Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Tim Burton's
The Nightmare Before
Christmas
, directed by Henry Selick
(Kerry Drumm).
Emotions
The two scenes in animation history that have reduced most of us to tears both involve
mothers: the death of Bambi's mother and Dumbo's mother locked in a cage for being
mad, nestling Dumbo in her trunk. Producers know that the death of a mother is probably
the most traumatic event in one's life, understandably, and the live-action i lm that most
reduced me to tears was
Finding Neverland
with the slow fading of Kate Winslet. This and
the death of Smike in any version of
Nicholas Nickleby
will see me in honest tears. I have cried
in operas, ballets, plays and even with topics, but only a few puppet i lms, such as
Kong
and
The Periwig Maker
, have truly moved me. Perhaps I am too close to the technique. I have felt
other emotions. I remember the real dread at seeing
The Sandman
, but the sort of i lms that I
connect with emotionally are not being made with puppets. Michael Dudok de Wit's two great
short i lms,
Father and Daughter
and
The Monk and the Fish
, leave me dewy eyed, as
much through the music and beauty of the artwork as through the story, and the end of
Chris Wedge's computer graphics short i lm
Bunny
had me choking back something … but
no puppet i lms as such. I know we can do it, and I'm hoping it's not the all too
solid nature of a puppet that prevents us being moved or shocked.
The Nightmare
Before Christmas
and
The Corpse Bride
play with the conventions of horror, with
darkly gruesome humour and exquisitely eccentric characters, but there are many
more genres still to be tackled and other emotional buttons to be pressed. I hope
that we can see the visceral and the downright tragic one day. Rumour has it they
may be on the way.
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