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CARTOONS

Name: CARTOONS
Author: Giannalberto Bendazzi
ISBN: 0-253-31168-3

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF CINEMA ANIMATION

by Giannalberto Bendazzi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1995

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This massive history of film animation is inclusive to distraction and makes for awkward prose. Readability aside, its encyclopedic style will find it a place in the library of everyone interested in the subject. From the outset, Bendazzi, a founding member of the Society for Animation Studies, makes clear his preference for European art animation, with its simpler styles and its predilection for abstraction. But his historical intentions require him to tell the full story, with all its emphasis on the marketplace for moving images. Beginning with the origins of animation in French pantomimes lumineuses (circa 1890), Bendazzi recounts the turn-of-the-century filming of ``chalk talks'' and lightning sketches done by speed artists. The French filmmaker George Melies blurred the line between live and animated action to develop supernatural effects for narrative movies. Italian Futurists painted abstracts directly on nitrate, while the Americans began experiments with plain storytelling and eventually standardized the studio system for mass production, the cel process, and the slash method. Meanwhile, European art filmmakers such as Fritz Lang were incorporating animation into their films. Bendazzi tells the stories of the great American animators with much ambivalence, but they're all here: the Fleischer Brothers and ``Betty Boop''; Otto Messmer and ``Felix the Cat''; Paul Terry and ``Terrytoons''; Walter Lanz and ``Woody Woodpecker''; and, of course, Walt Disney and ``Mickey.'' Bendazzi resents Disney's dominance, claiming that he stifled more artistic animation in America. Though Bendazzi extols the American avant- garde animators (from Jordan Belson to Van Der Beek), he fails to see the full genius of those schooled by Disney, from Tex Avery to Chuck Jones, and he completely misinterprets American products such as ``The Simpsons'' and Ernest Pintoff's ``The Critic.'' Every country that has ever produced a cartoon will find it listed here, with a one-sentence description. A videotape or CD-ROM is the only thing missing from this exhaustive project. (95 color plates, 150 b&w photos)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-253-31168-3

Page Count: 434

Publisher: Indiana Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.