Chuck Jones: A Flurry of Drawings, Portraits of American Genius [Hardcover]

Hugh Kenner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 1994

Creator of the mono-maniacal Wile E. Coyote and his elusive prey, the Road Runner, Chuck Jones has won three Academy Awards and been responsible for many classics of animation featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Elmer Fudd. Who better to do Chuck Jones than Hugh Kenner, master wordsmith and technophile, a man especially qualified to illuminate the form of literacy that Jones so wonderfully executes in the art of character animation?
A Flurry of Drawings reveals in cartoon-like sequences the irrepressible humor and profound reflection that have shaped Chuck Jones's work. Unlike Walt Disney, Jones and his fellow animators at Warner Brothers were not interested in cartoons that mimicked reality. They pursued instead the reality of the imagination, the Toon world where believability is more important than realism and movement is the ultimate aesthetic arbiter. Kenner offers both a fascinating explanation of cartoon culture and a new understanding of art's relationship to technology, criticism, freedom, and imagination.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Kenner provides a brief, lively history of animation before focusing on the Warner Brothers animation studio, out of which came the wildest, most outrageous cartoons of the 1940s and 1950s. As Kenner notes, Warner was the only place in animation where the auteur theory applies, for each Warner cartoon director had his own take on the studio's characters. Chuck Jones was one of the directors responsible for the classics featuring the likes of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the Road Runner, and his mastery of the Warner characters' personalities, along with his distinctive comic sensibilities (more droll than outlandish) and sense of visual design, made his cartoons standouts. In his somewhat rambling essay, Kenner makes perceptive observations on Jones' career and the artistry behind his six-minute gems. But since many of Kenner's biographical details and most of his illustrations are duplicated from Jones' memoir, Chuck Amuck (1989), you might, if you already own the earlier book, want to pass on Kenner's. Wherever there's keen adult interest in animation, however, it's still highly recommended. Gordon Flagg

From Kirkus Reviews

Dr. Seuss created the Grinch, but it took Chuck Jones to make him move. And that mangy coyote, Wile. E., with his ACME jet pack strapped to his back? It was Chuck Jones who choreographed those whistling plummets into vaguely Southwestern canyons and the poignant aerial views of exploding would-be predator bits. Beep- beep. Animation pioneer Jones also worked with Bugs, Daffy, Elmer, Porky, and Tom and Jerry. Literary critic Kenner (Historical Fictions, 1990, etc.) muses on Jones and the art of animation in this entry, one of three that are kicking off the new Portraits of American Genius series from the University of California Press. The other two are Greg Sarris's Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream, profiling the Pomo basket weaver and medicine woman, and Yvonne Fern's Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation, a discussion with the creator of Star Trek. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 114 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1St Edition edition (October 6, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520087976
• ISBN-13: 978-0520087972
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,782,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marvelous Biography of America's Greatest Animator, August 27, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Chuck Jones: A Flurry of Drawings, Portraits of American Genius (Hardcover)

Professor Kenner turns his pen toward a study of the creator of The Roadunner and the Coyote, and of Bugs Bunny in this wonderful little monograph. Writing with wit and verve he traces Jones' career from the beginning to the present,touching on the high and low but always bringing us the essence of a true comic genius.

9 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A waste of paper, September 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Chuck Jones: A Flurry of Drawings, Portraits of American Genius (Hardcover)

This book has absolutely nothing new to say about Chuck Jones. In fact it doesnt say much at all; just endless amounts of prose that add up to nothing. Rather than doing any reserach on his own, Kenner just takes his historical information from already published books on animation or from interviews he has done with Jones.The problems with interviewing Jones, however, is that he can be pretty self serving at times. So dont expect getting any real insight into Mike Maltese and Maurice Noble's contributions to his films, and certainly not any comparision to the work of Bob Clampett, who Chuck Jones hates with his guts. (They had a lifelong feud) For real insight into the work of Chuck Jones, try the articles written by Richard Thompson in Film Comment in the seventies, or Michael Barrier's book Hollywood Cartoons