The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Project)

[matrixschmatrix]

It's more that there is a beat that recurs in the recounting of Syndrome's evil plan that restates an earlier beat, to wit that to make everyone super would be to make the quality of being super meaningless, and it's a beat that's neither necessary for the action of the movie nor something that's ever refuted in the remainder the movie. It expresses an idea that, to me, is woven throughout the movie and appears in Ratatouille as well, I just felt that the particular statement of it there was the best and clearest textual example of that theme made explicit- it's not necessarily a moment that's important in of itself.

[swo17]

Well, if everyone had superpowers, they would presumably just be called normalpowers, and after an interesting period of adjustment, people would likely begin to take them for granted just like they do their current normalpowers. (For example, when was the last time you sat back in awe at the body's digestive process, that you can just put food in your mouth and the body will miraculously extract nutrients from it and discard the rest?) See also Louis C.K.'s bit about the miracle of modern flight.

[zedz]

I seriously believe that each individual person has the potential to be great, given the right tools, and I think it's only right to give everyone those tools.

I assume tho' that:

B. you'll agree that giving everyone superpowers is more like giving everyone elite-level athletic abilities than giving them access to the tools to succeed, and that this does not actually represent what your values purport.

If we're going to be playing around with potential metaphors, why can't we consider that giving everybody superpowers is equivalent to giving everybody semi-automatic weapons? To me, that's a far more obvious (and far more frightening) analogy.

[matrixschmatrix]

Well, if everyone had superpowers, they would presumably just be called normalpowers, and after an interesting period of adjustment, people would likely begin to take them for granted just like they do their current normalpowers. (For example, when was the last time you sat back in awe at the body's digestive process, that you can just put food in your mouth and the body will miraculously extract nutrients from it and discard the rest?) See also Louis C.K.'s bit about the miracle of modern flight.

Wouldn't that be great, though? I mean, assuming there's no class distinction set up for who gets them and who doesn't- which is a large assumption, but one the movie seemingly makes (if Syndrome had said he was going to sell his tech off so that the rich could be superpowered and the poor could be screwed, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation)- the ability to fly to Australia by tomorrow, or fix your vision with lasers, or use satellites to find your way anywhere in the world, those are all really cool things and things I'm delighted that I have access to, even if I don't always think much about it. If someone out there had the means to make that all happen but didn't want you to have it out of a sense that you probably wouldn't be able to handle all that, or that it would make their possession of those things less valuable, would that not be infuriating?

[movielocke]

and it's been a few years, but I don't recall Syndrome planning on giving away the source of his powers, rather his planned seemed to hinge on acquiring the ability to neutralize or replicate all other powers, therefore making himself the only superhero.

[domino harvey]

See that's something I genuinely disagree with- I think being special, being especially worthy of respect or admiration, should be based not on what abilities one has intrinsically but on the choices one makes and what one makes of one's abilities. Giving everyone powers (or talents, or education, or whatever other metaphorical potency you want there) isn't Harrison Bergeron, where the high growing stalks are cut down to make everyone equal at a low level, it's a world in which everyone is raised to an equal and wonderful base state from which they can prove themselves via dedication or whatever. I seriously believe that each individual person has the potential to be great, given the right tools, and I think it's only right to give everyone those tools.

Only in the same way that eggs, milk, sugar, and flour have the potential to be cake, or cookies, or whatever. That doesn't mean anything. It's like praising granite for having the potential to be a sculpted statue. Everyone is most certainly not equal-- if everyone is special, then no one is, and that to me is not a bad thing but a beautiful, wonderful thing. Thank God we're not on the same field. Some people have innate skills, others work hard to craft them-- like the apocryphal Arnold Palmer quote about the more one practices, the luckier they get-- but the idea that all things considered everyone has the same chances is naive. Let me put it plain terms of aesthetics: what of physical beauty? Beauty, besides being a constantly evolving, culturally-dependant concept, is predicated on scarcity. If everyone was "beautiful," no one would be because the accepted idea would cease to be valuable. This is why ugly people are important, and life is all the better if you're not one. If everyone had identical skills or abilities, these abilities would be meaningless and some new barometer of difference would have to be found. I understand the Marxist idealism, but the very medium which we all spend so much time and energy on is itself built on an idea of some stories, some actors, some technicians, some writers, some directors, etc being better than others. That's what makes for competition resulting in quality product-- why would everyone bother to prove themselves or make great art or aim to make waves if "greatness" was a given?

[zedz]

I've got to say, it seems a little eccentric to be basing an elaborate political argument around the film's McGuffin. It's really neither here nor there whether Syndrome's evil plan is to give everybody superpowers, give nobody superpowers, poison the water supply, blow up Las Vegas, or randomly sex-change every third person - all the meat of the film lies elsewhere, and one evil scheme is interchangeable for another. It's like reducing a discussion of Foreign Correspondent to a debate on whether or not there should be secret clauses in international treaties in the first place, and what the implications for international law would be if this were the case.

[matrixschmatrix]

Only in the same way that eggs, milk, sugar, and flour have the potential to be cake, or cookies, or whatever. That doesn't mean anything. It's like praising granite for having the potential to be a sculpted statue. Everyone is most certainly not equal-- if everyone is special, then no one is, and that to me is not a bad thing but a beautiful, wonderful thing. Thank God we're not on the same field. Some people have innate skills, others work hard to craft them-- like the apocryphal Arnold Palmer quote about the more one practices, the luckier they get-- but the idea that all things considered everyone has the same chances is naive. Let me put it plain terms of aesthetics: what of physical beauty? Beauty, besides being a constantly evolving, culturally-dependant concept, is predicated on scarcity. If everyone was "beautiful," no one would be because the accepted idea would cease to be valuable. This is why ugly people are important, and life is all the better if you're not one. If everyone had identical skills or abilities, these abilities would be meaningless and some new barometer of difference would have to be found. I understand the Marxist idealism, but the very medium which we all spend so much time and energy on is itself built on an idea of some stories, some actors, some technicians, some writers, some directors, etc being better than others. That's what makes for competition resulting in quality product-- why would everyone bother to prove themselves or make great art or aim to make waves if "greatness" was a given?

I think ugly people are important for reasons other than creating a relief against which the beautiful can be measured! I think that what differentiates one movie from another, in an ideal world, would not be filmmaking talent or budget or scarcity, but what it was the filmmakers were trying to express, and what means they chose to express it. Moreover, talent and greatness can express themselves in different ways, even within a given field; the greatness of Mike Leigh, as a filmmaker, is surely different from that of Fritz Lang or Spike Jonze or Nicholas Ray, but that doesn't mean that any one talent is better or more valuable than another; I don't think that I love any of them because I can see others who tried to do what they do and failed. People could try to make great art because they had a burning need to express what was within them, as is true I think for a lot of my favorite artists- if granting them greatness meant that they could all express it that much more successfully, I think that would be a marvelous thing.

I've got to say, it seems a little eccentric to be basing an elaborate political argument around the film's McGuffin. It's really neither here nor there whether Syndrome's evil plan is to give everybody superpowers, give nobody superpowers, poison the water supply, blow up Las Vegas, or randomly sex-change every third person - all the meat of the film lies elsewhere, and one evil scheme is interchangeable for another. It's like reducing a discussion of Foreign Correspondent to a debate on whether or not there should be secret clauses in international treaties in the first place, and what the implications for international law would be if this were the case.

It's not really the McGuffin, though, because it's not necessary at all to the plot- the war profiteering part, where he sends a robot he then kills to look like a hero (shades of Watchmen again!), makes perfect sense as a plan on its own. The 'I'll make everyone a hero!' part is an added fillip that seems to be there solely to express an idea, as it never comes to fruition and serves no plot function.

[matrixschmatrix]

The exact line, if it clarifies the discussion, is

And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions, so everyone can be Superheroes, everyone can be Super! And when everyone's Super-- (he turns) -- no one will be.

[knives]

Matrix, I think you are missing out on one important component in your Hegelian argument that crushes your binary and which the film emphasizes throughout which is the human capability of emotion. That quality is what turns your Star Trek utopia into a pretty wretched state.

[matrixschmatrix]

Can you expand on that at all? I'm not sure I take your meaning.

[domino harvey]

I think that what differentiates one movie from another, in an ideal world, would not be filmmaking talent or budget or scarcity, but what it was the filmmakers were trying to express, and what means they chose to express it. Moreover, talent and greatness can express themselves in different ways, even within a given field; the greatness of Mike Leigh, as a filmmaker, is surely different from that of Fritz Lang or Spike Jonze or Nicholas Ray, but that doesn't mean that any one talent is better or more valuable than another; I don't think that I love any of them because I can see others who tried to do what they do and failed. People could try to make great art because they had a burning need to express what was within them, as is true I think for a lot of my favorite artists- if granting them greatness meant that they could all express it that much more successfully, I think that would be a marvelous thing.

"What they were trying to express and how they express it" sounds like an argument built around either Authorial Intent or Moralist Judgement, neither a productive avenue of defense for art! What's more, your approach is very Romantic: In an ideal world, there's a singular artist who desperately needed to impart this particular vision on the world and (s)he does and therefore it's no better or worse than another artist's dissimilar but equally fervid vision? You can't seriously believe this to be so? To use your examples, of course there's more value in the filmography of Nic Ray than Spike Jonze, using any barometer of measurement. Is this a subjective statement and viewpoint? Absolutely. But that's what taste is. You appear to be proposing a white bread doctrine, a system of equality that robs art of the right to be bad (or good). Why would anyone who actively engages in art want that?

[knives]

Can you expand on that at all? I'm not sure I take your meaning.

Your take on allowing everyone to be super presupposes that such a dramatic change wouldn't affect why people want to be super in the first place which is an act entirely predicated on emotions. Whether those emotions are passion, a sense of duty, vengeance, love, or anything else there's an emotional core there. The film focuses in on the passion part of things, the happiness one gets when one does something right that they aren't sure that they can. Take away that challenge and you hurt that passion. To go with Dom's example if everyone looked like Alain Delon and Veronica Lake why would anyone bother with keeping up appearances? The art of beauty would go to the wayside which is something that horrifies me personally especially when you expand that to cooking, art, social activism, etc.

[matrixschmatrix]

The different visions may be intrinsically of equal value, or at least created with equal talent and resources, without meaning that I value them equally- Nick Ray means more to me as an artist than Spike Jonze does, but I don't think that's best on some abstract or absolute notion of which is the better filmmaker, it's based on my reaction to them, coming from my viewpoint. If someone disagrees, and they can explain why such that I can understand why Jonze means so much to them, that's a good thing, no?

I don't think a world in which each filmmaker was equally talented would deny taste at all, though it would probably make it horrifically difficult to achieve any kind of consensus canon- like, I absolutely hate Michael Haneke, and all the arguments I've heard about any aspect of his filmography that make him a great or important filmmaker do nothing to make me enjoy or take anything out of his movies in any greater degree. Presumably, that would be true regardless of how equal or unequal the world of filmmaking was. To me, one's judgment of a movie is almost purely subjective- otherwise, I'd just look at RottenTomatoes or whatever, instead of working them out and trying to discuss them in a way that lets me in on other's views. Hopefully, if I watch some of these movies again, I'll be able to see them the way knives or zeds or Sausage or whoever sees them, and get still more out of them.

I do wish I could stop turning every discussion into the MatrixSchmatrix Symposium on Philosophy of Art, though- I'm annoyed with myself, and surely I'm not alone in that.

Can you expand on that at all? I'm not sure I take your meaning.

Your take on allowing everyone to be super presupposes that such a dramatic change wouldn't affect why people want to be super in the first place which is an act entirely predicated on emotions. Whether those emotions are passion, a sense of duty, vengeance, love, or anything else there's an emotional core there. The film focuses in on the passion part of things, the happiness one gets when one does something right that they aren't sure that they can. Take away that challenge and you hurt that passion. To go with Dom's example if everyone looked like Alain Delon and Veronica Lake why would anyone bother with keeping up appearances? The art of beauty would go to the wayside which is something that horrifies me personally especially when you expand that to cooking, art, social activism, etc.

Maybe I'm not explaining myself well, but I'm not asking for a world in which everyone looks the same- I think we can achieve a world in which everyone's own particular beauty is visible in some way, which would emphasize individuality rather than suppressing it (which, to me, is among the functions of 'keeping up appearances', trying to achieve a set standard of beauty.)

If I understand your other point correctly, it's that in effect if you have everyone born Superman then there's nobody who will have the dedication or passion needed to become Batman, yes? That making the whole world effectively luxuried aristocrats would negate any emotional drive to create art or science or commerce or whatever? If so- I don't think I agree; look at Renoir, or Visconti, both of whom were surely born with all the privileges of art and place in society that one could want, and do not seem to have been hagridden by an particular demons. The Brave New World scenario, in which everyone is made vapid and shallow by the total absence of want, seems to me to require total stagnancy, a world in which no expansion or achievement is possible, and I don't think that eliminating want or even giving everyone unlimited energy or whatever other magic want would create that- there's space, there's the mind, there's spirituality, there's tens of thousands of years of extant culture, all of which are worlds that even the most fully satisfied person might wish to conquer.

[Mr Sausage]

As for your previous post, I'm not sure of how I can address it without repeating myself.

You still need to address how a movie can be opposed to the mundane while trying its hardest to make its superheros more mundane. Again, here's a superhero movie that makes it hero the victim of a kind of midlife crisis, whose female counterpart worries about her weight, and whose young female hero has self-esteem issues. But this is a movie that's setting these people in opposition to "the mundane"?

[zedz]

I've got to say, it seems a little eccentric to be basing an elaborate political argument around the film's McGuffin. It's really neither here nor there whether Syndrome's evil plan is to give everybody superpowers, give nobody superpowers, poison the water supply, blow up Las Vegas, or randomly sex-change every third person - all the meat of the film lies elsewhere, and one evil scheme is interchangeable for another. It's like reducing a discussion of Foreign Correspondent to a debate on whether or not there should be secret clauses in international treaties in the first place, and what the implications for international law would be if this were the case.

It's not really the McGuffin, though, because it's not necessary at all to the plot- the war profiteering part, where he sends a robot he then kills to look like a hero (shades of Watchmen again!), makes perfect sense as a plan on its own. The 'I'll make everyone a hero!' part is an added fillip that seems to be there solely to express an idea, as it never comes to fruition and serves no plot function.

Well, the essence of a McGuffin is that it's inessential - anything would do - and it's irrelevant whether Syndrome's plan has one, two, or seventeen interlocking parts to it.

Given the quote you provided, I'm even more amazed that you're basing your entire thesis on a throwaway add-on to the McGuffin. If Bird were really a passionate Randian seeking to indoctrinate the kiddies, don't you think he'd make his big message a little more central to the film? I bet if you asked ten kids at random, five minutes after the end of the film, what Syndrome's big plan was, none of them would remember that detail.

And if you tried to figure out what message they did take away from the film, it would most likely boil down to the one that was baked into the entire film and was reflected in the characters they identified with: that it sucks to have to be something that you're not. It sucks to have to play dumb when you're smart; it sucks to have to play straight when you're gay; (taking an actual example from the film) it sucks to have to fit into a tiny cubicle when you're well north of 300 pounds.

[matrixschmatrix]

As for your previous post, I'm not sure of how I can address it without repeating myself.

You still need to address how a movie can be opposed to the mundane while trying its hardest to make its superheros more mundane. Again, here's a superhero movie that makes it hero the victim of a kind of midlife crisis, whose female counterpart worries about her weight, and whose young female hero has self-esteem issues. But this is a movie that's setting these people in opposition to "the mundane"?

Hmm, I'm struggling to answer this point somewhat, but here's what I have:

In the world of The Incredibles, mundane life seems to be hellish. Every petty defeat of day to day life is magnified enormously, and there seems to be no compensation for it- outside of trips to the extraordinary world. The extraordinary world doesn't really seem to require sacrifice, as it's possible to integrate one's family and friends into it, and the everyday personalities of the heroes seem to stress more that there isn't a Last Temptation-esque dichotomy here; it's possible to maintain one's identity as an ordinary person and to keep the everyday pleasures of life while in the world beyond.

As such, there's a pretty clear hierarchy, where the extraordinary is simply and entirely better than the ordinary. That's not at all universal to heroic fiction or comic books- it's a very established trait of both Batman and Superman that they would love nothing more than to be able to retire their capes and live as normal people, free of the burden of responsibility (though for Batman, the inability to retire is as much internal as external, as he seemingly cannot bear ordinary family pleasures properly.)

That said, it's a view of the world that's also present in, say, Harry Potter, and it didn't much bother me there. Perhaps the difference is that Harry seemed as though he could live happily in the mundane world if not actively being oppressed, where as Mr. Incredible has a simmering, almost abusive anger over a life that doesn't seem especially difficult, with a supportive wife and a livable if unpleasant job- he acts out in some fairly upsetting ways (deceiving his wife, physically attacking his boss) but it feels as though, in the movie's view, he's fundamentally correct to do so. It may be as simple as that I actually do a job not dissimilar to his (I investigate insurance claims rather than making the decision about whether they should be accepted or denied, but still) and, you know, I live with it- fantasies in which I get to be bigger and stronger than everyone else and they just don't understand how important I really am seem juvenile in a way that Rand's work always strikes me as being. So perhaps I was primed to jump on the much discussed line (along with Dash's earlier expression of the sentiment) as being indicative of the greater philosophy of the movie- and as someone who views himself as being fundamentally on the side of the mundane, I find that perceived philosophy upsetting.

[Mr Sausage]

In the world of The Incredibles, mundane life seems to be hellish. Every petty defeat of day to day life is magnified enormously, and there seems to be no compensation for it- outside of trips to the extraordinary world. The extraordinary world doesn't really seem to require sacrifice, as it's possible to integrate one's family and friends into it, and the everyday personalities of the heroes seem to stress more that there isn't a Last Temptation-esque dichotomy here; it's possible to maintain one's identity as an ordinary person and to keep the everyday pleasures of life while in the world beyond.

The mundane is hellish for whom? Everybody? Every aspect of it? Your generalizations are so vague. Worse, you're continually implying they are the film's generalizations.

All we have are some people stuck in a boring, suburban, middle-class life that doesn't give them much satisfaction, a pretty common experience. That's the extent of it. The question the film poses is: should they stay there or not.

Perhaps the difference is that Harry seemed as though he could live happily in the mundane world if not actively being oppressed, where as Mr. Incredible has a simmering, almost abusive anger over a life that doesn't seem especially difficult, with a supportive wife and a livable if unpleasant job- he acts out in some fairly upsetting ways (deceiving his wife, physically attacking his boss) but it feels as though, in the movie's view, he's fundamentally correct to do so. It may be as simple as that I actually do a job not dissimilar to his (I investigate insurance claims rather than making the decision about whether they should be accepted or denied, but still) and, you know, I live with it- fantasies in which I get to be bigger and stronger than everyone else and they just don't understand how important I really am seem juvenile in a way that Rand's work always strikes me as being. So perhaps I was primed to jump on the much discussed line (along with Dash's earlier expression of the sentiment) as being indicative of the greater philosophy of the movie- and as someone who views himself as being fundamentally on the side of the mundane, I find that perceived philosophy upsetting.

Sounds like you're refusing to take the movie on its own terms. If you refuse to accept that Mr. Incredible could be deeply unhappy with his job, or that in the logic of a movie in which superheroes actually exist Mr. Incredible really is an important person going unrecognized, or even accept that the movie might want to find the joy in its heroes rather than burden them with a lot of heavy guilt or anguish, well, dialogue about the movie isn't possible. You refuse to accept even the basic premises of the movie.

I don't know what it means to be "on the side of the mundane," or even what it means to be against the mundane, aside from not personally liking it, which many people don't. I don't understand what you think you're fighting for. You seem to be upset that the the movie dares to suggest that you shouldn't just accept the life that's been handed to you but reach for something more, for the things that truly make you happy. Worse, you actually seem to think that Mr. Incredible--and I guess everyone else--ought to just accept their lot even if they'd rather be spending their life doing something else. I'm sorry, but while I'm not big fan of the movie, I'll take its message over yours any day. I'm on the side of people who fight to rid themselves of their shackles, not the people who think we should accept them.

I assume Terry Gilliam must be a pretty terrible filmmaker in your eyes.

[matrixschmatrix]

I don't think this is a productive argument at this point, since I don't seem to be getting across what I want to say meaningfully

[Mr Sausage]

I don't think this is a productive argument at this point, since I don't seem to be getting across what I want to say meaningfully

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding you.

[matrixschmatrix]

I was serious when I said I need to stop posting about this kind of thing, because I seem to be powerless to keep it from bogging down horribly- I post things that make sense to me, and get responses that seem like they don't relate to what I had meant to say. Obviously, since this happens consistently, it's on my end, but I find the process really frustrating and I'm just going to bail instead of dragging this out further.

[dustybooks]

This conversation is basically a repeat of widespread concerns about The Incredibles that happened back in 2004 -- I seem to recall a lot of consternation about its supposed Nietzschean subtext in the NYT's op-ed pages. I ultimately find the film to be a screed against simple conformity, to which end it's very nearly a remake of the Twilight Zone episode "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You" -- only with far more interesting characters. But I do think an argument could be made that the film is on the wrong foot with the dialogue about certain people being more "special" than others, and this was certainly a subversive thing to broadcast in a Pixar feature (up to this point, all of their films had been a bit more benign thematically). Brad Bird in general tends to put a little too much extraneous stuff in his screenplays, wandering away from the essence of his story (see also the rats-shouldn't-interact-with-people stuff in Ratatouille). Still think that overall the movie is pretty brilliant, though.

[swo17]

Pardon me for continuing to trawl through old posts in this thread, but there are tons of great recommendations there...

here are some of the experimental / non-narrative works I'll be considering for inclusion:

Pawlowski: Cineforms

So have you ended up deciding to classify this as animation after all? If so, I'd be interested to hear your reasoning behind that. It's an amazing film to be sure (see for yourself, if you haven't already) but if it uses any animation techniques, I'm not aware.

Norman McLaren - I need to do an immersive rewatch, but I'm sure to be voting for Begone Dull Care and Blinkity Blank.

Synchromy would be near the top of my list if I was voting

I'm curious how familiar you are with the rest of McLaren's work, or say, with Oskar Fischinger, because they've both done plenty of other great stuff in this same vein (i.e. animating images that bring the musical notes to life), perhaps even enough to fill out an entire top 50! The latter's short Study No. 7 (sorry for the weird link, it was the best I could find--just wait for the ad to end to watch the film) is one of my absolute favorite films of all time.

[zedz]

Pardon me for continuing to trawl through old posts in this thread, but there are tons of great recommendations there...

here are some of the experimental / non-narrative works I'll be considering for inclusion:

Pawlowski: Cineforms

So have you ended up deciding to classify this as animation after all? If so, I'd be interested to hear your reasoning behind that. It's an amazing film to be sure (see for yourself, if you haven't already) but if it uses any animation techniques, I'm not aware.

I haven't decided yet - it will probably depend how many films I have to try and cram into my final 50. I assume that it's all done with prisms and such, but without knowing for sure, I'm also happy to abide by the loosey-goosey PWA definition of animation when it comes to abstract imagery (as opposed to the photographed dramatic action of, say, New Book).

[matrixschmatrix]

Speaking of Fischinger- I'm planning on voting for Motion Painting No. 1, with Study No. 7 as a maybe (pending a rewatch.) Is anyone planning to vote for anything else of his? They seem to me to encompass the height of his creativity with the former- which feels almost like an entire medium unto itself, besides being physically very lovely- and the sheer joy of his work with the latter.