The Toy Like Nature: on the History and Theory of Animated Motion

THE TOY LIKE NATURE: ON THE HISTORY AND THEORY OF ANIMATED MOTION by Ryan Pierson B.A., University of Georgia, 2004 M.A., New York University, 2005 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2012 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Ryan Pierson It was defended on August 21, 2012 and approved by Marcia Landy, Distinguished Professor, Department of English Mark Lynn Anderson, Associate Professor, Department of English Peter Machamer, Professor, Department of History and Philosophy of Science Scott Bukatman, Professor, Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University Dissertation Advisor: Daniel Morgan, Assistant Professor, Department of English ii Copyright © by Ryan Pierson 2012 iii THE TOY LIKE NATURE: ON THE HISTORY AND THEORY OF ANIMATED MOTION Ryan Pierson, Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2012 This dissertation examines some key assumptions behind our prevailing idea of animation, arguing that our idea of animation is not, as is often implicitly assumed, an ahistorical category of manipulated imagery, but the result of a complex network of contingent processes. These assumptions, from the aesthetic end, largely emerged from the postwar rise of figurative (or noncartoon, nonabstract) animation—a “new era” which critic André Martin characterized as “marked by the widest possible range of techniques and processes.” From the other end, animation is tied to widespread assumptions from science that assert the biological, automatic nature of visual illusion. Animation’s unique status as a medium of visual movement that can arise from any kind of material (drawings, puppets, computer graphics, etc.), thus yields a paradox that I call “animated automatism”: the fact that, in order to assert its open-ended freedom as an art form, animation must acknowledge the reductive mechanics of perception. The dissertation examines these tensions between aesthetics and science by weaving together moments in the history of figurative animation with moments in the history of animation’s theorization, arguing for the importance of oft-neglected thinkers as animation theorists in the process. Chapter one analyzes philosopher Stanley Cavell’s remarks on cartoons in context with the rise of figurative animation against cartoons, and against the emergence of film studies as an academic discipline. Chapter two analyzes a significant overlap between the iv methods of animator Norman McLaren and Gestalt psychologist Albert Michotte to argue that the history of figurative animation shares protocols of optical testing with the history of the study of perception. Chapter three examines two major theorists of early trickfilms, critic Rollin Lynde Hartt and poet Vachel Lindsay, as proto-animation theorists who found early cinema’s significance in the push-and-pull between illusion and explanation. Chapter four reads Michael Barrier’s 1970s cartoon journal Funnyworld against the celebrated practice of John and Faith Hubley to indicate a modernist crisis in the understanding of animation. Two brief excurses examine the assumptions behind Michotte and 1960s/70s art critic Annette Michelson’s neglect of animation as a category of film. v Contents Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Automatic Arts: Stanley Cavell beyond Cartoons ................................................................ 36 Chapter Two: Automatism as Testing: From Albert Michotte to Norman McLaren ................................. 76 Excursus on Albert Michotte’s Theory of Film ........................................................................................ 132 Chapter Three: Master Ingenuity: Rollin Lynde Hartt and Vachel Lindsay on the Novelty of Illusion ... 144 Chapter Four: Convincing Movement: Michael Barrier and John Hubley on the Varieties of Animation .................................................................................................................................................................. 186 Excursus on Artforum ............................................................................................................................... 229 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................. 245 vi Acknowledgments As is typical with projects of this size, the debts of my dissertation run far deeper than these few pages would indicate. Daniel Morgan, my advisor, was tireless and steady-handed in his encouragement, constructive criticism, and pointed questions at all stages of this project. His poise, curiosity, approachability, and quiet insistence have made him both the most intellectually demanding and the most encouraging teacher I’ve ever had, and he is more responsible than anyone else for whatever rigor, shape, and clarity I’ve managed to put into this document. Mark Lynn Anderson taught me the pleasures and perils of doing historical research; in his seminars and in his feedback (on this project and others), he fostered a boldness of spirit in using and asking questions about sources, without which much of the research here would be unthinkable. To Marcia Landy I owe a complementary spirit in reading and doing theory; her energy and adventurousness in conversation and feedback carried me through many a period when I found myself getting stuck. Scott Bukatman was a late addition to my committee but quickly established himself as one of my closest readers; his feedback on early drafts of chapters was absolutely invaluable, and the vivid lucidity of his own writing helped keep in check many of my own ill-advised early lapses into lofty incoherence. Peter Machamer, from the first course I took with him, has provided a much-needed example of a scientifically-minded scholar who can readily and regularly converse with humanities students; he kept me from making many egregious errors in reading experimental research and theories of perception. Peter was the most visible member of a very energetic and generous History and Philosophy of Science community at the University of Pittsburgh, who patiently addressed my frustratingly basic questions over vii two years. To the additional generosity of Edouard Machery, Ken Schaffner, and Maazvita Chiriuuuta I owe what knowledge I have of a vast and complicated field. Fellow toiling graduate students, at the University of Pittsburgh and elsewhere, have been instrumental in shaping the questions that eventually became this dissertation, as well as providing me with valuable feedback at conferences and workshops. Several people provided me with sources, or encouraged me to take a second look at sources I already had, that became central to my arguments. My debts here are too numerous to exhaustively name, but Mal Ahern, Tanine Allison, Kara Andersen, Dan Bashara, Beth Corzo-Duchardt, Hannah Frank, Philippe Gauthier, Javier O’Neil-Ortiz, and John Rhym deserve special mention. A Mellon Fellowship provided me a year of valuable writing time. Through a generous travel grant from the University of Pittsburgh’s English Department, I was able to conduct needed research on animation films and periodicals. I thank May Haduong at the Mary Pickford Center in Los Angeles for allowing me access to some particularly valuable films (though few of them made it into the final draft). For their patience and generosity I thank the staff at the following institutions: the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles, the National Film Board of Canada’s Mediatheque in Toronto, the New York Public Library, and the Museum of Modern Art Library and Archives. The example and support of my mother and father have been more essential, if less direct, to the completion of this project than any of the names above. Without the colleagues and teachers I’ve had, this project would not be what it is; without the family I’ve had, this project, and the education that made it possible, would not be. My grandmother did not get to see the completion of these pages, but she did get to see my name in print, in a journal. That meant a lot. I miss her. viii Most subtle, and most pervasive, are the fingerprints left on this project by my wife, Carrie. Her warmth, her cleverness, her sense of humor, and a thousand other details radiate from every page. Words fail me here. I find it impossible to measure or explain just how much of what I’ve done is due to her, and I wish I had more to dedicate to her than this dissertation about cartoons. Until I find the words, I’ll have to be content to whisper their meaning in a secret language that no one will ever know. ix Introduction 1. Addressing the animation problem This dissertation is about the idea of animation as a special type of film. We tend to take the idea of animation for granted as meaning something like, any kind of movement on a screen that is created frame-by-frame rather than recorded, or, movement present in a projected images that was not present in any real-time original act of recording. Such a definition implicitly asserts two things at once. First, we assume that certain manipulations

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