Fantasmagorie

A few years ago I had a real passion for short films, seeking them out at festivals and on television, trying to see those considered as established and also those from first time or local artists. This fell off for some reason and I found myself watching more television which is not a problem but I did decide recently I should take the time to watch short films when I have the chance. Fantasmagorie was the one of the shorts I decided to watch, partly for the historical value but also for the good things I heard about it generally.

Watching it once was not enough though, because it is very short but also moves with real speed and energy. The animation consists of chalk drawings on a black background and without any narrative context they flow across the screen, seamlessly turning from one thing into another but making a sort of sense while doing so. Every second of it is creative and clever and engaging and, most importantly, a real joy to watch. The age of the film shows in the quality of the picture (or at least it did in the version I saw) but nowhere else. There is a real pleasure to it, a sense of wonder and excitement in the animation that has stayed with it for over a century.

A great little animation; it has historical value but you will only think of that afterwards because during your several viewings I suspect you'll be too busy keeping up and enjoying the passion and flow that the images have.

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.

If you are a lover of the history of cinema, then FANTASMAGORIE is an absolute must--particularly if you are interested in animation. That's because this short little film is the first animated film and considering everything, it's a darn good one.

Instead of the usual structure, style and narrative, this film is rather unique and free-flowing. A series of drawings morph and change with no apparent rhyme or reason. In many ways, it's more like a work of art than a traditional cartoon and it's all done in black and white.

It must have taken a very, very long time to make and for 1908, it's an incredible little film. Sure, films made just a few years later would make this seem obsolete, but given the context, it's a grand little film.

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.