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Centauri, issue 4, Summer 1945
Page 15
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Pro and Con Page 15 Reality and fantasy are preferably non-miscible; and though the mélange of a fantasy theme with realistic treatment, with photographic treatment, has the floor, to li'l Flmer the cartoon is THE medium. Fluctuant it is, as is the public taste; and in many instances varying for the worse; but always with the possible unity of medium and idea beyond what photography of orthodox subjects might do. The cartoon -- hell, it's almost like a phylum. There are mutants, evolution and degeneration with time, loss of function (like a phylum, a lost function is never regained). Prime example of lost function: the almost surreal concept that likeness of shape begets likeness of use. Consider the machine gun that runs out of ammunition:-- and that is reloaded with a picket fence, a piano keyboard, anything hand of many identical parts arranged in a strip. Or the grinning Negro that listens to Mickey Mouse playing piano, whereupon Mickey spins on the stool and draws organ music forth by playing the keyboard of the Negro's teeth. A touch that appeared in almost all silent comedies, now forgotten in favor of the realistic school.... Or an idea, Descartean in scope, Berkelean in application; the Descartes Cogito ergo sum changed by affixing the simple modifier because. You've seen it -- Felix riding merrily over the edge of a cliff, cantering happily on thin air, until he looks down, realizes -- and drops. Persistent yet, but not so overworked as of yore.... Introduce fantasy in shorts? Come now, Sir Harry; what on earth were these early cartoons, before the neo-realist school of Bugs Bunnny, Elmer Fudd, et al, brought us back to painfully hard earth with a most painfully audible thump? Then the possibilities of montage work remain deplorably unexploited. Speeded-up photography is almost a virgin territory. Consider the possibility of mood that could be evoked in a nightmare sequence, say, and the endless desolation of a character roaming under a sky taken at 1/100 normal -- the clouds forming, living, dying, in a grotesqueric saraband... Or have you seen a flower open to the caress of sunlight? The beauty of the natural process, compacted to seeability; a fey thing that could yet remain as visible manifestation of an otherwise hidden godhead. That's the trouble that must needs be corrected. Hollywood fantasy is as standardized, now, as the double-take. Whenever a dream or after-death sequence occurs, the automatic directorial reaction is that of dragging out the carbon dioxide snow. I point without pride to "Here Comes Mr Jordan" and "Lady in the Dark". An art form cannot stabilize without stagnation. Objection entered to Mr Warner's choice, "--And He Built a Crooked House". Pish tush. Much, much rather would I see the producers of "Lot in Sodom" (which, by the bye, is the greatest fantasy movie of the past ten year,s not excluding Fantasia) turn their incredible talents to a sympathetic interpretation of C L Moore's rancourless, heart-wrenching "Fruit of Knowledge". ----Elmer Perdue
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Pro and Con Page 15 Reality and fantasy are preferably non-miscible; and though the mélange of a fantasy theme with realistic treatment, with photographic treatment, has the floor, to li'l Flmer the cartoon is THE medium. Fluctuant it is, as is the public taste; and in many instances varying for the worse; but always with the possible unity of medium and idea beyond what photography of orthodox subjects might do. The cartoon -- hell, it's almost like a phylum. There are mutants, evolution and degeneration with time, loss of function (like a phylum, a lost function is never regained). Prime example of lost function: the almost surreal concept that likeness of shape begets likeness of use. Consider the machine gun that runs out of ammunition:-- and that is reloaded with a picket fence, a piano keyboard, anything hand of many identical parts arranged in a strip. Or the grinning Negro that listens to Mickey Mouse playing piano, whereupon Mickey spins on the stool and draws organ music forth by playing the keyboard of the Negro's teeth. A touch that appeared in almost all silent comedies, now forgotten in favor of the realistic school.... Or an idea, Descartean in scope, Berkelean in application; the Descartes Cogito ergo sum changed by affixing the simple modifier because. You've seen it -- Felix riding merrily over the edge of a cliff, cantering happily on thin air, until he looks down, realizes -- and drops. Persistent yet, but not so overworked as of yore.... Introduce fantasy in shorts? Come now, Sir Harry; what on earth were these early cartoons, before the neo-realist school of Bugs Bunnny, Elmer Fudd, et al, brought us back to painfully hard earth with a most painfully audible thump? Then the possibilities of montage work remain deplorably unexploited. Speeded-up photography is almost a virgin territory. Consider the possibility of mood that could be evoked in a nightmare sequence, say, and the endless desolation of a character roaming under a sky taken at 1/100 normal -- the clouds forming, living, dying, in a grotesqueric saraband... Or have you seen a flower open to the caress of sunlight? The beauty of the natural process, compacted to seeability; a fey thing that could yet remain as visible manifestation of an otherwise hidden godhead. That's the trouble that must needs be corrected. Hollywood fantasy is as standardized, now, as the double-take. Whenever a dream or after-death sequence occurs, the automatic directorial reaction is that of dragging out the carbon dioxide snow. I point without pride to "Here Comes Mr Jordan" and "Lady in the Dark". An art form cannot stabilize without stagnation. Objection entered to Mr Warner's choice, "--And He Built a Crooked House". Pish tush. Much, much rather would I see the producers of "Lot in Sodom" (which, by the bye, is the greatest fantasy movie of the past ten year,s not excluding Fantasia) turn their incredible talents to a sympathetic interpretation of C L Moore's rancourless, heart-wrenching "Fruit of Knowledge". ----Elmer Perdue
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