Fantasy/Animation

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) (with Gary Trousdale)

For the first episode of 2023, Chris and Alex are back into the world of Disney Feature Animation, following up earlier discussions of The Emperor’s New Groove (Mark Dindal, 2000) and Treasure Planet (Ron Clements & John Musker, 2002) with Episode 111, which looks at the studio’s 2001 feature film Atlantis the Lost Empire (Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise, 2001), a science-fiction adventure that draws inspiration from Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870). Joining them as their very special guest is the film’s co-director, Gary Trousdale, who was part of the celebrated Disney Renaissance and together with Kirk Wise also directed the Disney features Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). Gary was first hired by Walt Disney Feature Animation back in 1984 as an effects animator on The Black Cauldron (Ted Berman & Richard Rich, 1985). He then moved onto story for Oliver & Company (George Scribner, 1988) and worked as a Storyboard Artist for The Little Mermaid (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1989), before finally taking up directorial duties on Beauty and the Beast that was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Gary later moved to DreamWorks and, more recently, is credited as creative consultant for the 2017 reimagining of Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon, 2017). Listen as they discuss the Disney Renaissance as a period of industrial and creative renewal via the studio’s return to a Golden Age sensibility; the siting of Atlantis: The Lost Empire within Disney’s post-2000 era of narrative and stylistic heterogeneity; the 1914 setting of the Verne-inspired film, and how its images of war bear the influence of advancements in early twentieth-century technology; the formal connection between animated musical numbers and action sequences; and what the adventure narrative of Atlantis: The Lost Empire and its application of CGI has to say about Hollywood animation’s own technological frontier.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Footnote #20 - Christmas

What makes a Christmas film, and why are fantasy and animated films so popular during this festive period? How is cinema consumed and ‘used’ at Christmas by both the popular film industry and families as a source of comfort? How is Christmas is narratively and thematically presented in our favourite festive-themed films? All these questions and many more are tackled by Chris and Alex in the final Footnote episode of the podcast for 2022, which looks at the very nature of Christmas onscreen as sometimes animated but almost always a fantasy. Happy holidays!

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

The Snowman (1982) (with James Walters)

The 2022 Fantasy/Animation Christmas special is here, with Chris and Alex well and truly ‘walking in the air’ (!) for Episode 110 of the podcast as they wonder at the delights of The Snowman (Dianne Jackson, 1982), the 26-minute television special released on Channel 4 in the early 1980s and based on Raymond Briggs’ picture book. Joining them for this tale of festive fantasy and to celebrate the film’s 40th anniversary is Dr James Walters, who is Reader in Film and Television Studies in the Department of Film and Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. James’ work embraces film and television aesthetics, and he is the author of two monographs regularly cited on the podcast - Fantasy Film: A Critical Introduction (2011) and Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema (2008) - among other recent work on television comedy and performance. Listen as they discuss the relationship between British and Hollywood fantasy cinema in the 1980s; the contribution of Channel 4 to the evolution of British television animation; depth, energy, movement, and sincerity in The Snowman’s cosy construction of fantasy, and the spectators’ ability to ‘take off’ with its defining images of flight; childhood and the power of snow as an enchanting (if always fleeting) force; texture, detail, and stillness in Brigg’s original drawings; divisions between interior/order and exterior/chaos; and the way that fantasy - like Christmas - can mean different things to different people. Oh, and there’s a bit about David Bowie too. Happy holidays!

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Footnote #19 - Morphing

Animation’s potential for quick change is the focus of Footnote #19, as Chris and Alex go through questions of transformation via a 10-minute look at morphing. Discussions turn to the spectacle of fluid, flexible bodies in relation to more concrete states of being; connections to digital VFX as an enabling tool that articulates pristine images of fragmentation and disintegration that push at the boundaries of realism; the morph’s implied stability as it moves from one form to another; and the politics of selecting an identity in relation to queer images of mobility-in-performance.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Willow (Ron Howard, 1988)

Alex fulfils something of a lifelong dream in Episode 109 in that he finally gets a chance to talk about the mythology and magic of Willow (Ron Howard, 1988) for the Fantasy/Animation podcast, albeit with Chris alongside him as relative novice to its world of prophecies, sorcery, and high fantasy storytelling. Listen as they discuss the film’s broader liminal status within traditions of both fantasy and animation that anchor it very much to Hollywood cinema of the 1980s and 1990s, including its place on the cusp of industry turns towards digital VFX imagery and the evolution of a particular kind of fantasy away from ‘wonder’ films towards spectacular ‘frontier’ blockbusters. Topics include Willow’s use of practical effects and the role of George Lucas (as Executive Producer) in relation to emergent digital VFX technologies; the Computer Graphics Lab, Lucasfilm, and the spectacle of cinema’s first ‘digital morph’; the film’s perceived failure and the blacklisting of high fantasy in U.S. cinema; narrative and thematic links to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings (2001-2003), including the use of location shooting in New Zealand; disabled representation, and how Willow navigates the complex issues of ableism and exceptionalism; and what Ron Howard’s film has to say about the enchanting powers of magic and trickery both on and offscreen.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Footnote #18 - Studio Ghibli (with Susan Napier)

The latest Footnote episode of the podcast sees the return of Professor Susan Napier (Goldthwaite Professor of Rhetoric, International Literary and Cultural Studies at Tufts University), who straight from her guest turn on Chris and Alex’s discussion of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2002) chats about the animated works and philosophy of Studio Ghibli. Listen as they examine Studio Ghibli’s contribution to global animation history and their vexed industrial and creative relationship to the Walt Disney Studio; the multimedia reach of the company and its turn to theatrical stage shows and theme parks; the methodological fascination of Ghibli given their synonymy with Japanese anime (and how they differ from other representational traditions within the animated medium); and how the aesthetics and narratives of Studio Ghibli’s feature films are the bearers of high levels of love, detail, and the magic of artistic creation.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Spirited Away (2001) (with Susan Napier)

Episode 108 returns Chris and Alex once more to the world of Japanese anime as they look at the images of displacement, gluttony, and labour in Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001), perhaps the flagship Studio Ghibli animated feature and a film that won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Special guest for this instalment is Professor Susan Napier (Goldthwaite Professor of Rhetoric, International Literary and Cultural Studies at Tufts University) whose work spans the history and theory of Japanese animation as well as issues of gender, science-fiction, and fantasy. Susan is also the author of a number of monographs and essays on both fantasy and animation, from The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature: The Subversion of Modernity (1996) and Anime from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle: Experiencing Japanese Animation (2005) to the recent Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art (2018). Topics for this episode includes tropes of the ‘portal quest’ narrative within fantasy storytelling, and child protagonist Chihiro’s quest to both ‘escape’ and ‘prove’ her identity; distinctions between human and spirit worlds that permit an interrogation of modern society’s capitalist consumptions and expenditures; the animated representation of cleanliness and disgust, including the portrayal of food; and how Spirited Away navigates spectators through the uneven, ambivalent, and transformative fantasy space of childhood.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Footnote #17 - Metaphor

The power of symbolism and the creativity of the metaphorical are the focus of Footnote #17, which seeks to distinguish Metaphor through animation’s identity as a ‘metaphorical’ medium and, as a consequence, its fundamental rhetorical and symbolic potential. Topics for Chris and Alex include the thorny issue of film when considered as a language, and whether or not we can see images as symbols in the same way as written words; the split between denotative and connotative interpretation in the examination of media; metonym and the role of imagination; the commitment of animation to ‘the idea’ and the cultural specificity of this act of creation; and the use of fantasy as a psychoanalytical process of metaphorical meaning making.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Inside Out (2015) (with Eric Herhuth)

The problematic pursuit of happiness is the focus of Episode 107 of the podcast, which looks at the pleasure of the mindscape in Pixar Animation Studios’ computer-animated film Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015). Joining Chris and Alex for this cerebral trip inside the mind is Dr Eric Herhuth, Assistant Professor of Communication and Director of Film Studies at Tulane University, and author of a number of publications on the intersections between animation, aesthetics, and politics, including the monograph Pixar and the Aesthetic Imagination: Animation, Storytelling, and Digital Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017). Topics for this episode include contemporary Hollywood animation and the place of Inside Out within Pixar’s Golden Age; animation’s longstanding propensity for metaphor and political allegory; emotion, personality, and the U.S. obsession with happiness; the politics and creativity of ruined spaces and Inside Out’s linking of agency with repression; the 11-year-old Riley as both protagonist and setting (and the subsequent gendering of the film’s virtual space); what Inside Out is saying about the acceptance of sadness; and the dramatic stakes of what happens when feelings have feelings.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Footnote #16 - Dual Address (with Noel Brown)

Recent podcast guest Dr Noel Brown (Senior Lecturer in Film and Programme Leader for Film and Visual Culture, Liverpool Hope University) returns for this Footnote episode on Dual Address, and the ways in which children’s fiction (and cultural products more broadly) might engage multiple registers and include simultaneous meaning for both child and adult audiences. Listen as Chris, Alex, and Noel discuss its emergence within the field of children’s literature and status as a ‘hypothetical’ category; relationships to ‘single’ address and questions of subtext; the role of humour, literacy, and intertextual referencing; hierarchies of knowledge and taste; and how Dual Address function as a strategy to think through industry, audience appeal, and even the rise of replay home video culture.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**