I saw The Triplets of Belleville tonight, and it's fantastic. A particularly nice blending of animation styles, I thought. I'm also terribly fond of any movie that tells its story without dialogue. I may have to go see this again.
If you have seen this film, I would like to draw your attention to a detail. The mother, at one point, shacks up with the eponymous triplets. The walls of their apartment are lined with various framed posters. One of these is an advertisement for a dinosaur called Gertie.
Gertie is one of the earliest pieces of animation, a film composed of roughly ten thousand individually drawn frames, done by Winsor McCay with the assistance of John A. Fitzsimmons. They began work in 1913 and debuted the short in February 1914. The film itself presents an amiable dinosaur named Gertie, a black and white line drawing of no small charm, who interacts with a basic prehistoric environment, snacking on trees, drinking from a lake, and even dancing on her hind legs.
Gertie's presentation as a film was far different from what we expect from a movie these days. McCay was a cartoonist who also performed in what were known as chalk talks. In these performance pieces, an artist would sketch out cartoons on a tableau in front of an audience, following their suggestions. McCay created Gertie as a sort of super chalk talk. As the filmed animation was presented, McCay would issue orders to Gertie. Having timed his presentation beforehand, Gertie would then appear to follow McCay's commands, creating the illusion of interaction between McCay and the cartoon dinosaur. At one point, McCay appeared to toss Gertie a pumpkin, which Gertie then ate. For the finale, McCay walked behind the screen as an animated representation of himself entered the frame and climbed up on Gertie's head.
Dinosaurs on film tend to be pretty scary (Babies, Secrets of Lost Legends excepted), but Gertie was thoroughly affable, cute, and quite whimsical. When Gertie takes a sip from a lake, she leaves a dry canyon behind. When she eats a tree, she doesn't pick at it but rather swallows the whole thing up in a comic trope that would be revisited in animation many times again. Plus, just look at that mug, with its broad grin and pupilless, ping pong ball eyes. What's not to love?
And now for the links.
This is the home page of the Gertie Restoration Project, which features (on that linked page) a 2 meg animated gif of Gertie dancing. This page also features a scene-by-scene breakdown of the film, along with a gallery of stills from all parts of the film.
Here is a short biography of Winsor McCay, referencing his other works. I'd like to check out his Little Nemo strip, sounds good.
VanEaton Galleries has some Gertie material, but also shows some stills from McCay's earlier animation work. He had done two animated films prior to Gertie, Little Nemo and The Story of a Mosquito.
This tripod page documents Gertie's fate shilling ice cream.
Finally, the Library of Congress has clips from Gertie's later film adventure, Gertie on Tour, which does not exist in its entirety. The film, from 1921, shows Gertie playing with a toad, a trolleycar, and attending a dinosaur rave. Although not the original Gertie, it's still fun to watch. The fluidity of the animation is gorgeous.
Posted by mattb at February 16, 2004 09:44 PM