Benefit
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2002
- Messages
- 5,193
Ralph Bakshi directed this 1981 animated feature that condenses a century of American music and culture into 95 minutes. It is fairly obscure, but definitely worth a viewing.
The film is very hit and miss. The music montages are excellent. Extensive use of rotoscoping lends the animation a gritty realism while still retaining the surrealism of all animation. Cross-cutting archival footage, the use of pastels and watercolors and some inverted live-action shots are all neat stylistic touches. The narrative structure has the overall nuanced complexity of a Victorian novel and the opening sequence, which is designed to resemble a silent film, was well constructed.
The character based on Janice Joplin pretty much bombed and the use of the mafia for plot purposes was quite lame and unnecessary, particularly when there are much better ways to explore the Jazz Age. The drawback of using animation is that it lacks the same emotional intensity of live action; when a scene requires a certain depth of human emotion to be conveyed between characters, the animated faces come up short. Some of the dialogue in this film is laughably bad.
As an examination of American culture it requires a good deal of preexisting knowledge; only 95 minutes to deal with 100 years of music and social history means the film can't explain everything and you have to be able to identify a certain time period from the style of dress or music or vernacular. But it is more or less honest and accurate and the music is terrific. Some of the highlights: George Gershwin, Bob Dylan, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Pat Benatar, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lou Reed, a reworked "Night Blues" by Bob Seger, Darby Slick plus a ton of ragtime, blues, jazz and various other bits and pieces.
If this film mated with Waking Life, the offspring would be a masterpiece.
The film is very hit and miss. The music montages are excellent. Extensive use of rotoscoping lends the animation a gritty realism while still retaining the surrealism of all animation. Cross-cutting archival footage, the use of pastels and watercolors and some inverted live-action shots are all neat stylistic touches. The narrative structure has the overall nuanced complexity of a Victorian novel and the opening sequence, which is designed to resemble a silent film, was well constructed.
The character based on Janice Joplin pretty much bombed and the use of the mafia for plot purposes was quite lame and unnecessary, particularly when there are much better ways to explore the Jazz Age. The drawback of using animation is that it lacks the same emotional intensity of live action; when a scene requires a certain depth of human emotion to be conveyed between characters, the animated faces come up short. Some of the dialogue in this film is laughably bad.
As an examination of American culture it requires a good deal of preexisting knowledge; only 95 minutes to deal with 100 years of music and social history means the film can't explain everything and you have to be able to identify a certain time period from the style of dress or music or vernacular. But it is more or less honest and accurate and the music is terrific. Some of the highlights: George Gershwin, Bob Dylan, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Pat Benatar, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lou Reed, a reworked "Night Blues" by Bob Seger, Darby Slick plus a ton of ragtime, blues, jazz and various other bits and pieces.
If this film mated with Waking Life, the offspring would be a masterpiece.