• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • NEWS+OPINIONS
    • NEWS TO US
    • COLUMNS
      • APPARENT HORIZON
      • DEAR READER
      • Close
    • LONGFORM FEATURES
    • OPINIONS
    • EDITORIAL
    • Close
  • ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT
    • FILM
    • MUSIC
    • COMEDY
    • PERFORMING ARTS
    • VISUAL ARTS
    • Close
  • DINING+DRINKING
    • EATS
    • SIPS
    • Close
  • LIFESTYLE
    • CANNABIS
      • TALKING JOINTS MEMO
      • Close
    • WELLNESS
    • GTFO
    • Close
  • STUFF TO DO
  • TICKETS
  • ABOUT US
    • 5 DOUBLE-U’S
    • MASTHEAD
    • DISTRIBUTION
    • ADVERTISE
    • SUBMISSIONS
    • PRIVACY POLICY
    • Close
  • BECOME A MEMBER

Dig Bos

The Dig - Boston's Only Newspaper

CURRENT STREET EDITION

DIG 23.02 – 1/28/21

ANIMANIACS: TWO STANDOUT HAND-DRAWN ANIMATED FILMS TO CHECK OUT

Written by JAKE MULLIGAN Posted May 1, 2015 Filed Under: A+E, Film

FM_Cheatin_728

A grand irony has befallen the tradition of hand-drawn animation: The cost of making such films has grown so high that the only way left to produce them is on a low budget.

 

The Mouse House’s movies have been computer-generated and 3-D for roughly a decade now. And the rumored closure of Studio Ghibli will sound yet another death knell for this form. With that, the domain of Walt Disney will be unceremoniously donated to the independent scene.

 

The inheritors will include Oscar-nominated animator Bill Plympton, who’ll be presenting his new film Cheatin’ at the Brattle this Friday. (It’ll play there through May 4.) He uses rough strokes in animating his narrative, wherein a smitten lady steals the bulky beau of another, then sees her new man seduced away from her just as easily. The shading on the character’s features shifts from second-to-second, like a finely-textured flip-book.

 

The deliberately imperfect drawing-style isn’t the only thing linking Plympton’s film to the fine art of classroom doodling. He also employs virtually no dialogue during Cheatin’s 75 minutes, instead relying on broadly imagined visual signifiers to help him tell his story. His couple meets while riding bumper cars, and their first kiss gets electrified by the ride’s apparatus. When their shared bed grows cold, he illustrates a crack in its center. And when our man realizes the error of his eponymous ways, he speeds down the freeway, with his massive tears riding in the wind behind the vehicle, looking like lima beans. Plympton realizes romance as a series of over-exaggerated sense memories.

 

In these images, he occasionally finds the same fantastical poeticism that fueled silent cinema. But we also must note that he did not scribble this whole film onto a page, like a caveman onto a stone wall. There’s a three-dimensional smoothness to some of the more fluid images—like the blood violently bursting from a broken heart—in part because Plympton has merged his approach with a digital workflow. It clearly mitigated the difficulty of creating the most complicated images, the ones that pen and paper struggle to render. If this form has a future, it’ll be in hybrids like this.

 

That reminds us of Don Hertzfeldt, the cult animator whose short films about stick figures (like the legendary Rejected) have always been started and finished on pads of unscanned paper. He just completed his first digital short, World of Tomorrow, which—in his trademark deadpan-absurdist-existentialism mode—considers the Mobius-strip-style relationship between a young girl and her thrice-cloned future self. The latter briefs the former from “the outernet,” a perpetually shifting swirl of lines, shapes, and video screens.

 

Hertzfeldt’s drawings of stick-people also inhabit a surrealist space defined by its digitalness—by the smoothness and linearity it provides for his figures’ movement. And so another irony emerges from the work of artists like him and Plympton: An analog art form survives and thrives, by way of being computerized.

 

CHEATIN’. 5.1-5.4. BRATTLE THEATRE. 40 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. FOR SHOWTIMES SEE BRATTLEFILM.ORG.
WORLD OF TOMORROW IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FOR RENTAL AT VIMEO.COM/ONDEMAND/WORLDOFTOMORROW

JAKE MULLIGAN
More from author
  • JAKE MULLIGAN
    https://digboston.com/author/jake-mulligan/
    FILM REVIEW: "ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE"
  • JAKE MULLIGAN
    https://digboston.com/author/jake-mulligan/
    IN MEMORIAM: JOAN MICKLIN SILVER
  • JAKE MULLIGAN
    https://digboston.com/author/jake-mulligan/
    FILM REVIEW: "ON THE ROCKS"
  • JAKE MULLIGAN
    https://digboston.com/author/jake-mulligan/
    NOTES ON: "HAM ON RYE"

Filed Under: A+E, Film Tagged With: animated, Bill Plympton, Brattle Theatre, cheatin', hand drawn, oscar nominated, walt disney, world of tomorrow

WHAT’S NEW

SOMERVILLE MAYOR CURTATONE DROPS BOMBSHELL AHEAD OF MIDTERM ADDRESS

SOMERVILLE MAYOR CURTATONE DROPS BOMBSHELL AHEAD OF MIDTERM ADDRESS

CAMPBELL UNVEILS PLAN FOR POLICE TRANSPARENCY

CAMPBELL UNVEILS PLAN FOR POLICE TRANSPARENCY

SPECIAL FEATURE: THE CRUEL AND USUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST LGBTQ+ PEOPLE IN MASS PRISONS

SPECIAL FEATURE: THE CRUEL AND USUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST LGBTQ+ PEOPLE IN MASS PRISONS

INBOX: GROUP CALLS FOR BIDEN TO ABOLISH POLICE MILITARIZATION PROGRAM

INBOX: GROUP CALLS FOR BIDEN TO ABOLISH POLICE MILITARIZATION PROGRAM

WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR THE CITY AND STATE TO FINALLY SUPPORT MINORITY BUSINESS?

WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR THE CITY AND STATE TO FINALLY SUPPORT MINORITY BUSINESS?

HOMEWORK FOR BEACON HILL’S COVID EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS & MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE

HOMEWORK FOR BEACON HILL’S COVID EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS & MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE

Primary Sidebar

HEMPIRE FREEDOM PACK 25% OFF

FEATURED EVENT

Most Popular

  • SPECIAL FEATURE ON THE MASS STATE POLICE: TROOPER WILSON’S WAR by CHRIS FARAONE
  • [UPDATE: WE GOT IT!] WHERE IS THE CONTRACT FOR MASSACHUSETTS’ VACCINE APPOINTMENT SOFTWARE? by POLINA WHITEHOUSE
  • BOSTON LATIN ACADEMY GRADS FIGHT FOR REPRESENTATION IN ALUMNI GROUP by CHRIS FARAONE
  • DOES THE FORMER BPD COMMISSIONER EVEN LIVE IN BOSTON? by ZACK HUFFMAN
  • MASS KEEPS TRYING TO BUILD A NEW WOMEN’S PRISON OUTSIDE OF PUBLIC VIEW by DAN ATKINSON

READ CURRENT MEMBER EDITION

DIG Member 1.9 – 11/26/20

READ CURRENT STREET ISSUE

DIG 23.02 – 1/28/21

Footer

digbos

Includes Gang Green, The Freeze, SIEGE, TREE, and Includes Gang Green, The Freeze, SIEGE, TREE, and many more. https://digboston.com/iconic-lineup-comes-through-to-support-nantasket-venue-through-pandemic/ #music #digital #benefit #Hull #Massachusetts
Our interview with Avi Loeb, author of “Extrater Our interview with Avi Loeb, author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.” https://buff.ly/2O3nlUd #interview #book #alien #technology #astronomy #controversy #debate #science #Boston #Massachusetts
LGBTQ+ prisoners in Mass stand up to a violent sys LGBTQ+ prisoners in Mass stand up to a violent system that targets and dehumanizes vulnerable populations. https://digboston.com/special-feature-the-cruel-and-usual-violence-against-lgbtq-people-in-mass-prisons/ #prison #prisoner #humanrights #LGBT #politics #Massachusetts
Nominations now open! Vote for your favorite busin Nominations now open! Vote for your favorite businesses today. 

Are you a business? Are you the best at what you do? Encourage your fans to cast their votes! DM us to get our social media materials to promote your business and ensure your win. #bostontops #digboston
Bill sponsors, #Framingham mayor, and MA district Bill sponsors, #Framingham mayor, and MA district attorney will explain the Work & Family Mobility Act at a press conference. https://digboston.com/driving-families-forward-coalition-aims-to-help-undocumented-attain-drivers-licenses/ #politics #undocumented #immigration #driving #license #Massachusetts
Today at 4pm, cast your votes! #digboston Today at 4pm, cast your votes! #digboston
At a virtual summit, leaders sought to educate and At a virtual summit, leaders sought to educate and engage on the need for change. https://digboston.com/officials-advocates-speak-to-immigration-reform-and-economic-recovery/ #immigration #reform #economy #politics #Massachusetts
When it comes to special packaging and limited edi When it comes to special packaging and limited editions, Jack’s Abby and subsidiary Springdale out in Framingham are top players. https://digboston.com/video-unboxing-springdale-beers-limited-edition-neipa-music-box-set/ #beer #fun
Industrial Arts Brewing in NY’s Hudson Valley is Industrial Arts Brewing in NY’s Hudson Valley is well worth the look out of state ... https://digboston.com/video-pocket-wrench-by-industrial-arts-brewing-is-a-super-satisfying-session/ #beer #fun
Some who are civilly committed for #addiction in M Some who are civilly committed for #addiction in Mass face abusive #prison conditions. Still, some families say it’s better than the alternative https://digboston.com/the-commitments-addiction-treatment-behind-bars-in-massachusetts/ #treatment #Massachusetts
Load More... Follow on Instagram
Social Buttons

DigBoston facebook DigBoston Twitter DigBoston Instagram

Masthead

About

Submissions

Advertise

Privacy Policy

Customer Service

Distribution

About Us

DigBoston is a one-stop nexus for everything worth doing or knowing in the Boston area. It's an alt-weekly, it's a website, it's an e-mail blast, it's a twitter account, it's that cool party that you were at last night ... hey, you're reading it, so it's gotta be good. For advertising inquiries: [email protected] To reach Editorial: [email protected] For internship opportunities: [email protected]