Post by Admin on Mar 3, 2016 3:27:36 GMT
Don Hertzfeldt is the filmmaker of some amazing, funny animated short films, like 'The World of Tomorrow', which was nominated for an Oscar this year. He's got an original voice and style, that nevertheless shares some key elements with Gorey's work: the wonderfully absurd, dry humor; (mostly) black and white, rather simple drawings (though Hertzfeldt's are obviously much more stripped down); characters with deadpan facial expressions; and a penchant to create stories as a series of vignettes. Consider the following.
His (Oscar-winning) short 'Rejected', f.ex., is basically an anthology - different animated, surreal 'commercials', which he made with the goal to be rejected by each company, which he accomplished. A vignette structure in the vein of Gorey's ABCs. (Mind you, this is obviously not a direct link; just a similar structure found in the two artists' work.)
The beautiful Meaning of Life features a series of different alien animal creatures from other planets, moving about like some of the animals we know from Earth. This is not dissimilar to Gorey's The Utter Zoo (in Amphigorey Also), with creatures like the Yawfle, the Twibbit, or the Limpflig.
Hertzfeldt's Everything Will Be OK features long parts showing the main character going through seemingly trivial minutiae (accompanied by deadpan narration), that are somehow still entertaining to the viewer, just like Mr. Earbrass in Gorey's The Unstrung Harp.
And now for perhaps my initial reason for starting this thread: There is a moment in Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day, that I think is a deliberate nod by the filmmaker to Edward Gorey. When listing the family members of the protagonist and briefly describing them and/or their death, there are two moments, that are straight from The Gashlycrumb Tinies: one gets squashed by a train ("V is for Victor squashed under a train"), and the next one spontaneously catches on fire ("R is for Rhoda consumed by a fire"). There's also another moment somewhere in the trilogy that briefly shows an Ötzi-like mummy trapped in ice, which parallels another letter in TGT ("W is for Winnie embedded in ice").
EDIT: More than two years after having done this little write-up I've found proof for Hertzfeldt being a fan of Gorey's in an entry of Hertzfeldt's journal (dated July 13, 2013), where he gushes over "heaps of original edward gorey manuscripts, notes, and sketches" (you can read the entry here, though that's mostly it, in addition to some cool pictures of said items).
If you haven't heard of Don Hertzfeldt or seen any of his work, I urge you to go and check out his short films; all of them are worth watching.
His (Oscar-winning) short 'Rejected', f.ex., is basically an anthology - different animated, surreal 'commercials', which he made with the goal to be rejected by each company, which he accomplished. A vignette structure in the vein of Gorey's ABCs. (Mind you, this is obviously not a direct link; just a similar structure found in the two artists' work.)
The beautiful Meaning of Life features a series of different alien animal creatures from other planets, moving about like some of the animals we know from Earth. This is not dissimilar to Gorey's The Utter Zoo (in Amphigorey Also), with creatures like the Yawfle, the Twibbit, or the Limpflig.
Hertzfeldt's Everything Will Be OK features long parts showing the main character going through seemingly trivial minutiae (accompanied by deadpan narration), that are somehow still entertaining to the viewer, just like Mr. Earbrass in Gorey's The Unstrung Harp.
And now for perhaps my initial reason for starting this thread: There is a moment in Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day, that I think is a deliberate nod by the filmmaker to Edward Gorey. When listing the family members of the protagonist and briefly describing them and/or their death, there are two moments, that are straight from The Gashlycrumb Tinies: one gets squashed by a train ("V is for Victor squashed under a train"), and the next one spontaneously catches on fire ("R is for Rhoda consumed by a fire"). There's also another moment somewhere in the trilogy that briefly shows an Ötzi-like mummy trapped in ice, which parallels another letter in TGT ("W is for Winnie embedded in ice").
EDIT: More than two years after having done this little write-up I've found proof for Hertzfeldt being a fan of Gorey's in an entry of Hertzfeldt's journal (dated July 13, 2013), where he gushes over "heaps of original edward gorey manuscripts, notes, and sketches" (you can read the entry here, though that's mostly it, in addition to some cool pictures of said items).
If you haven't heard of Don Hertzfeldt or seen any of his work, I urge you to go and check out his short films; all of them are worth watching.