“He had a sort of peanut-shaped head from the Tex Avery cartoons, his trousers were from Droopy, his feet from Br’er Rabbit, Mickey Mouse’s early yellow gloves from the Forties, the ears from Oswald Rabbit – an early Disney character – and Porky Pig’s bowtie.” “Roger was a sort of a Frankenstein,” he says. Richard – who now teaches animation through his DVD masterclass, The Animator’s Survival Kit – also designed the characters as an amalgamation of the era’s greatest cartoon icons. The best example of this is in the opening cartoon Somethin’s Cookin’, most of which Williams animated himself. Zemeckis’s vision was to combine the technique of Disney, fun characters of Looney Tunes, and slapstick, physics-defying humour of the Tex Avery cartoons (“Dynamite down the pants-type stuff,” as Zemeckis described at the time). The two genres are a stark contrast – the steamy, sleazy, shadowy world of noir, against the bright, bouncy, hyperactive world of kids’ cartoons – but it works as a Hollywood-centric period piece. It’s little wonder, of course – producer Steven Spielberg and director Robert Zemeckis are perhaps the two most “pure Hollywood” filmmakers around.
Who framed roger rabbit i was drawn that way movie#
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a marvel of hand-drawn animation, but also Hollywood at its very best: a homage to both the studio system and animation’s golden age, styled and rooted in the unmistakable language of cinema a celebration of that storytelling magic on which the American movie business has sold itself since the talkies first, well, talked and the kind of technical innovation that underpins every truly great blockbuster. Richard William was the film’s director of animation, and under his charge were over 700 people, working for more than three years to bring Roger to life. Or, more accurately, bring Roger into live action, alongside an ensemble cast that includes Christopher Lloyd, Joanna Cassidy, Roger’s femme fatale wife Jessica (she’s not bad, she’s just drawn that way), Baby Herman, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Daffy and Donald Duck, Betty Boop, and Dumbo – in a world where humans and cartoon characters, or “Toons”, live side-by-side. There’s no need for a hardboiled detective on the latter count.
So: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? That’s a question with two meanings: who framed the cartoon rabbit for murder – as investigated by Bob Hoskins’s drunken, sourpuss gumshoe – no whodunit spoilers here, even if the film is over 30 years old – and who framed the cartoon rabbit on the big screen? This interview with Hollywood animator Richard Williams, who died on August 16 aged 86, was first published in June 2018
0 kommentar(er)
