2. Norman McLaren once said that "animation is not the art of drawings that move but
the art of movements that are drawn" (Furniss 6). This quote resonates with me on different
levels. The intuitive way of constructing a story frame by frame fuels my passion for
animation. Just as art history has nourished my imagination.
This fall when I attended the Ottawa International Animation Festival I made
sure to walk through the National Art Gallery. While standing in front of paintings and
following my mind as it traveled through the colours, brush strokes and symbols I was taken
somewhere else. I experienced similar feelings of escapism watching the films at the festival. I
want to incorporate these points of inspiration into my graduation film. A film that stood
out for me at the festival was Dustin Grella's Prayers for Peace. The usage of medium to
coincide with the message has been a constant referral point for my own film. The film is
stop motion animated with pastels that linger from frame to frame like memories. The style
of film will correlate with my theme and subjects as well.
In the spring of 2006 on a trip to New York, I was wandering through the
Metropolitan Museum of Art and stumbled upon a special exhibition called Glitter and
Doom. This exhibition was comprised of German portraits from the 1920s from artists like
Otto Dix, Max Beckmann George Grosz. The paintings and sketches featured in the
exhibition were a part of the Neau Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) art movement. The
characters in my grad film will be created with Otto Dix's use of sketchy line and rich jewel
colours. Subjects that sat for Dix had "to accept the artist's savage distortions and forgive his
embrace of ugliness in a direct challenge to the conventional concept of portraiture" (Sabine
6). My experience of walking through this exhibition and being deeply moved by the images
on the wall inspired me to further research the art and culture of this time period. The
3. binary of glitter and doom in Germany in the 1920's particularly fascinated me. After the
First World War, Germany suffered from economic and political turmoil. This was
paralleled by the emergence of the creative arts and a vibrant open nightlife. The portraits
made by these artists were able to stand as reflections of the absurd and devastating events
that took place in their recent history.
When embarking on my grad film I knew that my main goal was to create an
animation that would act as a cohesive addition to this exhibition. Finding a story that
would expand on this idea of glitter and doom was a challenge. Through rereading the
exhibition book and reading other books including Eric D. Weitz' Weimar Germany: Promise
and Tragedy and Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, I decided that a war cripple with a
previous past as a dancer would serve this purpose. The traumas of war had physically and
mentally affected soldiers long after the war. During this time period there were millions of
injured soldiers who returned to Germany unable to receive any support from the
government or significant medical aid. Alongside the prostitutes, war cripples adorned the
streets begging for money to survive. During the night, patrons of jazz and burlesque clubs
shared these streets as well. Otto Dix's Metropolis triptych illustrated this with a collection of
dancers, jazz musicians, prostitutes and war cripples. The streets were a mixture of high class
and homeless, art lovers and sexual deviants and those who distracted themselves from the
dire times that had been, were and to come and those who dwelled in it.
Archie, the main character used to be a dancer before the First World War. Archie
had the ability to command an audience with the movement of his body and charismatic
spirit. The horrors he saw in the front lines dissipated his soul. During the war, part of his
leg was blown of due to an explosion in the trenches. Due to his loss of wealth, status and
4. limb he was shunned away from the community he once starred in. This is why he decides to
end his life.
Other media that has inspired me includes Pink Floyd’s The Wall and the original
Metropolis. The use of revealing information in The Wall particularly fascinated me.
Throughout the whole film we see the main character struggle with his personal demons and
at the end find out he is the leader of the hateful party. This is a device that I will use
throughout my film to take the audience on a journey of exploration and explanation. The
utter chaos in the various war scenes depicts it as wasteful and damaging. This is something I
would like to reiterate in my own film. Metropolis was made in Germany in the 1920’s. The
split of the two classes in this film relates to division of society in my own film. The futuristic
building landscapes are something I wish to allude to in my film due to the film’s lasting
impact on me.
My ambitions would be to have my film play at independent film festivals around
the world. The intended audience would be adult. I wish that my film could transcend all
appropriate demographics and everyone would escape into it. This film serves as a personal
challenge to accomplish creating my first film. The utmost achievement for me will be that I
am personally proud of my film.
My love for art history and interest in this time period coupled with my passion
for animation and storytelling serves as the foundation of my desire to create this film. I
would like this film to read as an Otto Dix painting that has come to life, and ultimately
death.
5. Works Cited:
Furniss, Maureen. Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics. John Libbey Publishing, 2008.
Rewald, Sabine. Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s. Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 2006.
