Typically animation is a children’s film requirement. If you see animation most people almost immediately think it some Disney kids movie. While many children’s movies are loved and admired by all ages the genre is still made to entertain children. I think when adult films use animation they play off the childlike innocence animation has to drive their point home.
The French film Persepolis, directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi, and a section of Kill Bill, directed by Quentin Tarantino, are two very non children’s films that use animation in them. I think each film uses the animation in a variety of ways to benefit the film as a whole. The black and white animated film, Persepolis, derived its look from the original comic book autobiography of one of the films directors, Marjane Satrapi. Tarantino’s Kill Bill slips into animation only once when telling of the childhood of the psychotic Oren Ishi. Both films use a very comic book style of animation. I would assume this style stems from the roots of the directors’ personal tastes.
By using animation and the comic book style of animation I think it allows the directors to make a point that is more easily digested through the unassuming animation. Persepolis makes its political point about Iran and Kill Bill gets to play off its bloodiness against the rest of the film.
Persepolis also uses the animation to allow humor into a very serious situation. I think it can more easily fall back to humor because the animation allows you to always fall back to the innocence animation has.
Good point, animation always has some innocence in it even when it is used in a violent mode. That is a really good subject that I never thought about until reading this blog. That is why as we talked about in class, animation is trying to get everyone to watch it. At same time it is saying a lot about adults, becasue as kids we watch animation but when we grow up, we are still attracted to it.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with the point made that "animation always has some innocence in it even when it is used in a violent mode." I believe the scene with young Oren Ishi in Kill Bill is animated not to show her innocence, but to emphasize "unbelievable" horror and "unreal" events. She was a little kid, so that automatically screams innocence. The animation helps pull this origin story out of this world. It makes the characters more sinister and monsterous. Faces are contorted and overexaggerated and the whole thing looks like a nightmare, an unbelieveable nightmare.
ReplyDeleteAnimation does have the ability to express innocence in subject matter, but I wouldn't say that animation itself always has some innocence. I view innocence as something that would be part of the subject matter of a film that is presented in a certain way. Animation definitely has brought life to many things that definitely do not fit the common idea of innocence, such as violent creatures in movies (i.e. the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park). One could argue that Persepolis stylistically looks innocent, but when you look at subject matter; it focuses on many harsh elements, such as wartime, violent revolution, and people arguably being stripped of their human rights. It’s hard to justify those elements as innocent, but the contrast of subject matter with style does have an important effect in perhaps causing the audience to greater relate to the characters. Generally, characters that appear ‘cute’ gain the audiences sympathy, and when those characters are put in disturbing, harsh situations there is an impact on the viewer. It’s not enough to assume that animation always has innocence, animation can the ability to be extremely broad and diverse, with the ability to over exaggerate and express ideas in ways that other forms of film cannot.
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