Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1908
Fantasmagorie (1908 film)
Buy Fantasmagorie (1908 film) now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Fantasmagorie' is a 1908 French animated film by mile Cohl. It is one of the earliest examples of traditional (hand-drawn) animation, and considered by film historians to be the first animated cartoon.
Description
The film largely consists of a stick man moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower which becomes an elephant. There are also sections of live action where the animator's hands enter the scene. The main character is drawn by the artist's hand on camera, and the main characters are a clown and a gentleman. Other characters include a woman in a film theater wearing a large hat with gigantic feathers and a strongman.
The film, in all of its wild transformations, is a direct tribute to the by-then forgotten Incoherent movement. The title is taken from the original French word for "phantasmagoria", a mid-19th century magic lantern show with moving images of ghosts.
History
Cohl worked on 'Fantasmagorie' from February to either May or June 1908. Despite the short running time, the piece was packed with material devised in a stream of consciousness style. The film was released on 17 August 1908.
Production
The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look. It was made up of 700 drawings, each of which was exposed twice (animated "on twos"), leading to a running time of almost two minutes.Cohl probably copied the blackboard-style from J. Stuart Blackton's 'Humorous Phases of Funny Faces' (1906).
See also
* 'Humorous Phases of Funny Faces'
* 'The Enchanted Drawing'
* History of animation
References
Buy Fantasmagorie (1908 film) now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1908