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Director: Nick Park
Date: 1978
Rating: ★★★
Review:

The interesting aspect of the DVD ‘Giants’ First Steps’ is that it shows well known animators and animation directors were not always that good. They had to start somewhere, and their early films show where they already succeeded and where they faltered.

With the charcoal animation of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ (made at the Sheffield Art School) Nick Park returns to the very origin of animation, with its earliest films using a blackboard. Nick Park retells the classic fairy tale in an original, stream of consciousness-like manner, with a lot of metamorphosis and weird sound effects.

Even though Park’s animation is crude, the film is pleasantly odd and original throughout. For example, Jack shoots a cow from the sky, and puts in a vending machine to obtain his magic bean, which turns out to be huge. My favorite part is a little guy talking gibberish into a microphone before the titles appear.

Park, of course, would later become world famous with his ‘Creature Comforts’ and Wallace and Gromit films, made at Aardman.

‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ is available on the DVD ‘Giants’ First Steps’