WyshBlogiuk

RIP to Richard Williams. Easily one of the most important animators and filmmakers to ever live. On surface value, his work animating Roger Rabbit, creating the Pink Panther cartoon character, crafting his own film The Thief and the Cobbler, and writing the definitive animation textbook (The Animator’s Survival Kit) are legendary feats on their own, but between the lines there’s important history.

He personally hired the legends of Disney and Looney Tunes to teach him how to animate. He took their wisdom and techniques and anthologized it, and  passed those lessons on to the next generation. It is no coincidence that animation reaches a second golden age in the 90s, and continues to be a powerful cultural force today. Without him, there’s none of that.

(note, the above clip was animated by the also-amazing Eduardo Quintana, based on a visual anecdote that appears in The Animator’s Survival Kit, based on Richard’s experience working with Milt Kahl.)

It doesn’t hurt that he was an amazing animator on his own too. He could draw any style, stylized or with perfect anatomy, any material, and with intricate layers of linear perspective that boggle the mind.

He’s the only person who could have lead the animation for Roger Rabbit, a film that juggles hundreds of unique characters from history existing in the physical world, interacting with actors, sets, props, lighting rigs, and moving cameras.

If I could share only one clip, the most effective one would be his character Zigzag from The Thief and the Cobbler (who inspired Jafar in Aladdin). He’s masterfully animated, but the dialogue also captures the power of Richard’s animation. His drawings were that of a magician, capturing everybody, both inside and outside the screen. Juggling stacks of animation pages like a deck of cards.

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Salaam Cinema (1995)

The comedy in the show came from the family’s “odd” lifestyle, rather than from infighting and petty bickering, or worse, as was common on other shows of the time, thinly veiled references to spousal abuse. They didn’t make fun of each other or act like their children were creatures from another world. Were they strange and outside of social norms? Yes. Were they united in creating a loving home and being good, supportive parents? Absolutely.

These two support and adore their children, care for an aging mother and an estranged brother, put family before everything, and they love each other, wholly, fiercely, without reserve. They are every bit as much in love after at least a decade of marriage as they were the day they met.

It’s nobody’s surprise that many of the aesthetic and thematic elements of The Addams Family in its various incarnations are influenced by Gothic tradition (not goth, that mostly came later. And not Goth, that was much much much too early), and I think Gomez’s words are a dead bullseye in terms of Gothic mentality.

“Make her feel like she’s the most sublime creature on earth”

The sublime is a recurring theme throughout Gothic literature. Although the word (like “awesome”) has lost a lot of it’s original luster over the intervening decades, sublime doesn’t really mean elevated and lofty (or even heavenly) as it’s often used today, but rather something possessing the power and grandeur to induce awe and veneration in the mind of the beholder. Although less than divine, something sublime possessed a wildness and power that transcended human ability to control…or even to comprehend.

Sublime is standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon leaning as far as you dare over the railing and still not being able to see the canyon floor below. Sublime is warrior-queen Galadriel being tempted by the One Ring. Sublime is waking up in the middle of the night in the heart of a wild thunderstorm.

“Make her feel like she’s the most sublime creature on earth”

Gomez isn’t advising Fester to treat a woman he fancies like a princess, or even elevate her to pedestal of angelic nature (who’s idea was it to equate femininity with purity anyway? What a laughable and historically damaging idea. Shame on whatever dead (probably) white dudes promoted that!)

Gomez is advising Fester that if he truly loves a woman he must do everything he can to remind her of how she’s an untameable force of nature who’s grandeur brings him to his knees in awe and terror. Just like Morticia, for Gomez.

I’ll sign off with one of my most favorite quotes of all time, because it feels suddenly very relevant:

“When I find myself surrounded by so much beauty, I feel as if I am the eye of a hurricane.”

Slavic Cossack dancing known as Hopak 

Slavic dancing: “Hold my beer.”

They cheered for the baby and booed everyone else. This is the greatest thing