Post by klep on Aug 31, 2020 10:27:33 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 8/31: Duck Amuck
MOVIES THAT LOVE MOVIES WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is graciously provided by a guest contributor.
In his excellent autobiography Chuck Amuck, Chuck Jones doesn't talk much about the process of many specific cartoons. He's much more concerned about the day-to-day business of the Schlesigner, and later Selzer, studio. You can learn a great deal about his coworkers and considerably less about how most of the cartoons he made were done. One of the few he talks about in any detail is "Duck Amuck," which of course gives the book—and its sequel, Chuck Redux—its name. This is in part because it's one of his own favourites and in part because its structure is so unusual.
Everyone knows its structure, surely. Daffy Duck thinks he's going to be starting an ordinary cartoon. And he's assuredly not. Instead, he is locked in a war with his own animator; everything goes wrong for him. The frame glitches, the sound disappears and is replaced with random sound effects, the backgrounds shift without warning—at one point, Daffy himself is completely erased except for bill and eyes and becomes a creature so ludicrous that you can't even say what he's supposed to be.
The hardest part, Jones said, was determining the ending. After all, the cartoon was basically made when he and writer Mike Maltese were laughing together over the drawings. It was apparently barely storyboarded by cartoon standards and mostly just went directly into finished drawings. So when, in the penultimate—I learned the word from Jones using it in this story—shot, Daffy demands to know who's doing this, who's responsible, Jones was struck with a problem. Because the answer was him. But in the world of the cartoon, he also knew there was only one answer.
Warners characters know they're in cartoons. It isn't universally true, but it's one of the running bits Warners has played with since the days when Porky Pig quit because Daffy convinced him he could get more money elsewhere, leaving a spot for Daffy to be a star. Daffy may not himself know exactly how a cartoon is made, but he knows he's in one and he knows the basics. He knows enough to know that this is not how things are supposed to go.
I've never really believed in the Warners/Disney dichotomy. Hard to, when you grow up loving both studios for different reasons. The fact is, with a few notable exceptions, when I want a funny short, I always go for Warners. And this one, I will always consider their funniest. My family and I used to watch Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, when they aired them in the evenings. And it was nice when they aired "Rabbit of Seville" or "What's Opera, Doc?" or several of the others that get spoken of more often. But for our money, this was always the one we looked forward to most.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 9/7: High Flying Bird
LABOR WEEK!
Following last week's largely successful wildcat strike by NBA players over police murdering black people and its spread to other professional sports, next week we'll be celebrating Labor Day with this recent Steven Soderbergh film also about labor issues in professional basketball. In High Flying Bird, André Holland stars as a player agent trying to find a way to end a lockout that's keeping players from working. Join us next week for our discussion of this latest in Soderbergh's repertoire of uncannily prophetic films, available on Netflix.
MOVIES THAT LOVE MOVIES WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is graciously provided by a guest contributor.
In his excellent autobiography Chuck Amuck, Chuck Jones doesn't talk much about the process of many specific cartoons. He's much more concerned about the day-to-day business of the Schlesigner, and later Selzer, studio. You can learn a great deal about his coworkers and considerably less about how most of the cartoons he made were done. One of the few he talks about in any detail is "Duck Amuck," which of course gives the book—and its sequel, Chuck Redux—its name. This is in part because it's one of his own favourites and in part because its structure is so unusual.
Everyone knows its structure, surely. Daffy Duck thinks he's going to be starting an ordinary cartoon. And he's assuredly not. Instead, he is locked in a war with his own animator; everything goes wrong for him. The frame glitches, the sound disappears and is replaced with random sound effects, the backgrounds shift without warning—at one point, Daffy himself is completely erased except for bill and eyes and becomes a creature so ludicrous that you can't even say what he's supposed to be.
The hardest part, Jones said, was determining the ending. After all, the cartoon was basically made when he and writer Mike Maltese were laughing together over the drawings. It was apparently barely storyboarded by cartoon standards and mostly just went directly into finished drawings. So when, in the penultimate—I learned the word from Jones using it in this story—shot, Daffy demands to know who's doing this, who's responsible, Jones was struck with a problem. Because the answer was him. But in the world of the cartoon, he also knew there was only one answer.
Warners characters know they're in cartoons. It isn't universally true, but it's one of the running bits Warners has played with since the days when Porky Pig quit because Daffy convinced him he could get more money elsewhere, leaving a spot for Daffy to be a star. Daffy may not himself know exactly how a cartoon is made, but he knows he's in one and he knows the basics. He knows enough to know that this is not how things are supposed to go.
I've never really believed in the Warners/Disney dichotomy. Hard to, when you grow up loving both studios for different reasons. The fact is, with a few notable exceptions, when I want a funny short, I always go for Warners. And this one, I will always consider their funniest. My family and I used to watch Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, when they aired them in the evenings. And it was nice when they aired "Rabbit of Seville" or "What's Opera, Doc?" or several of the others that get spoken of more often. But for our money, this was always the one we looked forward to most.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 9/7: High Flying Bird
LABOR WEEK!
Following last week's largely successful wildcat strike by NBA players over police murdering black people and its spread to other professional sports, next week we'll be celebrating Labor Day with this recent Steven Soderbergh film also about labor issues in professional basketball. In High Flying Bird, André Holland stars as a player agent trying to find a way to end a lockout that's keeping players from working. Join us next week for our discussion of this latest in Soderbergh's repertoire of uncannily prophetic films, available on Netflix.