dominate, and I don't want it to dominate.
Felix the Cat is an interesting case. It was one of the first times cels were used. They drew the background on the cels and the animation on paperjust the reverse of what the cel process was finally used for. So that meant that Felix was on paper
his background. If he went over to a tree he'd have to go behind the tree. There was no way for him to go in front of the tree because the tree was on a cel on top of him. I think that made for a nice, agreeable tension between the background and the foreground. The foreground (which would normally be the background) fought back against the domination of the figure. And, of course, with Felix the foreground was very busy: everything was animated in those films. That's a case where all eyes were on Felix, but there was a nice playoff between the physical, plastic environment and the narrative of this little creature.
It came naturally to those early cartoonists to see narrative as a
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skeleton you could hang things on. Nevertheless, there was always anthropomorphism involved. I wanted to play with all those questions, but to avoid falling into them. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes not. Sometimes I guess I'm showing off my confidence that I can do conventional animation if I want to. But a nicer way to think of it is to see the figurative and narrative elements in my films as establishing norms from which to depart.
is the earliest of your films where you use actual photographed images of reality. Your hand appears in that film, and part of a face.
And the eyeglasses, right. At a flea market one time we walked by a blanket on which this old ladyshe must have been a widowwas selling what looked to be parts of her husband. She had his teeth and his glasses and other parts of him out on this blanket. I think that's where that idea came from. It was a way of having a human presence without it taking over.
Why did you begin to use sound? The first four films were silent.
Well, sound was too big a deal to think about in the first films. But once I saw my films in public, I began to think about it. I had my first one-person show of paintings in Brussels in 1955, right after I got married, at Gallery Aujourd'hui. Opening in Brussels instead of Paris was sort of like opening in New Haven instead of New York. The idea was that I was then going to open at Denise Rene Gallery, but we had a falling out. Anyhow, I took
to Brussels, and Jacques LeDoux (I didn't know him then) arranged a screening of it in the gallery. The public at the gallery seemed indifferent to my paintings, but they reacted to the film. It was the first time I heard laughter, and then applause! As a painter I'd never encountered that. Suddenly there was a tangible, collective reaction. Here was a new ingredient,
even though it was coming from the audience, and not the film. I had to deal with it.
Do you feel comfortable with sound? For some filmmakersKubelka in
[1966], Len Lye in his direct animationssound is central to the making of the film.
For me the most exquisite parts of a film have to do with some kind of plastic event that's silent. Generally I think that sound is padding in a predominantly visual experience, and necessary at times and fine, cathartic. Sometimes I'll use some sound just to announce that there is a sound track, so don't be uneasy, you're not going to have to suffer in silence and be afraid to cough, or whatever. But then once I've established some sound, I'll go into long periods of silence (especially in those earlier films), because looking at the images in silence is very important
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to visual concentration. I've always been aware of how sound can take away from the image. That's what I hated about Fischinger for a long time: there was never a moment in his films when your eyes could just look. But the problem, of course, is that silence is an illusion. John Cage went into that anechoic room at Bell Telephone, where all sounds are absorbed. He said he could hear his nervous system and his blood flowing, or something like that. Anyhow, I knew I had to deal with sound in some way.
Are you a music lover? The motif structure you often use in the films seems musical.
Well, if I said I'm a music lover, I'd have to make good on that claim with great erudition. When I painted in Paris, I used to listen to Mozart every morning on the radio. But after a while I found it intolerable. I couldn't listen to organized sound, because it would confuse my signals. I couldn't make useful decisions on color. If I was listening to blues music, I'd have to go blue. When it comes time to make sound for the films, then I concentrate on it.
So you finish the visuals and then look for sounds?
Always. I feel the visual thing is very fragile and subtle and has to be nurtured and put exactly in place. When it's strong, then you can inflict it with sound. I've always put sound on later, though recently when I cut a film I allow spaces for sound to substitute for events or relate to events. I have the word 'bang' in the film I'm working on right now [
(1986)]. And obviously that'll call for an asynchronous event of the same kind. When the telephone rings in
you hear the voice saying, 'Hello,' first, and
