A TALE OF TWO VASES
In the previous post on the subject of
‘Depiction & Fiction’, I argued that animated imagery was
more complex than live-action imagery because it contained multiple
layers of fiction (that the image from Labyrinth Labyrinthos
was a depiction of a fictional toy that was itself a depiction of a
fictional entity of the Toonerville Trolley, itself a depiction of
the diegetic trolley). In this post, however, I’m going to argue
the opposite, claiming that the imagery of hand-drawn animation is
conceptually simpler, that it offers us a more direct depiction of
diegetic information than live-action does, that it is in some ways 'truer'. To this end, let us leap
straight into our titular hypothetical example, the comparison
between a vase in a live-action film, and a vase in an animated one.
In live-action, we see a recording of a
solid object that exists in front of the camera, the imagery that we
see is a photographic ‘trace’ of the object and – as was mentioned in the previous post – would therefore appear to be a more straightforward
image than a depiction. We look through the mediation of the
recording process and see a true reproduction of the object that was recorded. When the
director places the vase in front of the camera and shouts ‘action!’
in our hypothetical example, it allows us to see the vase more or
less as we understand it to be in the real world. This is one of the
central appeals of live-action cinema, from the earliest Lumiere
brothers’ actualities, to critic Andre Bazin’s insistence that
realism defined the cinematic medium from other art-forms, to the
enduring fascination with documentaries and reality TV.
But when we consider the way in which
fiction films operate, this becomes a more complex phenomenon.
When we see the object in front of the camera, it is tied to the
understanding that what we are seeing – most of the time – is an
object purporting to be something else. In this case, what we
are seeing is a prop purporting to be a vase. Within the fiction, the
vase is an expensive and irreplaceable object, while outside of the
diegesis, the prop of the vase is simply a plastic facsimile. As
such, the live-action image takes on a dual status thanks to fiction
– both real prop and fictional vase - and complicates the idea of the truth of the object. The prop, essentially, lies about being a vase.
With animation, as one might expect,
this phenomenon is quite different. When we look at the vase in our
hypothetical animated example, we do not have this same kind of
doubling-up. The drawn vase is simply a direct depiction of the
diegetic vase, there is no additional pro-filmic layer as there is in
the live-action example. The fictional vase is all that there is,
devoid of the additional layer of extra-diegetic prop. This
might seem to be completely at odds with the claim of the previous
post, where I argued that the animated image has multiple levels of
understanding (the depiction and what is being depicted). Why is this
phenomenon any different to our example of the pro-filmic prop?
Simply, one is about complexity on the level of image, the other is
about complexity on the level of fiction, our understanding of what
we are supposed to be looking at.
While
the Toonerville Trolley toy had, I believe, four different layers of
potential understanding attached to it (the depiction of the toy, the
diegetic toy, the cartoon object that the toy depicts, and the
diegetic trolley that the cartoon depicts), all of these options were
based upon decisions that the viewer made regarding their
comprehension of the image. As an image, it could be all of these things simultaneously. As far as the level of fiction
goes, the situation is far simpler – it is a direct depiction of a
diegetic toy, not a prop purporting to be a toy as we have with our
live-action vase.
Our hypothetical animated vase therefore is only
the vase of the story, without the additional layer of pro-filmic
understanding. This
becomes more interesting when we move away from inanimate objects
and look at characters. When we see a character in a live-action
film, we are likewise able to look at the figure on screen in one of
two ways – as pro-filmic performer or diegetic character. When we
see Charlie Chaplin, we can either choose to perceive him as Charles
Chaplin, the Hollywood writer, director and performer, who cavorts
about the screen engaging in a variety of impressive slapstick
set-pieces, or we can choose to see him as the Little Tramp, the
hopeless, homeless man who finds himself in a variety of scrapes and
scenarios that he has no control over.
But with an animated character like
Felix the Cat, we do not have a pro-filmic performer to consider. We
can only see the diegetic character of Felix, without the additional
consideration of a performer. As such, I would argue that animated characters are more 'true' than
their live-action counterparts because they lack this extra level of non-diegetic complexity. Michael Corleone in The Godfather
(Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) can never sever himself from Al Pacino;
the pro-filmic actor will always be hovering around our perception of
the character, always potentially distracting us from Corleone as a complete and truly diegetic entity. But Bugs Bunny is capable of being just
Bugs devoid of any non-diegetic complexity. The things that Bugs says
and does are therefore, in a sense, more true than the words and
actions of Corleone.
- P. S.
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