I cannot
hear the lyrical melody of Rossini’s Ranz
des Vaches (Call to the Dairy Cows) from William Tell (1829) without bursting into a fit of giggles. This affliction dates back to my early
childhood. My parents were elementary
school teachers in London, Ontario. In
those days, educational films were distributed to schools via a 16mm film
library held by the London Board of Education.
For my birthday party one year – I believe I was turning 9 or 10 years
old – my parents brought a projector home with a collection of animated shorts
for my friends and me to watch. The only
film that I recall from the party is Marv
Newland’s classic Bambi Meets
Godzilla (バンビ、ゴジラに会う, 1969). If
you have not yet seen it, it only lasts about a minute and a half and can be viewed on Vimeo.
The film was
made while Newland was still a student in California – he talks about it a
little bit in an Anifest
interview here – and quickly became a cult classic. In today’s world in which the internet is
patrolled by over-zealous corporations protecting their copyrights and
infringing upon freedom of artistic expression, it is doubtful that such a film could be
made without the threat of a lawsuit. Newman did not ask Disney or Toho
for permission for his send-up of / homage to their iconic Bambi and Godzilla
characters.
The main
conceit of the film is that more than half of the less than two-minute film is taken up
by hilarious opening credits and closing acknowledgements. This is partly a commentary on the growing length
of film credits (in the early days, films only credited key people, but by the
1960s the opening and closing credits were getting longer), but it is mainly a suspense technique leading up to the extremely quick “action” of the film. The opening credits are drawn out for 50 seconds, eliciting
chuckles from the audience first when they notice that Marv Newman has done
everything, and second when the jobs credited become ludicrous.
At the 50
second mark, the credits are interrupted by the sudden appearance of Godzilla’s
foot flattening poor, unsuspecting Bambi like a pancake.
The “action” lasts just under 2 seconds, then after a few beats for the audience
to get over their shock / laughter, the acknowledgements appear, thanking the
city of Tokyo for the loan of their most infamous Kaiju. While watching the
film online recently, I got nostalgic for the old 16mm projectors because at my
birthday party, in addition to re-watching the film several times, we also watched
it backwards and laughed ourselves silly at the sight of Godzilla’s foot going
up off-screen and Bambi popping back to life again. Alas, such joys are not to be had with digital
media. I also miss the whir of the
projector and the tactile pleasures of spooling the film into the
projector. It is sad that movie
projectors are going the way of the dodo bird, for they bring much pleasure to
many.
Marv Newland
(マーヴ・ニューランド) is an American-Canadian filmmaker, who has had
a long career making short commercials for both private and public broadcasters
in the US and Canada. In the course of his career he has done
everything from drawing storyboards for Barbapapa
at Toonder Studios (Netherlands) to making delightful animated
shorts for the NFB. His animated
adaptation of Gary
Larson’s Tales from the Far Side (1994) for TV won him the Grand Prix at Annecy
in 1995. He currently teaches Classical Animation
at the Vancouver
Film School. A limited edition DVD
of his collected works, The Best of
International Rocketship became available earlier this year. See
Cartoon Brew for more info.
Catherine
Munroe Hotes 2013