In some ways, the most interesting story in this year’s Oscar nominations, which came out Tuesday, isn’t the battle royal shaping up between inspirational bio-drama “A Beautiful Mind” and fantasy adventure spectacle “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.”
The best story — and certainly the most historically significant — is this year’s new category: Best Animated Feature Film. Here, at last, the Academy has created a niche for kind of feature cartoons, from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to “The Lion King” and “Toy Story,” that may dominate box-office charts and critical lists, but mostly miss out on Oscars — except in musical categories. The first nominees are “Monsters, Inc.,” “Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius” and, the likely winner, “Shrek.”
High time for the change. In fact, it’s way past time for this category — just as it’s way past time to honor production designers, who set the entire look of the movies and have been mysteriously omitted even though they outrank the always-nominated art directors.
The forgotten element
There has been an Animated Short category since 1931-32. (First winner: Disney’s sticky arboreal romance, “Flowers and Trees.”) In the ’30s, Disney was the short cartoon Oscar champ, followed in the ’40s by MGM’s Hanna-Barbera and in the ’50s by the minimalist U.P.A. whimsies (featuring Gerald McBoing Boing and Mr. Magoo). But, until this year, animated features were largely ignored — save for an occasional special Oscar such as “Snow White’s” in 1938.
Why recognize them now, after more than 75 years of Oscars? Well, the biggest reason may be the renaissance in feature animation, a phenomenon that began in 1989 with Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.” Feature cartoon-making has been on a roll ever since.
“Little Mermaid” struck me as remarkable in 1989 — and I still think the jubilant rendition by Sebastian the Crab (Sam Wright) of “Under the Sea” is one of the all-time top cartoon showstoppers. But since then, we’ve had breakthroughs galore, from the greater fullness, depth and detail of modern computer animation (as in the tree-swinging scenes of the otherwise so-so “Tarzan”) to the wit and sizzle of Nick Park’s “Chicken Run” to all the new vistas opened up by Pixar’s computer wizards in the “Toy Story” movies and “Monsters, Inc.”
DreamWorks’ “Shrek” (directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson) and Pixar’s “Monsters, Inc.” (directed by Pete Docter) weren’t just monster commercial hits; they were big critical hits as well. Indeed, “Shrek” had so much cachet that it was an official competition film at the Cannes Film Festival — where it got warm applause at its showings. And even though Randy Newman’s dry, wry “Monsters” score was nominated for two Oscars this year (Best Song and Best Score), neither movie depended strongly on its music, as many feature cartoons have been. Both “Shrek” and “Monsters, Inc.” depended on the strong suit of all great American cartooning: rich characters and wild, unfettered animation.
Serious cartoons
“Shrek” and “Monsters, Inc.” — and the un-nominated “Waking Life” — show what animators can accomplish these days. “Shrek,” with its full-rounded look, also has some of the best character animation ever, besides boasting a set of nifty star voice performances: Mike Myers as the green, ill-tempered Shrek, plus excitable Eddie Murphy, sultry Cameron Diaz and stuffy John Lithgow. “Monsters, Inc.” has actors almost as good (Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi) and lots of ingenious visual gags and lollapalooza twists.
There’s a possible problem, though. Suppose, as in the Best Picture category, we begin getting classic Oscar profile movies, the cartoon equivalent of, say a Merchant Ivory film, a “Gandhi” or even a “Schindler’s List.” There are serious cartoons today, or course — including near-masterpieces by the great modern European animators such as Czechoslovakia’s Jan Svankmajer and Britain’s Brothers Quay. But wouldn’t we lose some of the great carefree, whizbang American cartoon tradition if the makers actually started Oscar-trolling?
A slacker slight
In addition, as heartening as the addition of an animated features category may be, why wasn’t Richard Linklater’s witty slacker think-piece “Waking Life” nominated? Too cerebral? Too innovative? Too talky?
You can understand why the dreamy rotoscoping and philosophical blather of “Waking Life” might turn off some Academy voters — just as it turned off many audiences. Yet, does anyone seriously believe Nickelodeon’s “Jimmy Neutron” belongs there instead — except perhaps Nickelodeon? Or Mrs. Neutron?
The feature cartoon Oscar is a great first step. But let’s hope putting those cartoons in Oscar-night tuxedos doesn’t end up with a Loony Tunes pratfall.
