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The Best Animated Movie You've Never Heard Of
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I love talking about movies, but I've never been able to organize movie-night get-togethers. So this is the next best thing: On Tuesdays I'm going to spotlight a DVD and suggest some virtual-discussion starters.
I can't imagine recommending a film about which I have more reservations than The Thief and the Cobbler, newly released on DVD by the Weinstein Company. But I'm recommending it because the things that are wrong with it are the result of studio meddling: It's been called The Magnificent Ambersons of animated film, a butchered masterpiece. And for all the strikes against it, Thief and the Cobbler contains sequences of such breathtaking visual imagination that it must be seen by anyone who cares about animation. It's that good.
The story is basic middle Eastern fairy tale stuff involving a feisty princess, a lowly cobbler with a pure heart, a wicked wizard and an bumbling but persistent thief determined to steal three golden spheres from the princess' father. But the visuals are almost unbelievably subtle, sophisticated and complex: Animator Richard Williams' influences range from traditional Persian miniatures to Op Art, M.C. Escher's intricate interplay between image and negative space to the trippy psychedelia of Heinz Edelmann's Yellow Submarine, Rube Goldberg's ludicrously complex machines to the intricate patterning characteristic of Islamic non-figurative traditions.
The Thief and the Cobbler barely registered in 1995, when Miramax gave it a blink-and-you'll-miss-it release as Arabian Knight. Most people assumed it was a cheap rip-off of Disney's Aladdin. But it was actually a 25-years-in-the-making labor of love by Williams, the three-time Oscar winning animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?(1988). Williams worked for both Disney and UPA (the pioneering independent animation house that created Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBoing Boing) in the late 1940s, and went to the UK to self-financed his first feature, the award-winning, allegorical short The Little Island (1958). Other animators revere him, and over the years many of them worke d on portions of The Thief and the Cobbler, including Disney veteran Art Babbitt, who created Goofy;
Ken Harris, who worked with Chuck Jones at both Warners and MGM; and Myron Natwick, who created Betty Boop while working for Max and Dave Fleischer. .
Williams started work on what eventually became The Thief and the Cobbler in the late 1960s, inspired by Sufi folktales, and everything that could have gone wrong did: Copyright disputes, cost overruns, financing that suddenly dried up, missed deadlines -- everything. Williams had to redo large pieces of the project and worked on it between commercial jobs; showing it around Hollywood got him hired for Roger Rabbit and Roger Rabbit's success finally produced a distribution deal that fell through when Aladdin appeared on the horizon. The sorry conclusion of the story found Williams fired from his own film, which was completed and extensively altered by other hands.
So remember: The insipid songs and the goofy dialogue are like a magic marker mustache on the Mona Lisa -- all you have to do is watch and it's clear that the thief wasn't meant to speak at all, let alone carry on a jokey running commentary about his misadventures. Vincent Price -- who'd been dead for two years when the movie finally opened -- gives fine, silky voice to the scheming wizard, but the rest of voices are typical celebrity stunt casting: Jennifer Beals as pouty lipped Princess Yum Yum, Eric Bogosian as a vulture named Phido, Matthew Broderick as the cobbler (who was also clearly not drawn as such a chatterbox) and Toni Collette as Yum Yum's dotty nurse. And on top of everything else, the DVD is panned and scanned (sorry, "formatted to fit your screen") rather than letterboxed. And it's still worth watching. Once you see it, you'll want to join the petitioners trying to get the film released in a version closer to the one Williams imagined.
In most of the world, animation is used to create a broad spectrum of movies. In the US, animation=children's entertainment. How come?
Do CGI films like Happy Feet look better than traditional hand-drawn animated films like Bambi?
What can filmmakers do with animation that can't be done with live action, and how often do they actually do it?
Is the extensive use of CGI for effects and image sweetening gradually eroding the line between animation and live action?
Remember: Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
Previous DVD blogs:
Nashville
Panic in the Streets and Jack Palance interview
The Pusher Trilogy
Scarface
Slither
Sunset Blvd.
In Cold Blood
Brick
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Nov 28, 2006 10:47 AM
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Well, some CGI films look great and some hand-drawn ones do too. But there are some of each that look bad. It just depends on the amount of talent and care that went into the production. Neither one has a monopoly on aethestics. That said, I have yet to see a CGI flick that imparts as much emotion or makes character movement as believable as the best hand-drawn ones do!
I still think even the best CGI effects tend to be too blurry and unrealistic. CGI and digital tools work best when they enhance things shot with live actors or miniatures.
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Nov 28, 2006 2:54 PM
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In most of the world, animation is used to create a broad spectrum of movies. In the US, animation=children's entertainment. How come?
Animation today equals childrens entertainment for 2 reasons #1 the mvoie going experience with a newsreel an animated short and a feature film are no longer the norm. #2 The Evolution of TV & cartoons becoming babysitters for lazy parents. Personally I LOVE animated films, shorts features & cartoon I think they are great in any medium.
Do CGI films like Happy Feet look better than traditional hand-drawn animated films like Bambi? This is a toss up ~ For some films using CG is a great thing Shrek, Toy Story, & Monsters Inc are most likely better films because of the CG 3d methods employed. Now the Barbie DVD's & Cars to me are some of the most recent CG'd Movies that should maybe have been done as traditional animated films.
What can filmmakers do with animation that can't be done with live action, and how often do they actually do it? Because of the evolution of computers I really think this is not a big problem anymore. I would have LOVED to have worked with Bass Rankin or Ray Harryhausen in the days before computers & CG animation.
Is the extensive use of CGI for effects and image sweetening gradually eroding the line between animation and live action? People are taking to it but not in a full force as I think the studios are wanting them to ~ Look at the Hulk Movie, War of the Worlds, and even the Alien Preditor films that have come out using some live & CG action the Ticket $ and sales were not really even close to what the studios projected they would make to off set the production costs of these films.
The movie going public has changed since the times when Gene Kelly danced with Jerry the Mouse or Ester Williams swam with Tom & Jerry.
I also think becuase of all the entertainment shows specials and going behind the scenes has actually ruined the CG live action experience for many beofre they even see the film because they know how it was done. So the Amazement factor is ruined.
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Nov 29, 2006 1:36 PM
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I'll have to check this out.
One you might consider trying is "Tree of Palme" - an anime´ film that totally blew me out of the water.
It's so odd and surreal that I can't even begin to describe it - it's almost an emotionally overwhelming experience...
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Nov 29, 2006 2:03 PM
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We bought this movie when it first came on video in the 90s for my then pre-school niece & nephew. They loved it! I did too. I'm surprised the blogger didn't mention Jonathan Winters turn as the thief (of the title) - vintage Johnny Winters fare, great! I've told many people about this move over the years but not many had ever heard of it, much less seen it. I'll have to check out the DVD & suggest anyone else who loves traditional animation, along with a great little story, do as well.
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Nov 29, 2006 9:23 PM
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I LOVE this question/topic! I can't draw stick figures, but have always had a true affinity for animation (well, well done animation).
I saw The Thief and the Cobbler on laserdisc (!) EONS ago, and never thought it was anything that great (though even back then, I noted that some of the sequences were truly remarkable), but after reading about the whole production controversy (especially the claims that "Aladdin" had lifted much of the movie, because several of the animators had worked on both projects, and Jeffery Katzenberg, who spent time with Williams in the UK during the elongated production of "Roger Rabbit" greenlit "Aladdin") in James B. Stewart's Disney War and Kim Masters' Keys to the Kingdom, I was really interested in seeing it again. It's a shame that the new DVD is just a reprint of the version Miramax put out 18 months ago -- and the quality is pretty poor, even for pan & scan -- though I wonder if because the film had been in production for so long, if it was done in the standard 4x3 cel size that Disney used, as recently as The Fox and the Hound (which explains why that "special edition" isn't widescreen)? It's a true shame more of Williams' original vision wasn't retained - though I still have my reservations that the story (even without all the insipid and unnecessary dialog and singing) would have been anything that great. I'm sure the animation would have been beautiful - but for me, the mark of a great animated film is one that has both artistic merit, but also has a strong enough story so that you "forget" you are watching a cartoon.
In most of the world, animation is used to create a broad spectrum of movies. In the US, animation=children's entertainment. How come?
For better or worse - Walt Disney's credo of always making family entertainment pretty much forever branded that image onto their films. For most of their history - animation was their signature. Although most of the seminal Disney classics of Walt's era were just as enjoyable for adults as they were for children, the last few films made under his guard and pretty much everything pre-"Roger Rabbit" after his death was crap on a stick. That stuff will placate 5-year olds, but not mom and dad. Plus, at that point, all the "adults" remembered Disney films from their childhood, and the association stuck.
I do think that with "Beauty and the Beast" and ESPECIALLY with Pixar's foray into feature-length animation, the idea of animation being only for kids has started to crumble in the United States. The popularity of anime with teenagers and young adults - the resurgence of the prime-time cartoon, heck -- the fact that Cartoon Network introduced a block of shows in 2001 called [Adult Swim] - are all signs, to me, that animation will not always = children's films. My generation (I just turned 24) doesn't see animation the same way our parents did -- because we are still watching it as we enter "adulthood." I was visiting my then-boyfriend in Seattle the weekend "The Incredibles" opened. I don't think there was one child in that audience (and the theater was PACKED, I mean, we had to wait in a line wrapped around the complex to buy tickets) - it was all hipsters. So while I think the stigma is still there -- it IS changing.
Do CGI films like Happy Feet look better than traditional hand-drawn animated films like Bambi?
I think that either one, done well, can look fantastic. Personally, as much as I love really good CGI-animation - hand-drawn is still my preference. Watching a film like "Sleeping Beauty" - and taking in an appreciation for the hand-painted backgrounds (that could never be replicated digitally - EVER) is a reminder of what an artform animation can really be. That said, CGI technology has dramatically improved movement and coloring (though I know many purists lament the death of hand-colored cels - I don't, because it was much more likely that the coloring would be off rather than on-target...hand-paint the backgrounds, but digitally color the cels), and I think there are ways that both processes can work together. Disney's decision to close down the Orlando hand-drawn animation studio a few years back was pretty disappointing. I think even for the most ardent CGI animators, the benchmark is still the animated films from the early 1940s and 1950s -- because they are still some of the best.
What can filmmakers do with animation that can't be done with live action, and how often do they actually do it?
Obviously there is a fantasy element that hasn't quite translated to live-action - though with LOTR and Narnia and others, they are getting closer. You look at a film like Aladdin - however, which is pretty much a showcase for the best of Robin Williams (he becomes so annoying, it is easy to forget how funny he can be) - and think, that no matter how much they might be able to do in CGI - that film's medium NEEDS to be animation. On the filp side, one of the first animated films I ever saw that kind of showed me how adult animated projects could in fact BE created, "Akira" is interesting because although it could be done in live action (it's basically the animation of a live action film), it still takes advantage of certain inherent features of animation. The problem with the two interacting - a la LOTR, is that if you go too far - you just have actors interacting with green screens - and that kind of ruins the mood. I'd rather go into knowing that everything is "synthetic" rather than watch Natalie Portman try to converse with a CGI racist Jar Jar.
Is the extensive use of CGI for effects and image sweetening gradually eroding the line between animation and live action?
It is -- but as the newest Star Wars films have shown us, the differences are still very evident. A film like "Sin City" - which was so good, my friends and I literally sat in the theater and waited for the next show to start, might blur that line in a good way - but most films aren't that successful. I'm with Rings90, I'd much rather watch special effects done with minitures, robotics and some CGI, rather than just everything being digital. The technology isn't good enough yet to look lifelike - that "plastic" look still very much exists.
I do like technologies like Richard Linklater used in "Waking Life" and "A Scanner Darkly" that animate over live-action -- and it would be interesting to see more "traditional" animation effects composited with that style.
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Nov 30, 2006 3:23 PM
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I really love the postings my recommendation of The Thief and the Cobbler have prompted -- they're so thoughtful and wide ranging.
swkathi -- I didn't mention Jonathan Winters because much though I admire him, I really don't care for his chatterbox voicing of a character who's clearly meant to be wordless. I don't blame Winters -- he was hired for a job and clearly did it to the best of his ability -- but the thief was conceived in the tradition of silent clowns like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and his non-stop blathering really got on my nerves.
And Film_Girl, if I were still an academic film writer, I'd love to invest some time in a comparative analysis of the live-action Sin City and the animated Renaissance, both of which I loved. Also like you, I think Richard Linklater is exploring very interesting territory -- I thought A Scanner Darkly was an amazing film, the best Philip K. Dick adaptation since Blade Runner, which I must confess is one of my favorite films of all time -- Roy Batty's "tears in the rain" speech undoes me every time, and has been doing so for more than 30 years.
Anyway, the next animated film I'm really looking forward to is French filmmaker Michle Ocelot's Azur et Asmar, which I believe will be opening in the US in 2007. His Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998) knocked me out (I recommend it in the "Other Kingdoms, Other 'Toons" chapter of my book Movie Lust: Recommendation for Every Mood, Moment and Reason) with its mix of lean storytelling and astonishing animation and I can't wait to what he comes up with next.
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Dec 2, 2006 10:26 PM
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i find it odd that no one has brought up anime into this especially since in princess Mononoke Hayao Miyazaki combined computer generation with hand drawn animation and he did it brilliantly
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Dec 3, 2006 3:39 PM
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i believe cgi is better left to back up animation and live action not stand on its own i believe all forms of animation should be works of art not technological rush jobs
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Dec 4, 2006 11:14 AM
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Y'know, I actually saw this in a theater when it came out. It was definitely widescreen.
And a shout-out to FlickChick for her ever-amazing range of recommendations. I can't think of anybody else in mainstream media with such imaginative and on-the-money list of movies to check out. Thanks!
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Jan 16, 2007 5:41 PM
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