charm in abundance in Kachanov’s
comic treatment of the wide variety of dogs in the neighborhood. And I especially appreciate the sweet end of
the film, as it wisely refrains from indulging in the extreme sentimentality of
the scene that would naturally follow.
Tchou-Tchou
(1972): Director Co Hoedeman can animate
anything. He’s animated sand (The Sand Castle — it’s on our list),
wire, sealskin figures, and teddy bears.
In Tchou-Tchou, Hoedeman
animates blocks — for 13 vivid minutes, a simple children’s block set is in
constant inventive motion. The boy and
girl at the center of the action are basic figures, each composed of three painted
wooden cubes. But watch as Hoedeman ingeniously
finds countless ways to endow his building blocks with personality. He’s a playful wizard behind the scenes, animating
with childlike glee — making a difficult art look like child’s play.
Support
the artists and the art of the animated short film! Tchou-Tchou is available for purchase at the NFB website.
Here’s a sampling of a few other films about childhood from
our list of 250 great animated short films. While these films offer a child’s
eye view of the world, they are not childish.
As William Wordsworth wrote when he recollected scenes from his early
childhood, “the meanest flower that blows can give/Thoughts that do often lie
too deep for tears.”
Little Nemo / Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald
and His Moving Comics (Winsor McCay, USA, 1911)
Tulips Shall Grow (George Pal, USA, 1942)
Gerald McBoing Boing (Robert Cannon, USA, 1951)
Boy and Girl / Malchik i devochka (Rozaliya Zelma, USSR,
1978)
Who Will Comfort Toffle? / Vem skall trösta knyttet? (Johan
Hagelbäck, Sweden, 1980)
The Snowman (Dianne Jackson, UK, 1982)
Christmas / Rozhdestvo (Mikhail Aldashin, Russia, 1997)
My Childhood Mystery
Tree (Natalia Mirzoyan ,
Russia
© 2012 Lee Price
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