tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post8009141044926470016..comments2023-12-31T03:18:37.403-06:00Comments on "E pur si muove!": The Wisdom of RatatouilleLester Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14746157071827337723noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-57931939967305735862008-01-04T17:24:00.000-06:002008-01-04T17:24:00.000-06:00Jenny, Thanks! Coming from you, that is praise i...Jenny, Thanks! Coming from you, that is praise indeed!Lester Hunthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14746157071827337723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-67858151673389781832008-01-04T16:19:00.000-06:002008-01-04T16:19:00.000-06:00Thief!Just kidding! As a matter of fact, though y...Thief!<BR/><BR/>Just kidding! As a matter of fact, though you might be the 999th person to use this image(which, after all, I "found" on a Disney website and merely cropped and did a little PS jiggling myself), you're the 1st who actually mentioned me. For that you have my undying admiration. : )<BR/><BR/>Although this is an ancient post(by blog reckoning), I only just now found it and just had to say how much I enjoyed it. You know I liked the film, and had I more time this minute I'd address a couple of really interesting points you make here--but I can't, darn it(now <I>I</I> sound like Eddie!).<BR/><BR/>Great writing!Jenny Lerewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06668171465801333811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-15179005626793904322007-08-21T12:26:00.000-05:002007-08-21T12:26:00.000-05:00Brett Holverstott, Well, I have to admit that I o...Brett Holverstott, Well, I have to admit that I overstated my position a bit when I rhetorically asked "What is the point?" -- the implication being that there can't be any point at all to computer animation as we know it today. There is a point of course: to enable the filmmaker to depict things that could not have been depicted before. We can now make something that looks like a photo of ... anything that could possibly be imagined. In this sense, it increases the power of the fimmaker. But from an artistic point of view, what the image <I>looks like</I> is all-important, and power (in this sense) is less so. <I>Snow White</I> didn't look like a photo of anything. It looked like an animated painting. My real complaint is not that the new kind of animation is made, but that it is crowding out the old kind. All American movies, pretty much, now look like photographs of real things. This is an aesthetic narrowing and impoverishment, which is a great loss, I think.Lester Hunthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14746157071827337723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-57387784085886403152007-08-21T10:12:00.000-05:002007-08-21T10:12:00.000-05:00How would you propose to NOT animate a rat cooking...How would you propose to NOT animate a rat cooking at a French restaurant? Train him to toss cheeses and spices into the soup while dancing around it?<BR/><BR/>While I agree that animated pictures lack some of the decadence of the soap bubbles glistening off a bar of soap in Snow White, many new effects are being continuously invented for these digital movies (especially the pixar flick, which are on the cutting edge) but you don't notice them because they look so natural.<BR/><BR/>I also agree that the film reads like a live action movie, particularly when the rat is scurrying around the kitchen floor and we are watching from his perspective. But what is wrong about using lessons from live action in animation?<BR/><BR/>Remember that in order to show a small rat-eye piece of a scene, you have to choreograph the entire scene... I am rather impressed at how they made this work.Bretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07742691135219348355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-40162480209665089022007-07-27T12:34:00.000-05:002007-07-27T12:34:00.000-05:00It just won't happen because Hollywood went totall...It just won't happen because Hollywood went totally corporate in the late 1970's. Films became content and mostly anti-thinking. Brad Bird is one of the few working animation directors who dares his audience to even hint at questioning the status quo.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-10954129385467236492007-07-27T08:23:00.000-05:002007-07-27T08:23:00.000-05:00Certainly a different view of the movie. A roden...Certainly a different view of the movie. A rodent Pinocchio wanting to be human.<BR/>I blew out a long sigh after seeing the movie. Still prefered Mr. <A HREF="http://www.pixar.com/artistscorner/index.html" REL="nofollow">Bird</A>'s previous effort, <A HREF="http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/incredibles/" REL="nofollow">The Incredibles</A>. Much funnier and more "cartoony".<BR/>Why the sigh? What would be wrong with Mr. Bird and company doing an adult cartoon, say like the long-ago and far-awy <A HREF="http://www.bouska.com/fritz/" REL="nofollow">Fritz the Cat</A>? You know it just won't happen though what with the algebra of traget audiences and all.DarkoVhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11572734667248592785noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-33522005005411869602007-07-25T12:50:00.000-05:002007-07-25T12:50:00.000-05:00There is one beat in "Ratatouille" that might have...There is one beat in "Ratatouille" that might have played better had the film been live action with an animated Remi: the moment when the entire kitchen crew must accept the unpalatable reality that a rat actually cooked all those wonderful recipes. It would have been more believable as a pure stretch of hard-to-grasp fantasy for realistic, rather than obviously caricatured fantasy CGI, humans to consider. (Ratatouille's computer generated people look more fanciful than any rat) But Pixar isn't in the live action business. And the "Roger Rabbit" approach probably wouldn't grab audiences today the way it did nearly 20 years ago.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-45138051942339836962007-07-25T11:42:00.000-05:002007-07-25T11:42:00.000-05:00Craig,Dang! You caught me! And I thought I was b...Craig,<BR/><BR/>Dang! You caught me! And I thought I was being so subtle, too!Lester Hunthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14746157071827337723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-21006006219324826052007-07-24T12:09:00.000-05:002007-07-24T12:09:00.000-05:00Hmmm...The last two movies you've seen have been a...Hmmm...<BR/><BR/>The last two movies you've seen have been about humans "interacting" with animals.<BR/><BR/>Is there a pattern emerging?Craig Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09411024383213082193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-44600540012690299622007-07-23T19:16:00.000-05:002007-07-23T19:16:00.000-05:00Random items of possible relevance, even though I ...Random items of possible relevance, even though I haven't seen the movie yet:<BR/><BR/>1) Don't the previews show Remy snitching a piece of cheese from a dessert tray? That would appear to be theft.<BR/><BR/>2) Isn't Remy the object of the usual sorts of human treachery towards animals? There's a preview scene that shows him almost pinned to a wall under a hail of knives. Or is that some other rat? Anyway, the villain <I>is</I> a human being: Skinner. Skin—that's the first step in "dressing" an animal. <BR/><BR/>3) And isn't Remy <I>already</I> thoroughly human from the start? He seems to aspire to become an artist, not to become a human being. What's more, he seems ready-endowed with a host of human virtues that his human counterparts don't possess. Why shouldn't we see this as another attempt to represent animals as better and smarter than human beings?<BR/><BR/>4) I wonder if anyone has compared this film with Disney's shorter classic "Ben and Me" (1953). Amos the mouse, you may recall, shows up in Ben Franklin's life, and out of the kindness of his heart and the keenness of his wits orchestrates the decisive moments in Franklin's career. He even whispers to Franklin crucial advice for writing the <I>Declaration of Independence</I> which Franklin then repeats verbatim to Thomas Jefferson. Like Remy, Amos too works from a hat.<BR/><BR/>5) The curious thing about movies like this is that the animal protagonists are superior in almost every way to human beings. They're not just innocent but morally and intellectually more astute. But since this superiority is based on human traits rather than animal traits, I suppose we can describe it as a valorization of the best of what it means to be human? On the other hand, is it possible that representing animals as better at being human than humans themselves even <I>worse</I> than Bambi-ism?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-87904958844147346992007-07-23T12:58:00.000-05:002007-07-23T12:58:00.000-05:00Q: Wow, it's hard to imagine an interpretation mo...Q: Wow, it's hard to imagine an interpretation more different from mine!<BR/><BR/>Craig: Interesting idea! Note, though, that the animations in <I>Roger Rabbit</I> were hand-drawn.Lester Hunthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14746157071827337723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-82779697908259394662007-07-23T12:45:00.000-05:002007-07-23T12:45:00.000-05:00Funny, in Denby's review for the New Yorker his fi...Funny, in Denby's review for the New Yorker his first sentence quotes Remy basically making your point: "There's something about humans.... They taste.... They <I>discover</I>." But then he follows up with a non sequitur: What's "implicit" in Remy's attitude, Denby says, is that "humans and rats are brothers under the fur: they alone, among all God's creatures, eat everything."<BR/><BR/>Kind of missing the point."Q" the Enchanterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01246928390589072951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-20820148585117589832007-07-23T07:11:00.000-05:002007-07-23T07:11:00.000-05:00Hey, you really have come across a point that nobo...Hey, you really have come across a point that nobody else has picked up on! I don't know if "Bambi-ism" is a perfect name for it, but in the context of "Man... was in the forest" I can see it.<BR/><BR/>As far as the "why bother to do CGI" question, would it have been a better film if it was done "Roger Rabbit" style with animated Rats interacting with "real" people in the "real" world?<BR/><BR/>(I haven't seen it and probably won't for another couple of years, if at all...)Craig Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09411024383213082193noreply@blogger.com