Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: mated drawings, animated cutouts, animated puppet films, Colour Plate, United States, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This chronological history analyzes animated film as an autonomous art form that has nevertheless been affected by the economics of live-action cinema as well as social and political forces (e.g., the dislocation of Continental Europe's animators by World War II). This comprehensive study describes concepts and practice, profiles innumerable animators, and concludes with a chapter on computer animation. Because of truly global coverage (from Mali to Mongolia), Cartoons introduces such important animators as Russia's Alexandre Alexeieff and Scotland-born Canadian master Norma McLaren while providing details on familiar names like Disney, Walter Lantz, and Tex Avery. Despite the subject's popularity, this should not be considered a coffee-table book but a scholarly reference whose notes and bibliography are valuable sources for further study. Purchase for comprehensive film and art collections.
Kim Holston, American Inst. for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, Malvern, Pa.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Booklist

Although animation has finally begun to be thought worthy of serious attention, the spate of books on it in recent years has focused primarily on commercial Hollywood animation. Bendazzi ambitiously attempts to fill the gap. He covers more than a century's worth of animation, from the 1888 th{‚}e{ƒ}atre optique (a device for projecting moving painted images that predates motion picture pioneers Edison and Lumi{Š}ere) to today's cutting edge computer-animation technology. He covers American animation, of course, but also describes developments in more than 70 other countries, in many of which animation emerged more as an art form than a box office draw. His work is not without shortcomings: the writing (the translation, anyway) is occasionally awkward, and despite or because of its exhaustive depth and scholarly approach, the text seldom conveys the delightfulness that makes the best cartoons so compelling. Carping aside, this valuable effort, already well received in France and Italy, promises to be the basic reference on its subject for some time to come. Gordon Flagg

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 514 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (February 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253311683
• ISBN-13: 978-0253311689
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 8.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #803,599 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Better with some revisions., May 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation (Paperback)

As a brazilian animator I tried to start to read this book by the Latin american section, and comprehensively, by the one that shows the status of animation in my country, Brazil, a reality that I know very well.I don't know where Mr. Bendazzi got his informations for this part of the book.What I know is that it's full of strange or, at least unknown names of people for most of the brazilian animators, illustrators figuring as animators, besides the absence of five or six of the really most important animators in my country.Because of all that,I'm affraid the rest of the book, at least in those sections telling about the animation in Latin America still needs to be revised.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Documentation of Artistic Animation. Not your average animation history book., July 6, 2008

By	Terri Yang - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation (Paperback)

It's clear that the author derives the majority of his references from Europe's history of Animation, which might explain why many people have not heard of the animators he talks about. But considering that these artists did take part in the history behind animation, it is good that Bendazzi made the effort to bring their names to light. He makes some remarks and does look at other countries, such as America's infamous Walt Disney and Japan's rising anime films, but for the most part, he concentrates on the growth within Europe's artistic groups.

This book is less about the big names in cinematic animation and more about the independent artists and studios who worked in animation during a time when the animator's names and the dates their works were created weren't exactly recorded and copyrighted properly. Many of the animators here can also be identified as fine artists, often working experimentally within the media. This is how animation as cinema started (way before the time of Walt Disney and his overshadowing fame) and is continuing to be produced on the other side of Hollywood.

This book definitely has a text-book feel, but as far as a text book goes, it's not too terribly dry. It's informative and gives a very in-depth look at animation, from its beginning as optical illusions to the cinematic phenomena it has become today.

Also, as a final personal comment, this book is like a documentation of the independent films (as well as mainstream films) of the animation industry. Most people will not have seen them (unless they have access to an animation/video library), but that doesn't mean the films aren't important to history.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As a fan of cinema history I found this book enlightening!, November 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation (Paperback)

I found this book filled in many gaps I had of my early cinema knowledge. Often making references to many little known events, it set the stage for what was to become mainstream animation.