MOVIE MINUTE THREE: Cartoons aren't just for kids any more (nor were they ever)
“Animators are great observers, and [they have] this childlike wonder and interest in the world, the observation of little things that happen in life.”
It’s been fascinating to go back through these old “Movie Minute” recordings and examine the ways in which my thinking on certain topics has shifted and how it has remained the same. On this particular topic—animation as a powerful artistic medium for all ages and demographics—there has been very little alteration, even though it’s been years since I first said it. (“How many years,” you ask? “How dare you,” I say, and answer not.)
About the only part of this that has aged poorly is that I’ve seen quite a few animated films since then that I’d add to the list of great cinematic works. I suppose that’s consistent with my overall message, though, right? Oh, and I don’t think The Iron Giant is actually my favorite animated film any more, though its climactic moment remains one of the most powerful and heroic things ever to appear on the silver screen. It makes me cry every time I watch it; every single time. (“Which is you favorite now,” you ask? “It shouldn’t be that hard to figure out,” I say, head bobbing.)
If you’ve got extra time, go read Alan Jacobs’s “Fantasy and the Buffered Self,” which is the spiritual (at least!) forbearer of much of what I think and say here.
And go watch cartoons. Lots of them.
And you that sought for magic in your youth but desire it not in your age, know that there is a blindness of spirit which comes from age, more black than the blindness of eye, making a darkness about you across which nothing may be seen, or felt, or known, or in any way apprehended. — Lord Dunsany, The King of Elfland's Daughter