Document Type
Article
Abstract
[First paragraph]
One of the most potentially interesting areas for discussion in Animation Studies is how animation relates to conceptions of the real and realism. As Maureen Furniss has noted (1998: 5ff), a typology of moving image production can be most usefully constructed around the relative realism attached to particular representations. The two opposing tendencies of mimesis and abstraction offer a multitude of intermediate positions where a specific text can be placed and thereby understood. There are two basic ways that one can approach this area. First of all, one can analyze and evaluate how animation "is realistic" (or not, as the case may be). In other words, one can look at how animated films mobilize conventions of realism in order to better communicate their message. Under this discussion would fall consideration of Disney's "hyper-realist" aesthetic, the more recent tendency in computer animation to eerily mimic the textures of a believably realistic world, and, even, the anthropomorphized approach of Aardman films like A Close Shave (1995) or Chicken Run (2000). All of these types of animation operate within acceptably recognized canons of "realism". They are all, also, generally operating within a recognizably fictional sphere.
Repository Citation
Ward, Paul. "Animated Realities: The Animated Film, Documentary, Realism." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 8, no. 2, 2008, pp. 1–21. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol8/iss2/7