Since 2002, the International Animated Film Association has celebrated October 28 as International Animation Day. The date was chosen in honor of the 1892 opening of Émile Reynaud’s Théâtre Optique in Paris, which presented the first public showings of motion pictures on film. Reynaud’s projectors were very different from those that Auguste and Louis Lumière would introduce three years later; as the Lumière technology became the standard, Reynaud’s contributions have often been overlooked.
In honor of the day, we look at the history of the animated feature film.
The first animated feature was El Apóstol, a 1917 Argentinian satiricial film made in a form of stop-motion animation using cutout figures. The protagonist, a representation of the Argentinian president, goes to the heavens, planning to use the thunderbolts of the gods to destroy Buenos Aires for its corruption and hypocrisy. No copies of the film are known to exist, and it is believed to be a lost film.
The oldest surviving animated feature was made in 1926. Lotte Reiniger worked in silhouette animation, and The Adventures of Prince Achmed (DVD) adapts stories from One Thousand and One Nights. Reiniger developed a new technique for creating multiplane effects, separating her figures with panes of glass to create multiple levels and allow objects to pass in front of one another.
The first sound cartoons appeared in the mid-1920s, and color was introduced in the early 1930s. Walt Disney Studios combined the new technologies in 1937 for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (DVD), the first full-color animated feature. It was also the first hand-drawn cel animation feature film—the few previous features had been in various forms of stop-motion animation —and Hollywood was immensely skeptical that the movie would succeed. It was an expensive movie, with a budget of almost $1.5 million, and was commonly referred to as “Disney’s folly.” The gamble paid off, and the movie was the box-office hit of 1938, making four times as much as any other movie that year.
For the next several decades, most animated features were made in cel animation, and Disney movies dominated the market. It wasn’t until the 1990s that there was enough competition in the market for anyone to think of giving awards to the year’s best work. The Annie Awards, which were created in 1972 as a way to honor lifetime achievement in animation, added a Best Animated Feature award in 1992; the first winner was Beauty and the Beast (DVD).
Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, and the only one to do so under the old limit of five nominees; since the expansion from five to as many as ten nominees, two more animated films—Up (DVD) and Toy Story 3 (DVD) —have also been nominated for Best Picture. The Academy Awards, which had been honoring animated short films since 1932, finally created an award for Best Animated Feature in 2001, giving the first award to Shrek (DVD).
In 1995, Toy Story (DVD) was the first fully computer-animated feature film; computer animation has since come to dominate the animation industry.
We often think of animated films as being for children, but animators are quick to note that animation is a technique, not a genre—that is, it’s a way to tell a wide range of stories, not a specific type of story. Animated films can tell stories for all audiences, and don’t even have to be fiction; the Israeli war documentary Waltz With Bashir (DVD) was the first animated film to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
To close, here’s a sampling of ten animated feature films from the last decade, movies made in a variety of animation techniques and styles, telling a variety of stories, directed at a variety of audiences.
Sita Sings the Blues (streaming) —In this semi-autobiographical story, director Nina Paley tells the story of her marriage, juxtaposed against tales from Indian mythology, with musical interludes from 30s jazz singer Annette Hanshaw; each part of the movie is animated in a different style.
The Secret of Kells (streaming | DVD) —Inspired by Celtic art, this Irish fantasy tells the story of a 12-year-old boy living with his uncle at the monastery where the illuminated manuscript known as the Book of Kells is being prepared.
A Town Called Panic (streaming | DVD) —Based on a popular Belgian television series, this is a raucous tale of best friends Cowboy, Indian, and Horse, and a birthday surprise that goes terribly, horribly wrong. The kids will love it, but its surreal goofiness is fun for grownups, too.
A Cat in Paris (streaming | DVD) —A young girl follows her cat through Paris one night, and is led into an adventure that one critic describes as “Hitchcock for middle-schoolers and up.”
Chico and Rita (streaming | DVD) —Havana in the late 1940s and early 1950s is the setting for this romance between a pianist and a nightclub singer.
The Rabbi’s Cat (streaming | DVD) —When the rabbi’s cat eats the rabbi’s parrot, he gains the ability to speak, and the rabbi decides to teach him the Torah. The story is set in 1920s Algeria, and the animation is modeled on 1930s work by Dave and Max Fleisher, best known for their Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons.
The Painting (streaming | DVD) —An artist has left his painting unfinished, and conflict is rising between the characters who have been fully painted and those who have not. Three of the painting’s characters—one finished, one only half-painted, and one a mere sketch—leave the painting in search of the artist, hoping that he will complete his work and end the tension.
The Wind Rises (DVD) —Hayao Miyazaki is the master of Japanese animation, and his most recent film is a loose biography of the engineer who designed the aircraft used by the Japanese during World War II.
Tower (streaming | DVD) —Archival footage and animation are combined in this documentary about the 1996 University of Texas tower shooting, in which sixteen people were killed.
Loving Vincent (streaming | DVD) —This biography of Vincent Van Gogh uses the technique of rotoscoping, in which actors are filmed and each frame of the film is traced by the animators. In this case, each frame is individually oil painted in the style of Van Gogh, with backgrounds modeled after specific paintings. More than 100 painters worked for more than 4 years to create the movie, which co-director Hugh Welchman calls “the slowest form of filmmaking ever devised.”
Also This Week
October 28, 1929
John Hollander was born. Hollander was a poet and literary critic, praised for his skill at (and fondness for) writing poetry within technical constraints that might have seemed overly confining. He stressed the importance of hearing poetry read out loud, and thought of poetry as a kind of music, which may be why so many composers have set him to music, including the unlikely pair of 60s electronic composer Milton Babbitt (Philomel) and the Eagles (the song “No More Walks in the Wood”). Hollander’s best work is collected in Selected Poetry (e-book | print).
On the same day, Joan Plowright was born. Plowright is a stage and film actress who rose to prominence through her 1960s work at London’s National Theater; the National’s 1970 production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters was filmed for theatrical release. Plowright began working more often in film in the 1990s and received an Academy Award nomination for the 1992 movie Enchanted April. Plowright announced her retirement from acting in 2014, after losing her eyesight to macular degeneration.
November 1, 1938
The two finest racehorses of the era, Seabiscuit and War Admiral, met in a match race at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course. War Admiral was the heavy favorite, because he usually jumped out to an early lead, an advantage in head-to-head races. But Seabiscuit’s trainer had worked with the horse, teaching him to run faster out of the gate, and Seabiscuit led most of the way, winning by four lengths. Laura Hillenbrand’s classic biography is Seabiscuit (e-book | e-audio | print | audio); Tobey Maguire and Jeff Bridges star in the 2003 film adaptation.
October 28, 1939
Andy Bey was born. Bey is a jazz singer and pianist who began performing in the late 1950s in a trio with his sisters. They performed for a decade, recording three albums. Bey worked mostly as a sideman in the 1970s and 1980s, before beginning a successful career as a solo performer and recording artist in the 1990s. Several of Bey’s albums are available for streaming at Hoopla.