Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant- garde

Esther Leslie

2002

New York: Verso

Description

With ruminations on drawing, colour and caricature, on the political meaning of fairy-tales, talking animals and human beings as machines, the book brings to light the links between animation, avant-garde art and modernist criticism. Focusing on the work of aesthetic and political revolutionaries of the inter-war period, the author reveals how the animation of commodities can be studied as a journey into modernity in cinema. She also provides new interpretations of the writings of Siegfried Kracauer on animation, shows how Theodor Adorno’s and Max Horkheimer’s film viewing affected their intellectual development, and reconsiders Sergei Eisenstein’s famous handshake with Mickey Mouse at Disney’s Hyperion Studios in 1930.