Curious Alice was an anti-drug PSA made back in 1971 by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Its message is somehow lost through all the cool animations and funs.
The film shows Alice as she toured a strange land where everyone had chosen to use drugs, forcing Alice to ponder whether drugs were the right choice for her. The “Mad Hatter” character represents Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), the “Dormouse” represents sleeping pills, and the “King of Hearts” represents heroin.
Yeah, I would file this one under the “failing miserably” [Dials drug dealer].
This extremely vague cartoon on family planning deals with a far more controversial subject than der Führer or female puberty, and yet somehow skirts giving out any specific information. I guess whatever remnants of prudishness were left in 1968 still demanded you avoid explicit conversation about birth control, then euphemistically referred to as “family planning”:
Family planning means, that without affecting normal relations as man and wife, you can decide in advance the number of children you will have, and when you will have them.
Informative! The weird thing about this weird little piece of propaganda is that unlike the previous examples, it’s intended neither to boost national morale, nor to educate children—it’s literally Donald Duck telling grown-ass men to wear condoms or look into hormonal birth control. And you even have a doting, whispery little wife using her husband as a proxy to ask questions about her own health—it goes without saying that this is primarily aimed at men, and the film doesn’t have much insight into the economic incentives for having a lot of children if, for example, you operate entirely on a traditional agrarian economy.
Given Disney’s supposed Nazi sympathies, one has to wonder if the motivations behind the film are based in an authentic investment in public health education or the Malthusian racism that lead so many eugenicists to fear they would some day be “outnumbered” by other races and cultures.
And come on, if any Disney character is a racist, you know it’s gotta’ be Donald.
The Butler Brothers continue with their very particular, dystopian vision of the world with their new animation Refusnik. Like J. G. Ballard before them, the Butler Bros. (aka John Butler) create speculative fictions out of present reality, and both share the author’s antipathy towards technology.
Technology is not our friend, their work says, it is created by corporations to imprison and enslave. This theme is touched upon in Refusnik, where drone technology is fused together with warehouse slavery to create a highly probable and deeply disturbing future.
Контакт (“Contact”) is a cartoon produced in the Soviet Union by Vladimir Tarasov in 1978. The famous animation tells the wordless story of a friendly alien landing on Earth and trying to approach a bohemian painter-type to make friends. The painter freaks at first, imaging the alien capturing and torturing him, but in the end things work out.
This remarkable piece is absolutely exquisite. A joy to behold
Tarasov has said that he considers animation “the Esperanto of all mankind.” It’s worth mentioning that the soundtrack music (“Love Theme from ‘The Godfather’”) was known in Russia from this animation and not from The Godfather film itself, which was banned in the USSR.
Kurt Schwitters was rebuffed from joining the Berlin Klub-Dada, as he was considered insufficiently political. It was their loss, as Schwitters proved himself to be far more radical and original than anything produced by this political off-shoot of the avant-garde movement.
The rejection disappointed Schwitters, but he was in good company as neither Max Ernst or Jean (Hans) Arp—who had been central figures in the original Zurich Dada group—joined this new Dada political off-shoot. Instead, Hans Arp teamed-up with Schwitters, and the pair collaborated on various projects over the next decade.
In response to his rejection, Schwitters formed his own brand of Dada, which he called Merz—the name lifted from a Hannover bank, “Kommerz und Privat Bank.” Schwitters was influenced by many of Dada’s ideas, in particular he developed some of Arp’s theories about language and the written word.
Arp saw Dada as a constructive force, and defined it as:
“...the primal source of all art. Dada is for the ‘without sense’ of art, which is not to say non-sense. Dada is without sense like nature. Dada is for nature and against art. Dada is direct like nature and tries to find for each its real place.”
Hans Arp ‘Dada Sprüche.’
Arp produced a series of poems where words and phrases were placed together not for their semantic message, but for the possibility in creating sensation through their associate sounds.
the nightbirds carry burning lanterns in the beams of
their eyes. they steer delicate ghosts and ride on wagons
with delicate veins.
Like his paintings and drawings, Arp’s poetry developed organically. His intention was to restore a sense of wonder to the world through sound.
Schwitters, on the other hand, broke language down into individual words and letters, with which he created early examples of Concrete Poetry. His aim was to create a new form of expression.
More on Kurt Schwitters and his ‘Ursonate’ sonata after the jump…
Then you’ll probably love this stop-motion, Lego version of Dario Argento’s Tenebre.
Often considered the “finest film that Argento has ever made,” Tenebre (or Tenebrae) was (surprisingly) branded a “Video Nasty” upon its initial release in the U.K. In America the film it had a delayed release and was eventually allowed to escape in a badly cut version as Unsane.
Tenebre/Tenebrae proved to be a highly influential film and contains many of Argento’s signature themes and visual set-pieces. Thankfully, it was restored to its proper g(l)ory in the late-1990s and has since been re-evaluated by Tim Lucas at Video Watchdog, and Ed Gonzalez at Slant, who described Argento’s masterpiece as “a riveting defense of auteur theory, ripe with self-reflexive discourse and various moral conflicts. It’s both a riveting horror film and an architect’s worst nightmare.”
Mickey Mouse in Vietnam is anti-war animation produced by Lee Savage and Milton Glaser in 1968.
The one-minute cartoon has Mickey arriving in Vietnam before being shot in the head. This unofficial Mickey Mouse cartoon was said to have angered the Disney organization so much that they attempted to destroy every copy.
Until recently, the only known copies available for public viewing were one owned by the Sarajevo Film Festival (although the last time it was played there was in 2010), and one included on the Film-makers’ Coop’s 38 minute, 16mm collection reel titled For Life, Against the War (Selections), available for rental at $75 (though only to members of relevant organisations). The only pieces of hard evidence of the short’s existence available online were a few screenshots (all but one found in a 1998 French book entitled ‘Bon Anniversaire, Mickey!’).
‘All of my films have really been statements about America, strangely enough,’ said director Terry Gilliam in this documentary about his work and career, made for The South Bank Show in 1991.
If you look closely at them, or I sit and try to describe them in some way, they’re all me reacting to that country I left. They’re seen through the eyes of somebody who lives in Britain, who’s been affected by this world, but they’ve all been messages in film cans back to America.
They’ve been disguised with the Middle Ages and the Eighteenth Century and everything, but it’s about that. This one [The Fisher King] has no disguise—that’s what’s interesting about it. It’s there, it’s naked, this is the world.
Gilliam concludes the interview by dismissing any possibility of complacency in light of the success of The Fisher King .
Let’s say this film is successful and America is going to offer me money, there will be that tendency to say, “Oh, I’ll make more like this.” It’s easier to make films like this because I don’t have the same battles and I hope the perverse side of my nature is still there to rescue me from this, because I think that’s what’s kept me going is the sheer perverseness and because the easy path is that way…(Makes hand gesture) [and] I don’t do it
I think I’ll know when I’m really middle-aged when I go that way. If the next film is an easy film—you know it’s over. You’ll know he’s middle-aged, he’s fat, he’s a slob, he’s given up the battle.
As if that is ever going to happen, Mr. Gilliam!
Watch Terry Gilliam’s latest film ‘The Wholly Family’ after the jump…
The Harryhausen family regret to announce the death of Ray Harryhausen, Visual Effects pioneer and stop-motion model animator. He was a multi-award winner which includes a special Oscar and BAFTA. Ray’s influence on today’s film makers was enormous, with luminaries; Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, John Landis and the UK’s own Nick Park have cited Harryhausen as being the man whose work inspired their own creations.
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Harryhausen’s genius was in being able to bring his models alive. Whether they were prehistoric dinosaurs or mythological creatures, in Ray’s hands they were no longer puppets but became instead characters in their own right, just as important as the actors they played against and in most cases even more so.
If it wasn’t a monster movie, then it wasn’t worth watching. That was my narrow view of films when I was a child. There was the usual list of werewolves, and vampires, and stitched-together cadavers from Frankenstein’s lab, but there was nothing quite as thrilling as seeing Ray Harryhausen’s name on a film.
Harryhausen’s name on a movie meant unforgettable special effects that made any average film extraordinary. Before VHS or DVD recorders, we memorized those key scenes to replay in our heads, and discuss at our leisure. The ghoulish, resurrected skeletons that fought Jason and the Argonauts; the Rhedosaurus that tore up New York in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms; the Terradactyl that terrorized Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C.; the sinewed goddess Khali that fought Sinbad; these were memories that made many a childhood special - mine included.
It was seeing the original version of King Kong that started Harryhausen off on his career. His ability to duplicate some of Willis O’Brien’s groundbreaking effects led the young Harryhausen to meet and then work with his idol on Mighty Joe Young, in 1949. Their collaboration won an Oscar, and set Harryhausen off on his career.
Today, tributes poured in from across the film industry praising Ray Harryhausen‘s genius:
“Ray has been a great inspiration to us all in special visual industry. The art of his earlier films, which most of us grew up on, inspired us so much.” “Without Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no STAR WARS” —George Lucas.
“THE LORD OF THE RINGS is my ‘Ray Harryhausen movie’. Without his life-long love of his wondrous images and storytelling it would never have been made – not by me at least” — Peter Jackson
“In my mind he will always be the king of stop-motion animation” —- Nick Park
“His legacy of course is in good hands because it’s carried in the DNA of so many film fans.” — Randy Cook
“You know I’m always saying to the guys that I work with now on computer graphics “do it like Ray Harryhausen” — Phil Tippett.
“What we do now digitally with computers, Ray did digitally long before but without computers. Only with his digits.” —Terry Gilliam.
“His patience, his endurance have inspired so many of us.” — Peter Jackson
“Ray, your inspiration goes with us forever.” — Steven Spielberg
“I think all of us who are practioners in the arts of science fiction and fantasy movies now all feel that we’re standing on the shoulders of a giant.
If not for Ray’s contribution to the collective dreamscape, we wouldn’t be who we are.” — James Cameron
A sad loss, and a sad day, but what movies he has left us!
