While flipping through Vol. 1, First Issue of "The Journal of Frankenstein" (a photo-illustrated monster movie zine from 1959), I stumbled upon something, well, quite amazing. Somehow amidst articles such as "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad," "The Return of the Son of the Bride of Frankenstein"... (Sorry, no returns; store credit only!)... and a preview of the soon-to-be-released "House on Haunted Hill"... a golden nugget appeared.
The following article is a long lost self-interview with Richard Williams himself. The man behind the now classic "The Little Island" was obviously trying to drum up U.S. interest in his film in any way possible. There is no other reason he'd be in a trash zine like this; it's a great trash zine, don't get me wrong. But Richard Williams created art and his article is mixed in amongst the ghosts and zombies and cheesy special effects of below-B movies. WTF?
But I digress. Let's let Richard Williams interview himself. Remember, he did this in 1959.
ANIMATION AND THE LITTLE ISLAND by Richard Williams
(Foreword: 25 year old Canadian artist Richard Willilams worked with animation companies in America before coming to Britain four years ago. His half-hour cartoon "The Little Island." which excited considerable praise at Brussels and Cannes, came first in the experimental section of the recent Documentary and Short Film Festival in Venice. it is believed to be the longest animated production ever undertaken by one person).
Sitting down to talk seriously about animation at the same time as speaking subjectively about my own film "The Little Island" is going to be a bit confusing.
First, I am much too involved with my own work to be really objective about the medium. And second, how can I, in 1,000 words or less, talk about "The Little Island," which took three years to make and doesn't have a single spoken word in it?
My own view is that, with few exceptions, the animated cartoon has always been used as a sort of comic-strip illustration. The recent sophisticated cartoons are just the same-- only precious instead of vulgar. Mind you, I enjoy these cartoons; but it would never enter my head to consider animation by these standards as a "serious" medium.
I mean, with a tradition of this kind it is very hard to stop thinking in terms of what has been done in the past-- and suddenly to see the artistically unexplored possibilities. Instead of realizing that you can move any mark you make in any way that you want and put any sort of sound or music with it to get exactly the effect you need-- you tend immediately to think of sentimental Valentine card animals or pop-eyed horrors bashing each other to bits or clever-clever animated Steinberg illustrations with "Design-for-living" backdrops.
3 years in the making, "The Little Island"... "Tracing & Painting the Monsters."
I didn't make "The Little Island" in order to rebel against these conceptions. On the contrary: the need of the film came by itself. I was a painter, and had long given up any previous interest in animation. But, for me, the ideas in "The Little Island" could only really be expressed as I wanted through the cartoon medium. And in the course of working on the film the possibilities of the medium itself became so apparent that I couldn't understand why I hadn't seen them before.
"The Little Island" itself is a satire about three little men on a tiny island, each with his own fixed viewpoint. One believes in Goodness, the next in Truth, and the third in Beauty. They have great, involved fantasies of these ideals, and then start picking each other to pieces. I tried in a comic way to describe the horror of the complete lack of understanding among the three characters.
It is a traditional cartoon film in many ways, since the idea demanded "cartoon" sort of treatment. The difference, however, is that I tried to get the elements in it to move and live in their own way, and not just to illustrate in a literal fashion some or other story conception. The music by Tristam Cary is never treated as just background music-- and in some cases it comes forward and leads the visual. So that music and effects are clear-cut and have a meaning of their own: their function is complementary, not illustrative.
Certainly, for me, the most successful parts of "The Little Island" do this, while the parts I am least happy with drop back slightly in literalism. And I feel that the cleaner-cut the elements in a drawn film the greater the possibility for carrying direct emotional power.
Now that "The Little Island" is finished, I want to work in different directions from "cartoon" animation. I feel that animation is not, as is usually considered, a primarily funny medium. I'm sure that when it is developed further it can be moving and satisfying.
The French critic Andre Martin says very nicely: "Animation is a great art which doesn't quite exist."
It is as if out of a whole field of possibilities, a couple of tiny furrows have been fantastically developed in craftsmanship, showmanship and technique, while the rest of the field has been almost completely neglected.
One thing we have really been given is a wealth of technical information. Now all we have to do is to use it. However, there are serious practical difficulties. There is the enormous amount of donkey work, the need for elaborate equipment and the terrific expense of production (in most cases, greater than for live action). And since the amount of work is so great, for anyone working alone or even in a small group, one is limited to fairly short films which at the moment are only "fillers" in cinema programs.
Oddly enough, I feel that indirectly television offers a great deal of hope. Because of the terrific demand for TV animation (mostly advertising commercials), there are more cameras, rostrums and technical equipment available. In my own case, I financed and housed "The Little Island" solely on my travels through various TV production studios.
So, ironically, one can work on bulb-nosed characters in black and white for television in order to work in one's own way for a large cinema screen with excellent color and sound facilities.
I think also that there will be a great development in animated film when the various artists and musicians working in it (usually by way of TV) stop considering it as an "applied art" and work seriously in it on its own terms, as a medium in its own right.
I hope personally that, aside from what I've tried to express in the film, "The Little Island" is a step in this direction."
By Richard Williams
In 1988, Richard Williams was the Animation Director of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Wiki him... He is still working today.
Reprinted from "The Journal of Frankenstein", 1959.
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