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Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: 1909
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Affaires de coeur’ is a film about love using hearts as a common thread.
Even the frame in which all action takes place is heart-shaped. In this film Cohl uses every animation technique known at the time to tell a rather abstract story of love. We watch hearts filling cards, cards playing badminton, and a male heart courting and eventually marrying a female heart, and even dueling a rival heart with a mustache.
Despite the clear theme, the film is one of Cohl’s less successful efforts. There’s an aimlessness in this film, which only halfway forms some sort of story. Moreover, none of the animation is particularly noteworthy, even though the hearts in love have some charm.
Watch ‘Affaires de coeur’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Affaires de coeur’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: 1909
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Les chapeaux des belles dames’ is one of Émile Cohl’s tableau films.
Whereas Cohl’s other tableau films from 1909, like ‘L’éventail animé‘ and ‘Les couronnes‘ consisted of elaborate tableaux vivants, ‘Les chapeaux des belles dames’ is much simpler. The film only shows several ladies wearing hats from different ages. Within a vignette we watch the bustes of the ladies circling around, showing the hats from all sides. Thus we watch hats from 1400 to 1825, with emphasis on the 15th and 18th century (strangely enough the 17th century is skipped altogether).
The whole film may be insightful, the short is remarkably static, and only entertaining because of the sometimes extraordinary hats. It doesn’t help that the surviving copy is badly damaged, rendering some of the images more or less invisible.
Watch ‘Les chapeaux des belles dames’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Les chapeaux des belles dames’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: 1909
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Les chaussures matrimoniales’ is a gentle trick film, showcasing Émile Cohl’s narrative skills.
The film starts with a woman and a man taking adjacent rooms at a hotel. When they both put their shoes outside to let them brush, the man’s shoes start to make advances on the woman’s shoes. When the woman takes them back inside, the man’s shoes even follow them inside. As a consequence the man loses his shoes, but he finds them inside the woman’s room, where he starts making advances on the woman himself. In the end, the new couple leaves the hotel happily together.
Most of the film is done in live action, but the wandering shoes are done in pretty convincing stop motion. When the male shoes start advancing on the woman’s shoes, Cohl even manages to give the objects some character. It’s touches like this that make the film a little more interesting than the usual trick films of the era.
Watch ‘Les chaussures matrimoniales’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Les chaussures matrimoniales’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: 1909
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Les locataires d’à-côté’ is a short comic film about an old couple who decide to drill a hole in the wall to spy on their younger neighbors.
However, the hole is immediately discovered by the young victims, and the young man wonders how he can punish the nosy neighbors. How he does it remains utterly unclear, but as soon as one of the neighbors takes a peak to the hole, the young neighbors’ room disappears, and makes place for some animation, mostly stop-motion, but also some pen animation, in which Cohl shows some pretty grotesque images.
The best part is when he applies his famous technique of metamorphosis to paper-cut forms. This is essentially replacement animation in a form never tried before, and rarely after. In a sense, this piece of animation anticipates George Pal’s groundbreaking replacement animation of the 1930s. Moreover, throughout his film, Cohl employs the split-screen technique, an absolute novelty. These facts alone make ‘Les locataires d’à-côté’ a great example of the astonishing creativity Émile Cohl showed in his films of 1908-1911.
In the end the couple fetch the house-keeper, but all he sees is the ordinary room, and he leaves the neighbors, stating they are crazy. Indeed, they seem to become crazy, in the end, and it’s the young couple who has the last laugh.
Watch ‘Les locataires d’à-côté’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Les locataires d’à-côté’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: 1909
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
‘Les transfigurations’ starts with some live action footage of some street artist inviting passers-by to take a peak inside his fortune-telling machine on a street corner.
The machine shows one man his future wife, another his career, and another his rise and fall. The three customers all leave the machine in anger, much to the street artist’s delight. Only the fourth, who gets a vision of his mother-in-law leaves the stage laughing and hopping with the man from the machine.
The images of the machine are rendered in a great mix of pen animation, cut-out and stop-motion, and know a great deal of metamorphosis, Cohl’s strong point. For example, the future wife changes into an old hag, into a weather-vane and into a doll, while the mother-in-law changes into another hag, and into a crocodile. The best animation is that for the third man. The message of his transformations are rather unclear, but they are mesmerizing nonetheless, as we watch the man change e.g. into a devil and into a monkey.
‘Les transfigurations’ is comparable to ‘Les générations comiques‘ and ‘Les lunettes feériques‘ from the same year, and certainly one of Cohl’s best satirical movies.
Watch ‘Les transfigurations’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Les transfigurations’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: 1909
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘Monsieur Clown chez les lilleputiens’ is one of Cohl’s experiments in puppet animation.
Unfortunately, puppet animation never became Cohl’s forte, and this film shows Cohl’s limited fantasy when using this technique, which is disappointing when compared to the wild, limitless surrealism (avant la lettre) of his drawn films.
‘Monsieur Clown chez les lilleputiens’ just shows a clown performing some tricks for an audience at a circus. The clown performs tricks with an elephant, a black dog, a chair, a horse, and a female acrobat. The film knows only one setting and one camera point, and there is little to laugh. The best gag is when the clown pulls an enormously long thread, only to reveal that the thread is attached to a miniature horse.
Watch ‘Monsieur Clown chez les lilleputiens’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Monsieur Clown chez les lilleputiens’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: December 4, 1909
Rating: ★★★
Review:
At a party in some living room a girl wants to put some glasses on. Her uncle warns her that the glasses are magical, and reveal the character and taste of the one who puts them on.
Soon, everybody in the company puts the glasses on: the glutton, the gambler, the lover, the girl herself, and the miser. Every time one puts on the glasses we see what they see in a mixture of cut-out, pen animation and stop-motion.
Unfortunately Cohl takes his time to show meaningful images, wasting quite some time on rotating patterns. Moreover, the satire is less sharp than in his contemporary films ‘Les générations comiques‘ or ‘Les transfigurations‘. Thus, in the end everybody only has a good laugh, instead of becoming angry, like the people in ‘Les transfigurations’.
Watch ‘Les lunettes féeriques’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Les lunettes féeriques’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: September 1, 1909
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
‘Les générations comiques’ is Cohl’s best animation film of 1909, and his best film since ‘Fantasmagorie‘ (1908).
The short uses a unique combination of pen animation, cut outs and live action to paint some sharp portraits of stereotypes, like the fisherman, the miser and the policeman. The portraits are a series of free associations, with metamorphosis running wild, and finally resulting in a live action version of the stereotype.
Like in ‘Fantasmagorie’ Cohl’s imagination knows no boundaries, and the film shows more images than one can possibly register in the short time frame. This makes watching ‘Les générations comiques’ a mindblowing experience. The film may lack ‘Fantasmagorie’s playfullness, it’s much more sure in its style, and shows that Cohl could draw very well.
Watch ‘Les générations comiques’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Les générations comiques’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: August 25, 1909
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Porcelaines tendres’ is a tableau vivant film, like ‘L’éventail animé‘ and ‘Les couronnes‘, with people now pretending to be porcelain figures in crockery items.
Like two earlier shorts the film has a vague chronological order, and is very stylized and beautiful. Nevertheless, the film is less gripping than the former two films, and its frame more conventional, being akin to frames used in other contemporary French films. As in all of Cohl’s tableau vivant films, no animation is involved.
Watch ‘Porcelaines tendres’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Porcelaines tendres’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: August 11, 1909
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Les couronnes’ is a tableau vivant film like ‘L’éventail animé‘, now showing wreaths and crowns through the ages.
And, as may be expected, the tableaux are now shown inside a wreath-shaped frame. Like in ‘L’eventail animé’ this is a live action film, featuring no animation. Like in the former film the tableaux themselves are very stylized and beautiful, helped by the elegant score for harp and guitar.
Even if the film may be slightly less beautiful than ‘L’eventail animé’, it’s certainly more moving, with a scene of Christ receiving his crown of thorns, and a contemporary, but surprisingly sentimental scene of a rich couple giving a poor man a wreath-shaped bread.
Watch ‘Les couronnes’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Les couronnes’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: July 10, 1909
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
‘Les joyeux microbes’ is one of Cohl’s most inventive and most creative films.
The short starts with a live action scene of a man visiting a scientist, who claims the man is full of microbes. To prove his point he shows the man his microbes through the microscope. We watch what the man sees: this is where the animation starts, as the microbes under the microscope start moving and morphing, and change into caricatures of politicians, of a car driver, a man drinking, etc.
Cohl’s inspired metamorphosis and readable drawing style come together in this film to entertaining effects. In the end the man exclaims ‘Dieu! Je suis malade!‘ (My God, I’m ill!), and throws a painting over the laughing scientist, before rushing out.
Watch ‘Les joyeux microbes’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Les joyeux microbes’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: June 12, 1909
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
Despite its title ‘L’éventail animé’ is not an animated film, but the first of several films by Émile Cohl consisting of tableaux vivants. I’m including the film in this blog because it’s interesting to watch Émile Cohl’s very diverse oeuvre as a whole.
‘L’éventail animé’ shows ladies and their fans throughout the ages, e.g. Eve, Sappho, Cleopatra, empress Messalina, Aude (a character in ‘Chanson de Roland’), and a modern woman. The action is set in a fan-shaped frame, and the tableaux are remarkably beautiful and stylized. On the DVD the film is greatly enhanced by a lovely score using guitar and harp.
Watch ‘L’éventail animé’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘L’éventail animé’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: April 24, 1909
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Clair de lune espagnol’ is a bizarre live action movie about a toreador who wants to commit suicide.
When he’s about to jump, the toreador gets caught by an airship and is taken to the moon, which he wounds with a rifle and an ax. The celestial creatures then punish him and throw him back to earth, where he’s reunited with his love.
The film has a strange, rather surreal atmosphere, but lacks real wit. Highlight is the scene with the man and the moon, which uses quite some animation on the moon, whose face changes repeatedly.
Watch ‘Clair de lune espagnol’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Clair de lune espagnol’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: February 9, 1909
Rating: ★★★
Review:
This stop-motion film consists of a series of twelve ultra-short scenes in which we watch a puppet using various ways of transport and doing some sports.
All actions go wrong: the puppet’s horse throws him off, his car breaks down, he falls with his bicycle, his boat capsizes etc. The film is enriched with witty intertitles. The film is extremely simple: all scenes take place at the same small table setting, without any background art. Nevertheless, the puppet has a grain of a character, as he repeatedly looks at the audience for recognition.
Watch ‘Soyons donc sportifs’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Soyons donc sportifs’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 