Hence, this.
From left to right, the Line, the Squiggle and the Dot.
The Square is not actually anyone in particular, ignore that.
This 1965 MGM-produced Acadamey Award-winner is based on a then three-years-old Norton Juster children's book, and very closely at that, with most of Juster's text making it into Robert Morley's narration (a superior effort as far as child-oriented storytelling goes, both witty and compassionate, right up there with Boris Karloff in Jones's Grinch).
It's 10 minutes long, which I find very interesting, as I have always regarded 10 minutes theatrical shorts as inherently more sincere than 7- or 6-minutes-long ones. Six or seven minutes was the accepted studio norm; and if you want to go into featurette rather than short, there's a sort of unspoken law that you have to reach 14 minutes at least. Hence 10 minutes is what happens two things coincide; first, the team is really into the short they're making and have a little more material than strictly require; and second, the studio executive is willing to let the team do its thing without griping. Hollywood studio executives being who they are, the second thing is vanishingly rare.
The story is simple and weird: in an abstract world of sentient geometric shapes, a (male) Line is desperately in love with a (female) Dot. She finds him boring and as literal a stick-in-the-mud as they get, and elects to spend her time with a slovenly Squiggle instead. After some moping about the Line learns to bend himself to create new, complex and intriguing shapes, and comes back to the Dot a virtuoso of contortion with immensely more variety than the Squiggle ever had, and much more control too. The Dot is conquered, and dumps the Squiggle.
It's a borderline-absurdist, absolutely charming children's fable. The only moral it draws for itself is a fantastic pun (one of several); but it's, of course, ridiculously easy to find all sorts of worthy themes and messages within it if one cares to look. “Adapt and improve yourself to be worthy of who you love.” “You contain multitudes; but you must work to reach them.” “A quiet well-ordered mind contains more potential than all the chaos in the world.” And so on and so forth. Certainly, those who want Meaning in their children's stories won't be disappointed.
I could find only two flaws in this story and its worldbuilding, and they're not so much flaws as mildly weak points. The first is that despite the claim that there are other Lines, we inexplicably never see any other Dots. The second is a certain moment that, by modern sensibilities, might be taken as somewhat offensive: the Line's passion for the Dot seems unbearably shallow. The one thing the Dot does, personality-wise, is have fun with the Squiggle, and the Line is constantly telling it not to do that. The scene where the Line muses about the way the Dot is perfect to his eyes makes it clear that this perfection is entirely physical and the sole bedrock of his affection.
But as I thought about it some more, it dawned on me that this isn't an entirely fair criticism. Much of The Dot and the Line's wit lies in double-meaning language which roots itself in the idea that in this geometric cosmos, the mathematical nature of the characters is indistinguishable from their psychic nature. The Squiggle is insubordinate and aimless, the Line is straightforward and rigid. By this metric, to love the shape of the Dot is to love her for her mind, in an abstract way. So I'll let it slide.
At any rate, Chuck Jones's animation is experimental as anything, and it's a hoot. Of course, bringing personality to a simple animated line had been done before, and would be done again, but these three ‘linear’ animation hallmarks all do it in very different ways, and Jones's is the only one that actually feels geometric, if that makes sense. The style of Jones and Maurice Noble's designs had always tended towards the abstract and angular, and one imagines they relished this opportunity to take it to its logical conclusion.
Oh, the animation's not without its flaws; not all of the stiffness can be wholly excused as an artistic choice, for one thing. Also irksome is that any pretense of making the Dot resemble an actual geometrical dot is dropped in favor of making her a disc. Notice how in the above screenshot someone is measuring the width of the Dot, which anybody with a working knowledge of mathematics will tell you is utterly shameful bogus. And as I mocked in the caption of the first picture, the abstract backgrounds occasionally include random shapes which would be fine anywhere else, but, here, can't help but befuddle a viewer who's come to accept that shapes are people in this cartoon's world, and therefore is waiting (in vain) for that square or that triangle to start talking.
But for every slip-up there's a fantastic color palette, an innovative gag-sequence like the Line's daydreams about being a celebrity, or simply great animation. I particularly like the Squiggle's half-baked attempts to copy the Line's feat, right before it retreats, and the way it shrinks back from the swelling Dot, even if the phrase “swelling dot” is, as I said, anathema to anybody with one ounce of mathematics in them.
For that animation alone, the strange experiment in cartooning that is The Dot and the Line would be worth watching; but the witty writing, great narration, and competent music combined make it a masterpiece and well-deserving of its award.
Post-Scriptum
Another reason I like The Dot and the Line is because (even though this must largely be coincidental) its style is as close as anything to the masterpiece of absurdist French TV animation, The Shadoks, of which despite the existence of a British dub I can only find one miserable English-language clip online, but I think it's enough to gauge the similarity.
I am most-often not a fan of short cartoons that emphasize their “style” over “humor” (Ahem… UPA!), but this one is a delightful exception!
ReplyDeleteIs there anything in the animation or design that would characterize it as “A Chuck Jones Cartoon”? No!
Does Robert Morley’s graceful narration put it over the top for me? Decidedly yes!
Would this have worked in a half-hour compilation show, sandwiched between a Jones “Duck Season / Rabbit Season” cartoon and a Jones Road Runner short? Not at all!
Would it have been more at home amongst Jones’ later MGM work, such as the Tom and Jerry short “Snowbody Loves Me” (…a “not-so-short-short”, with a running time of 7:52) and Jones’ (pardon) evergreen version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”? Absolutely!
Not at all sure where I intended to go with the above series of “quad-questions”, beyond stating that “The Dot and The Line” is a superior example of a “Non-Humor Animated Short” that I remain (against my sometimes pedestrian norms) very fond of!
Is there anything in the animation or design that would characterize it as “A Chuck Jones Cartoon”? No!
DeleteAh, there I don't quite agree with you. It's brief, but I think there's something very Chuck Jones-ish, or at least very Maurice Noble-ish, in the way the Squiggle moves.
a superior example of a “Non-Humor Animated Short”
Well, non-humor is kind of pushing it. It's not gag-oriented in quite the same way as a Looney Tunes short or a Tom & Jerry, that's one thing; but the numerous puns and sort-of-puns (i.e. the Line imagining all the ways it could be famous) clearly classify this as a comedy to me. A more… highbrow, British sort of comedy, if you will, but a comedy still.
Either way, glad to see your thoughts on the blog! I don't know if you've seen but there's been quite a backlog since you last commented.
DeleteBeing so unlike Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry is exactly what I mean by a “Non-Humor Animated Short”.
DeleteThat is not to say it *doesn’t* have its own special brand of humor – it certainly does! Just that there are no explosions and no one is flattened by falling boulders! Those “ pedestrian norms”, and all that sort of rot, eh, wot?
And maybe THAT is what separates it from the UPA theatrical shorts that are less to my taste! Though UPA’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” just may be one of the greatest theatrical shorts EVER! So, there are no absolutes!
Oh, I READ everything you post here, as you are one of the folks of whom I’ve long said should have their own Blog. Our friend “Scarecrow33” is another. As I communicate with both of you via your actual names and e-mail addresses, he is also full of the type of very thoughtful analysis I enjoy.
It’s that, when it comes to things like Doctor Who (long retired from) or “New DuckTales” episodes that I haven’t seen, I have little or nothing to say. Shoulda commented on Hitchcock though!
Suffice it to say I enjoy everything you post, whether I comment or not.