The Surprise and Wonder of Early Animation
To consider how modern works might preserve the spirit of the playfully hand-drawn line, it’s helpful to watch cartoons made in the silent era. A nimated features have been big business since Walt Disney’s 1937 film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was that year’s top-grossing release. With the rise of digital animation in this century, the medium’s financial clout has grown even greater. In the past decade, at least nine animated films (headed by this year’s hyperrealistic version of “The Lion King”) have brought in more than a billion dollars each at the worldwide box office. Digital effects give animators vast powers to create extravagant fantasies; anything seems possible. Yet, with so much money at stake, the infinite capacities of the medium are often put to use for a narrow range of market-tested formulas. To rediscover the spontaneity, the free-flowing imagination, and the uninhibited sense of fun at the heart of the medium, go back to its beginnings. Leapfrog over the a...