Fantasmagorie
About Fantasmagorie
A stick figure climbs out of the drawings around him. He pulls a movie theater from his own body, meets an elephant that changes shape, is locked in a cell, and gets out by turning into something else. The lines never sit still.
Cast & crew
More about Fantasmagorie
Émile Cohl drew, photographed, and produced the short for Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont. He made 700 drawings on white paper, photographed them onto negative film so the lines read white on black, and exposed each drawing twice. Gaumont released it on 17 August 1908. With titles it runs 1 minute 45 seconds. The animation alone runs 1 minute 20 seconds.
Themes
Background
In 1908 Gaumont was still selling one-minute novelties. Cohl's drawing film sat on the same bill as trick subjects and actualities.
Making
Shooting onto negative stock saved Cohl from filling in black backgrounds by hand. The chalkboard look is the undeveloped paper.
Look
Cohl photographed his own paper drawings onto negative film, two frames to a drawing.
Technique
700 drawings, shot on twos onto negative stock, produce a minute and twenty seconds of white-line animation.
Preservation
The film survives.
Notes
- Film historians treat it as the first hand-drawn animated cartoon.
- Cohl had worked with the Incoherents and knew J. Stuart Blackton's lightning sketches. This short drops the visible hand and lets the line transform on its own.
- The English-language title sometimes used is A Fantasy.
Scenes
- The clown produces a movie theater out of his own body.
- An elephant changes into another shape without a cut to a new drawing style.
Influenced by
- J. Stuart Blackton's lightning sketches
Also available
- Internet Archive (Fantasmagori)
- Wikimedia Commons
