#halloween13

Ooo, look, chapter 10 of Far Flung Corner of the Empire is up AND so is chapter 2 of The Need For Transparency. Take that, Real Life!

and he’s bent over for it

8. Dumbo, “Pink Elephants On Parade” (1941) 

I’m still not even sure if this one ever flat out scared me, but it certainly was pretty jarring the first time I saw it. From what I recall, Dumbo was probably one of the first movies I ever, ever watched, before I was even seeing movies in theaters.

As an adult this scene isn’t so much scary as it is fun, but certainly no less weird.  Everything leading up to this scene in the film plays along as a pretty traditional cartoon, albeit with a somber set-up.  Striped of his pride and dignity, Dumbo becomes the literal clown of the circus by 2/3′s of the way through having been the laughing stalk of the circus, while being separated from his loving mother.  The culmination of these anxieties the real world has to offer the poor guy?  A colorful manic hallucination representing the insanity of circus life and it’s hostility towards him.  Technicolor pachyderms march along to a demented beat, their faces adorn with soulless black eyes akin to the clowns in Dumbo’s waking world.  It’s fun, it’s spooky, it’s beautifully animated.  It’s four whole minutes!  It also serves as the film’s turning point, as the focus is taken off the protagonist’s problems while offscreen and setting up the revelation of his hidden talent.  My lifelong fascination with psychedelic animation my very well have kicked off here, though I’m sure that curiosity was always there without any outside influence. I’ve always gravitated towards the “weird but not too weird that it’s terrifying but sometimes border lining on that?” Kinds of animation. Everything from Terry Gilliam’s cut out shorts in Flying Circus, to Yellow Submarine, to Masaaki Yuasa’s work. (Mind Game, Kick Heart, the Adventure Time episode “Food Chain”)