Fantasy/Animation

Waterworld (1995) (with Simon Brew)

Episode 48 is a mid-1990s feast of action, water, and a drenched Kevin Costner, as Chris and Alex attempt to stay afloat for their visit to Waterworld (Kevin Reynolds, 1995), the ill-fated post-apocalyptic action adventure that has earned its place in U.S. film history seemingly for all the wrong reasons. The special guest for this instalment is Simon Brew - founder and editor at Film Stories magazine/podcast - who joins Chris and Alex to discuss the pleasures of high-concept blockbuster filmmaking in the 1990s; Waterworld’s notoriously troubled production that dominated the Hollywood trade press before, during and after its release; the industrial context shaping Reynold’s film (including its application of physical sets in an era of encroaching digital technology and computer animation); the challenges of world-building on water; VFX connoisseurship and audience reception; and how the environmentalist discourse regarding melting polar ice caps pushes the Waterworld away from disaster/science-fiction territory and into science fact.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

Episode 47 bobs along on the bottom of the beautiful briny sea, with Chris and Alex gliding far below the rolling tide and through the bubbly blue and green for this latest episode of the podcast, which this week looks at musical fantasy Bedknobs and Broomsticks (Robert Stevenson, 1971). In addition to the film’s political agenda and 1940s wartime setting, the discussion also takes in both the Hollywood cinema and Disney Feature Animation contexts (including its formal resemblances to Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book); what Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ depiction of an illusory and imaginary London means for the organisation of fantasy against its fictional reality; the integration of musical numbers and questions of utopia; national identity and the representation of Nazism; the variant relationships between animation and sport as equally stylised practices; and how Robert Stevenson’s film gestures to postwar British cinema and the “spiv” cycle. Oh, and there’s a couple of references to Bruce Forsyth too.

Aladdin (2019) (with Myles Robey)

For Episode 46, Chris and Alex take a magic carpet ride through the pleasures and problems of the recent musical fantasy Aladdin (Guy Ritchie, 2019). Joining them for a discussion of exactly how (and indeed if) it adapts Disney’s highly successful 1992 cel-animated musical is the film’s VFX Editor Myles Robey, whose work also includes the Harry Potter franchise and feature films Skyfall, Muppets Most Wanted, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and the recent 1917. Listen as they examine the production pipeline of a Hollywood blockbuster, including Previs, Postvis and the development of “Sketchvis” approaches in Ritchie’s remake; the application of live-action footage as a visual effect within a heavily digital feature; the logic of location shooting and the ‘grounding’ of computer graphics; Aladdin’s connections to the Classical Hollywood musical and its spectacle of staging; and the relationship between Will Smith’s star persona and screen performance.

Hercules (1997) (with Edith Hall)

Bless my soul, we are definitely on a roll with Episode 45 of the Fantasy/Animation podcast, which continues the Disney Renaissance theme in its take on Hercules (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1997). To make sense of the visual culture of antiquity manifest in Disney’s cel-animated musical fantasy and its adaptation of Greek myth, Chris and Alex are joined by Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at King’s College London and a specialist in ancient Greek literature and cultural history. Listen as they discuss the film’s reworking of Hercules, Hades and Philoctetes alongside questions of tragedy, comedy and images of slavery; its combination of celebrity culture with Greek heroism and masculinity; the politics of Disneyfication operating in Hercules as a process situated between authenticity and animated representation; the visual character designs of British political cartoonist Gerard Scarfe; and its exhibitionist use of computer graphics in its portrayal of the multi-headed Hydra.

The Emperor's New Groove (2000) (with Astrid Goldsmith)

Voted for by the Fantasy/Animation community on social media as the inaugural #feelgoodfananim, Episode 44 of the podcast looks at the Walt Disney studio’s cel-animated feature The Emperor's New Groove (Mark Dindal, 2000). Chris and Alex are also joined by their very first returning guest, award-winning animator Astrid Goldsmith (a.k.a. Mock Duck Studios), to discuss the troubled production history, buddy narrative and anarchic comic structures of a film that marked a seismic formal shift in the familiar Disney style. Or did it? Listen as the trio make their way through The Emperor’s New Groove’s adherence to the Disney formula and its ambiguous relationship to the Disney Renaissance, while remembering the landscape of Hollywood animation in the 1990s where the film began life as “The Kingdom of the Sun”. Other topics include the fantasy of The Emperor’s New Groove’s strongly self-reflexive register and complex use of voiceover narration; character design, anthropomorphism and talking llamas; and what happens if you pull the wrong lever.

To all our listeners, stay safe and remember, no touchy!

Dungeons & Dragons (1983-1985)

Take a trip on a magic theme park ride with a Ranger, Barbarian, Magician, Thief, Cavalier and Acrobat as Chris and Alex turn once again to the small screen, this time to discuss Dungeons & Dragons (Kevin Paul Coates, Dennis Marks & Takashi, 1983-1985). Premiering on American television with CBS and animated by Japanese company Toei Animation, Dungeons & Dragons is a high fantasy cel-animated series that follows the tribulations of six young children as they strive to escape from a mythical realm. They are guided on their quest by the Dungeon Master, who allocates each of the characters a key role in the battle against evil forces, embodied by the wizard Venger and a five-headed dragon Tiamat. Topics include the structures of serial narration and worldbuilding, and how these elements map onto the real-world Dungeons & Dragons game as a set of props; the issue of ‘play’ both inside and outside the programme as part of its broader ludic impulse; the series’ ‘limited’ cartoonal style (including traditions in Syncro-Vox voice production); and the pleasure in fantasy storytelling of simply going along for the ride.

Wizards (1977) (Live @ Cinema Museum)

Join Chris and Alex for a discussion of the animated high fantasy epic Wizards (Ralph Bakshi, 1977), recorded in front of a live audience at the Cinema Museum in Kennington, London in January 2020. Conceived by animator Ralph Bakshi, Wizards is a counter-cultural marvel of the 1970s, one that blends a series of innovative animation styles with a story designed to stick two fingers up at the man with its heady mixture of psychedelia, allegory and fantasy. Listen as the conversation turns to the film’s relationship to politics and propaganda through its mixed media aesthetic and formal style; how Wizards mobilises its adult themes, socio-realism and gender politics, and how this appealed to a generation fed on a diet of Disney cartoons; the reflexivity of a narrative that pits forces of technology against the forces of magic; and how the fantasy of its creative illustrations contributes to the status of Wizards as an often overlooked masterpiece from the history of U.S. animation.

Brazil (1985) (with Hope Dickson Leach)

Events take a turn for the dystopian in Episode 41, as Chris and Alex venture to Brazil (1985), Terry Gilliam’s nightmarish and absurdist satire of bureaucratic totalitarianism and governmental red tape. They are joined for this latest instalment by very special guest, filmmaker Hope Dickson Leach, whose work includes drama The Levelling (2015), which premiered internationally at the Toronto International Film Festival, and a number of successful short films such as Morning Echo (2010) and Silly Girl (2016). In October 2016, Hope was awarded the inaugural IWC Filmmaker Bursary Award in Association with the BFI at the London Film Festival, was named a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit in October 2017, and a month later won a Scottish BAFTA for Best Screenwriter for The Levelling. Listen as they discuss distraction, delusion, dreaming and desire; the film’s technological commentary on cinema that gestures to the medium’s relationship to fiction; Brazil’s caricaturist logic that contributes to its surrealist horror; and how Gilliam creates the frustration of a vacuous fantasy for protagonist Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) that - thanks to the film’s uncooperative fictional society - can never be enacted.

BoJack Horseman (2014-2020)

With its last episode recently broadcast on Netflix, the web television series BoJack Horseman (Raphael Bob-Waksberg, 2014-2020) provides a timely and topical subject for Episode 40. Join Chris and Alex as they take a canter through the programme’s status as ‘adult animation’ (and what this term might mean as a label); the dark truth of its themes of narcissism, depression and self-destructive behaviour; how its shifting chronology and narrative ellipses places BoJack Horseman within contemporary Hollywood ‘puzzle film’ storytelling traditions; its complex anthropomorphic register and cartoonal forms of representation; and how BoJack Horseman’s ensemble cast navigates modes of cross-species sexuality at the same time as it collectively disavows any presence of a concrete moral centre.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) (with Frances Pheasant-Kelly)

For Episode 39, Chris and Alex venture for the first time to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as they take on another highly popular fantasy film franchise by discussing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Chris Columbus, 2001). They are joined by Dr Frances Pheasant-Kelly, who is a Reader in Screen Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, as well as the author of numerous publications on fantasy cinema including Fantasy Film Post-9/11 (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) that traces fantasy’s cathartic potential as a vehicle to work through traumatic memories in a post-9/11 climate. Together they examine the historical framing of the Harry Potter series, and in particular 2001 as a crucial turning point for fantasy cinema; questions of interpretation, adaptation and identification in the Harry Potter universe; the framing role of intrusive magic and the lack of a stable equilibrium; the pleasure of unfixed and sentient space; the collision between ordinary artefacts and CGI; the status of Harry Potter as an abject text rooted in the Dark Arts; and how the fantasy film franchise - like the characters as a whole - often battles against its own magical components.