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Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: 1910
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Le mobilier fidèle’ can be translated as ‘The Faithful Furniture’.
This short is a comic live action film in which a man is in love with his furniture, giving it much attention. Unfortunately, the man is too poor to pay the rent, and his furniture is sold on the street. But his pieces of furniture get bored at their new homes, and all return to their former owner, in rather funny scenes using stop motion.
‘Le mobilier fidèle’ is an enormous improvement on J. Stuart Blackton’s moving furniture in ‘The Haunted Hotel’ (1907), and an early example of European comic film art. Two years later, however, the film would be topped by Romeo Bossetti’s ‘The Automatic Moving Company’.
Watch ‘Le mobilier fidèle’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Le mobilier fidèle’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Director: J. Stuart Blackton
Release Date: July 15, 1907
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Lightning Sketches’ is the third surviving film by J. Stuart Blackton in which he used drawn animation.
Unfortunately the film has less in common with his ground-breaking film ‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces‘ (1906), and much more with his first trick film ‘The Enchanted Drawing’ from 1900: Once again Blackton himself appears on screen, and not only his hand. As in the earliest film, he now draws with a brush on paper, replacing the chalk and chalkboard.
Compared to ‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces’ ‘Lightning Sketches’ is by all means the lesser product: there is less animation or movement (the best is of a bottle of champagne and a bottle of soda water filling a glass). Worse, Blackton’s first gag involves a stereotype ‘coon’ and Jew, but no animation at all.
In no sense ‘Lightning Sketches’ did propel the medium of animation forward, and it was up to others pioneers, like Émile Cohl, Winsor McCay and J.R. Bray to advance upon the new technique.
Watch ‘Lightning Sketches’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Lightning Sketches’ is available on the DVD/Blu-Ray ‘Cartoon Roots’
Director: J. Stuart Blackton
Release Date: April 6, 1906
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces’ is arguably the first drawn animation film. Like Blackton’s first film, ‘The Enchanted Drawing’ from 1900, the short combines the tradition of live sketching with that of trick filming to a novelty effect. Made for Thomas A. Edison, the film is an important step forward, however, because, unlike ‘The Enchanted Drawing’ there now is animated movement.
The film starts with a live action hand drawing the face of a man on a chalkboard. Next to the man a woman is drawn, now without the hand. The two faces alter, and at one point the man grows a cigar and a top hat. This ‘scene’ ends when the man’s smoke covers the whole woman, and the hand erases the drawing.
Next come two other faces. Little is happening here, so soon we cut to an old man with an umbrella. This part shows a little arm movement, done with cut-out. Blackton used the cut-out technique more extensively in the last shot, that of a clown, toying with his hat, a hoop and a poodle. The film ends with the hand erasing again. The whole experience lasts less than three minutes.
Overall, the image is pretty static, and it’s clear that the whole film is made pure for the novelty of its tricks. Of course, ‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces’ is historically important, yet, it’s difficult to call this first hand-drawn animation film (and probably the first one to use cut-out) an instant classic, as apart from the movement hardly anything is happening, and only the smoke gag comes somewhere near being funny. Moreover, Blackton’s arm can be seen a few times, which hampers the trick.
Watch ‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces’ is available on the DVD ‘Before Walt’
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