For a few years now, American animation studios have been
identifying their films by unique methods of production: Disney (hand-drawn
animation), Pixar (CG), Dreamworks (CG), and Robert Zemeckis’ ImageMovers
Digital (performance capture). But
until now, America did not have a feature studio dedicated to stop-motion
animation. Sure, stop-motion would
show up from time-to-time on American TV, most notably on “Robot Chicken.” But aside from a few independent films, stop motion was rarely utilized
in feature films.
That is until last Thursday. When “Coraline” premiered in Portland, Oregon.
I Photo by Todd James Pierce
In a word, the movie is stunning. Not only in the
presentation of its stop-motion world, but also in its storyline, its use of
music, its color palette, and the pervading sense of darkness that undergirds
the entire project.
To begin with, this movie is the first stop-motion feature to
be filmed in stereoscopic 3D, adapting cameras designed for medical procedures
to the stop-motion set. And unlike
other animated films presented in 3D (such as “Beowulf” or “Meet the Robinsons“)
in which the 3D effect feels like an aspect of post-production, the 3D
presentation of “Coraline” feels
integral to the project, as though the film were originally imagined in 3D.
Photo by Todd James Pierce
One of director Henry Selick’s
greatest abilities is to immerse audiences in dark, atmospheric
environments. For me, the primary
beauty of one of Selick’s earlier films, “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” is not the story but the exploration of the
film’s inventive world. Similarly
the exotic world of “Coraline” is
stunningly beautiful: from Coraline’s iridescent blue hair to the details of
each miniature set.
The story, itself, is the darkest narrative I’ve seen in an
animated film in years. And I love
it. One of my primary criticisms
of recent animated fare is that the stories have been cleaned up, stripped of
danger and therefore of their power.
But here, Selick bravely places Coraline (and her family) in mortal
danger throughout the movie.
Photo by Todd James Pierce
In a nutshell, the film follows a young girl, Coraline
Jones, as she moves to Ashland, Oregon. Where she finds that her parents are
too busy with their own careers to pay attention to her. Bored and lonely, Coraline discovers a
parallel world built by a creature who looks a great deal like her mother—though
a slightly more beautiful version, except for her black button eyes. Also there, a slightly more handsome
version of her father. And a more picturesque
version of their house. But as
Coraline explores this parallel universe, she discovers the true motives of her
“other mother.” Namely that she would like to possess Coraline’s life and
perhaps even the lives of her real parents.
If there is a moral here, it is one very different than that
of recent Disney films, namely that your actual life, complete with its
pleasures and burdens, is better than the idealized world one might see in
books or on TV.
Guests at the post-premiere party drink up next to the miniature sets that were used in the creation of “Coraline.” Photo by Todd James Pierce
It is here that the film gains a great deal of its narrative
power: it doesn’t seek to emulate the narrative strategies of recent Disney or
Pixar films, with their mix of dramatic scenes and comedic moments. There are no comic characters in Coraline at all. Nor does it broach the punny
post-modern playfulness of the Dreamworks franchises. Rather, Coraline
seeks its inspiration from early Disney films, those developed in the 1930s and
1940s.
In those early Disney
films, children were repeatedly placed in danger—and the danger was real. Coraline’s trek through a gloomy forest
is reminiscent of Snow White’s chilling encounter with haunted trees. When Coraline returns from the “other
world,” she finds her real house empty, her parents missing—a moment that
harkens to Pinocchio’s return home, after leaving Pleasure Island, to find
Geppetto gone. Coraline’s
disappearance down the hole to the other world is of course tied to a similar
journey Alice once made. But more
to the point, this movie has the good sense—and strength of conviction—to
ignore current narrative trends in animation and instead discover a greater power
by exploring older (and darker) animated antecedents from 60 years ago.
Teri Hatcher works the red carpet at “Coraline” ‘s world premiere. Photo by Todd James Pierce
The film premiered last Thursday in Portland, Oregon—not far
from Laika Studios where the film was produced. The red-carpet affair was attended by Phil Knight (who owns
Laika, also the co-founder of Nike), Henry Selick (the director), Dakota
Fanning (voice of Coraline), and Teri Hatcher (the voice of Coraline’s
mother). And the after-party was held
at a nearby museum, with sets and workstations from the film occupying a top
floor gallery.
In the gallery, guests had the opportunity to examine the
ornate beauty of Coraline’s house and interior rooms, from manmade cracks in
the floorboards to the texture of the furniture. Artists in side
workstations demonstrated the process of constructing the metal-and-silicone
puppets, each figure capable of expressing a range of precise gestures. One fabric replicator (a knitter)
demonstrated the process of making Coraline’s sweaters from miniature skeins of
wool.
Photo by Todd James Pierce
In the abstract, this attention to minutiae might seem
obsessive, but having seen
the movie twice now, I can tell you that this obsession
to detail, along with the film’s lush color palette, are exactly what makes the
3D world of Coraline so compelling.
And beyond this, these workstations drove home a second
message: in the 21st century, human hands, rather than computer processors,
are still capable of creating a distinctively beautiful film.
Photo by Todd James Pierce
From the perspective of story, this film is far more complex
(and entertaining) than any stop-motion film produced by Aardman
Animations (who have created “Chicken Run” and the Wallace and Gromit series). It delivers a sense of
story—and narrative uniqueness—that rivals the best Pixar films. The character of Coraline feels real,
from her carefully observed gestures to her pre-teen speech patterns. In terms of technical beauty, I cannot
think of a more gorgeous film produced in the past two or three years.
Pixar has Up in
the wings, which in animation circles has very good buzz, and Walt Disney Animation Studios has “The Princess and
the Frog,” which has mostly good buzz.
But presently Laika has not only broadened the world of American feature
animation. It has delivered a film
that has set the bar very high, a gorgeous motion picture that I strongly
suspect will be remembered next year at Oscar time.
Photo by Todd James Pierce
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