Fantasmagorie

1908
2m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

The first all-animated film in history, a series of scenes without much narrative structure, but morphing into each other.The first all-animated film in history, a series of scenes without much narrative structure, but morphing into each other.The first all-animated film in history, a series of scenes without much narrative structure, but morphing into each other.

Director
- Émile Cohl

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.9/10

YOUR RATING

Director
- Émile Cohl

See production info at IMDbPro

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9:57

Storyline

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Trivia
To make this film, Cohl placed each drawing on an illuminated glass plate and then traced the next drawing-with variations-on top of it until he had some 700 drawings. In 1908, chalkboard caricaturists were common vaudeville attractions, and the characters in the film look as though they've been drawn on a chalkboard, but it's an illusion. By filming black lines on paper and then printing in negative, Cohl makes his animations appear to be chalk drawings.

Connections
Edited into International Festival of Animation (1977)

User reviews19

Featured review

7/10

Looney Toon

Even if it wasn't rightly famous for being the world's first animated film, Fantasmagorie would still stand out as an eye-popping piece of entertainment.

There isn't any story to speak of, and most of it seems to be a kind of stream-of-consciousness, free-form flow of ideas that borders on the surreal. Its use of a human hand to show the initial creation of the drawing brings to mind the much earlier work of J. Stuart Blackton. It might seem a little primitive by today's standards, but this little film is one of the landmarks of cinematic history.

The film can be found on the internet on Youtube or DailyMotion and is worth two minutes of anybody's time.