Fantasmagorie

Émile Cohl, a French caricaturist, is often described as "The Father of the Animated Cartoon." Considered the first fully-animated film, his two-minute 1908 film 'Fantasmagorie' {alternatively, in English: 'A Fantasy,' 'Black and White,' or 'Metamorphosis'} is made up on approximately 700 double-exposed drawings, using what is known as a "chalk-line effect" (filming black lines on white paper, then reversing the negative to give the impression of white chalk on a black chalkboard), a technique probably borrowed from early animator James Stuart Blackton. A fast-paced, confusing and almost-surreal short film, 'Fantasmagorie' is loaded with dozens of tiny seconds-long scenes, which rapidly metamorphosise into the next, possibly a stylistic tribute to the short-lived, long-forgotten Incoherent Movement of the 1880s, of which Cohl had been a part. The title of the film itself is taken from the word "fantasmograph," which referred to a magic lantern that could project ghostly images across walls.

Not following any standard narrative, 'Fantasmagorie' is really quite difficult to follow. The film starts with a hand quickly sketching a dangling clown, which instantly transforms into a large man in an elevator, which materialises into a man in a cinema whose view is suddenly blocked by a woman with a tall feathery hat. This scene, probably the longest single sequence at about 20 seconds, shows the man desperately trying to glimpse the screen again by peeling away the feathers of the hat, only for the women's head to suddenly expand into a large bubble for the next scene transition. The remainder of the film is a hectic jumble of jumping about, fishing, sword-fighting, canons, flowers, milk bottles, elephants turning into houses and, for the grand finale, a character departing into the left-hand side of the screen on a horse.

I found 'Fantasmagorie' to be quite an interesting early short, though it moved much, much too quickly to be solidly enjoyable (J. Stuart Blackton made a much more accessible film two years earlier with 'Humorous Phases of Funny Faces'). Nonetheless, the film carries great historical importance in the field of animation, and Cohl's style undoubtedly influenced such animators as Winsor McCay, perhaps most famous for his 1914 animated short film, 'Gertie the Dinosaur.'

Emile Cohl's Fantasmagorie is perhaps one of the earliest film depictions of animation, in this case it's chalk drawings on a black board morphing from one scene to another without any real connection except for the way lines keep moving to any shape or form Cohl can think of. And it all happens in the space of two minutes! So, historically, this is one of the most fascinating animated shorts ever. Audiences might have been even more awestruck then than we would be now what with all the improvements that have happened in the nearly one hundred years since then. So for all of the above reasons, this short gets a 10.

Fantasmagorie (1908)

**** (out of 4)

Landmark film in history as this here was the first animated movie ever made. Director Emile Cohl shows us a hand that draws a character and for the next two-minutes we see what is basically chalk animation. There's not too much story here but you'd be somewhat crazy to bash the film for that as everything we do see is rather easy to follow. If you're a fan of D.W. Griffith then you've probably seen his film THOSE AWFUL HATS, which is about some men in a theater who get upset because the women are wearing large hats, which blocks the screen. This here is also shown here in a rather funny way. The animation itself is pretty darn good considering there was nothing made before it to go by. Film buffs will certainly want to check this one out.

This is a pretty neat little film. It appears to be chalk on a blackboard. It has a little plot with a man trying to watch a movie when a woman with a huge hat sits in front of him. But there are other things that help make the two minutes memorable.

Considered the first fully animated film, Emile Cohl's 1908 "Fantasmagorie" departed from J. Stuart Blackton's 1906 "Humorous Phases" by showing a total hand-drawn movie rather than using a combination of live action, cut-out animation as well as hand-drawn scenes.

Cohl was inspired by Blackton's work in reflecting white lines on a black background. However, while Blackton used an actual blackboard to draw his figures, Cohl used 700 paper drawings, 8 drawings for each second, and then shot them onto negative film. He would shoot two frames for each drawing while his film speed was 16 frames per second. Cohl labored 5 months to create this 1 minute, 20 second cartoon. The viewer has to see this movie several times to catch the quick movements of morphings from one set of figures to the next.