A short film that’s mostly puppetry by one of the wild insane men of American twentieth century art, Joseph Cornell.
Monthly Archives: December 2010
Short Documenatry Film About Animator Mary Ellen Bute
The National Film Preservation Board of The Library of Congress has added a film to its National Film Registry by Mary Ellen Bute called Tarantella (1940). Here’s a short documentary about this animator and her total dedication to her art. Cartoon Brew has more information about the recent additions to the Registry.
Glass Boulevard
Filmed in the dullest imaginable environment of shops along a major Los Angeles street at night when the shops were closed.
My Christmas film.
The music is a public domain recording of Artie Shaw and his orchestra playing ‘There’s Something in the Air’ in 1936. The singer is Peg LaCentra. I found it at the Internet Archive.
The Fabulous World of Jules Verne: 1958 Film by Karel Zeman
Czechoslovakian animator Karel Zeman made The Fabulous World of Jules Verne in 1958 and it is, without exception, the finest example of Verne on film that I have ever seen. It is an adaptation of Verne’s novel, Facing the Flag. The combination of live action and Mysti-Mation (sets and animation painted to look like illustrations) not only evokes the atmosphere of old book illustrations, but it evokes the visual act of imagination that happens when I read a Jules Verne book. This film is perfection. I’m somewhat distrustful of the ‘steampunk’ movement but I would certainly imagine that this film must be one of its holy grail objects of worship. It should be for sure. Disney could never come close to this, then or now, because they are focused solely upon happiness.
Parts 2 through 8 after the jump!
Silent Night: Story of the Christmas Carol
A 1953 Coronet educational film about where ‘Silent Night’ comes from. Many will be already familiar with the story. But this film takes a nice calm and measured approach to the churchy little story. I like churches just fine. I just don’t like seeing people inside them.
Sally Saves Christmas
Some of the readers of this site will know that this story is the original piece of material behind Candlelight Stories. Back in 1994, I sat at a very flimsy folding table in a Los Angeles apartment with a box of pastels, crayons and ballpoint pens to scratch out a pile of illustrations that vaguely added up to some kind of Christmas tale. I still have all those original drawings in a big department store box.
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