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May 24, 2004I feel the need to say a few words about our cruise tonight. My father received the following instructions, in print, ahead of time:Boarding begins at 7:00pm. The boat leaves at 7:30pm. We arrived at the Potomac River at 7:05pm. The boat had sailed. Apparently, whoever (from the Academy) was in charge of the cruise had told the captain that the entire group had arrived, and they were ready to take off. Later, another person (from the Academy) high in the ranks told my father that they told the captain not to leave. Regardless, the boat had to make a U-turn during the cruise and ended up returning to the docks to scoop us up. Does this kind of thing happen everywhere, or is it just when Russians are involved? Also: Today, my brother had a rehearsal for a Russian play. Since both of my parents were busy, the “director” of the play agreed to pick Slav up for the noon rehearsal. 11:30... 11:45... noon... Finally Slav gets a call: “I’m in Baltimore. Nothing is working out.” What does this even mean? In the end, people get their shit together and end up holding rehearsal at 1pm at a home within walking distance of our house. Cripesheet. Does this kind of thing happen everywhere, or is it just when Russians are involved? What is the matter with my people? After the cruise tonight, I showed Slav the scene from Triplets of Belleville in which one of the triplets goes “fishing.” When I watched the movie for the first time in 26-100 (a large lecture hall at MIT), the entire audience burst into laughter at the sight of a massive cylinder of water (what is that called?) shooting up from the ocean (bay?). Later, I played around with the special features on the DVD. In a featurette entitled “The Cartoon According to Sylvain Chomet,” Chomet (Conceiver, Writer, Director) talks about the process of cartooning: “Animators don’t only use their right hand. If they’re right-handed, the use their right hand to draw the character... And flipping with the left, you can make it move. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with illustrations of comic books whatsoever.” So he has the 1st three dimensions in the right hand and adds time using the left hand. Pretty cool way to explain it. He goes on to describe how he sees the triplets: “For me the triplets are like... black people from New York, like tall guys who play baskets, and they have this very special way to walk... What’s funny with animation, you can have a tall black guy in the body of a very old lady... Their strength comes from the fact that they’re mainly built like Africans inside.” There is much fantastic music, something I would expect from a cartoon with few lines of dialogue (under a dozen?). My parents were touched by the piano pieces. Chomet again: “The... crossing is my favorite scene because, emotionally, it’s been a very surprising scene. I wanted to have some nice classical music on it, so I bought a record at the time which was the Mass in c minor of Mozart. The first time I listened to it I say oh my God it’s so much like what I want – it was everything I wanted to put into it, and it would bring some tragedy to this scene... Then we put the music on, and then we looked at each other and we were very touched by it, it had a lot of emotion going for it... That is pure magic – you know, the sort of things you don’t really think about.” Benoit Charest, “Compositor,” adds: “For me it’s clear that they are Sylvain’s creatures, the triplets, that is. But to add the voice, and then the music on top of that, it complements the character.” The triplets perform with a vacuum, fridge, and newspaper. The vacuum sound actually comes from a vacuum, haha. The featurette has a short clip of Charest playing with a vacuum, trying to get sound out of it. In the background, two men who worked on the music talk about the vacuum: -The vacuum has a name, now. -Yes. -His name is Mouf-Mouf. -He’s got a great career ahead of him. The soundtrack is MINE. Chomet also talks about the process of creating the characters: “When people spend 8 hours a day and 5 days a week and sometimes 2 years on a film, it’s better if they can actually put themselves into 1 character and really at the end say, this is my character, in another way this is me on the screen, this is me acting.” Evgeni Tomov, Art Director, talks about the city of Belleville, the completely fictitious city we are introduced to by a massive green statue of an obese woman: “When we arrive in Belleville, the objective was to create a city... that can base the feeling of really existing city but it doesn’t resemble anything that exists in reality. It was a compilation between Paris, New York, and Montreal. What directions Ivan gave me... It should be a very rich, very interesting city, where the abundance called for consumerism and food is a typical thing. And that’s why you see so many obese people...” It doesn’t resemble anything that exists in reality. Right-o... I thought a couple scenes looked strange, and that can be explained by the use of computers. Chomet explains: “The danger was also to show something too synthetic, that 3D look. You know, like CGI would always look to clean... So we’ve tried to destroy a bit the look of CGI to make it look as though it was drawn by hand.” That’s nice, that they didn’t want the technology to take away from the look of the film. The look/mood of the film was exceptionally well done. I felt the same way as when I watched Lost in Translation: completely lost in the world in front of my eyes. “Small details give life to a scene... The set is almost a character. The fourth character is the set.” Chomet says: “What I really learned in England, which is also a different style from North American style, is that sometimes everything is based on the timing. Sometimes you can have some character that doesn’t do anything and then just a little gesture and it makes things come to life and makes things funny and makes things sad.” I loved that this movie takes it’s time in developing the story and the characters, especially the characters. No scene is rushed, details are of the highest importance. Nikka saw the movie recently and told me that it was too long for her, that it just dragged on and on and wouldn’t finish. For a mostly silent cartoon, the movie was long. There were definitely a few moments when I caught myself losing interest/focus, but the movie had been so excellent up to that point. I trusted that the movie still had many wonderful things to offer, and so I kept watching, trying to stay focused and really pick up on all the tiny details that made the movie so fantastic. I remember a couple years ago (actually, until recently) being unsatisfied by any book I picked up. I would read the first couple of pages and just put the book down, convinced that I wouldn’t be able to “get into it.” One fine day I decided to keep reading. DeLillo’s White Noise was in my hands, and it took me all semester to get through it. Most of the time, it was a pain in the ass, but in the end... marvelous things. The book came together for me. I had spent three months with the characters, and the conclusion was my reward. I guess I was lucky. I could have hated the book the whole way through, but I’m happy I gave Triplets enough time to work its magic. There’s something to be said for movies/books that don’t require much effort to enjoy them, but just from classical music, I know that sometimes you have just got to sit your lil tuckus down and listen. And if you were wondering about that pile of mush the grandson was eating: “It’s sardines and potatoes mashed together, with fish bones.” Parting words from Chomet: “The characters were very fragile... They are not invincible, they are just like us. They live. they suffer, they exist...” Nice. |
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