Donald Crafton: Animation vs. Animator

Animation entertains, enchants, moves and also gives offence. To this day, not one convincing reason has been found to explain how animation manages to do all this to an audience. In his latest, compelling book Shadow of a Mouse: Performance, Belief and World-Making in Animation, Donald Crafton (US) very convincingly puts forward the performance as the explanation. Cartoon characters succeed in beguiling the viewers and pull them into their films. They are stars! Who does not enjoy Mickey Mouse or Betty Boop?
Film historian Crafton specialises in classic American cartoons. This year, he is the CfH HAFF Festival Fellow of the Centre for the Humanities and the Department of Media & Culture Studies of the University of Utrecht, in association with the HAFF.
Donald Crafton will present programmes addressing the themes Animation vs. Animator and Inside the Toon Body, presenting remarkable samples of the struggle between animators and their creations after bringing them to life, and of films that fragment, inflate, cannibalize or dissect toon bodies, turning the insides into animated spectacle. Featuring classic cartoons, but also interesting links with the present.
For devotees, Crafton will also give a lecture on Friday morning 11:00 hrs, admission free, at LHC Das Kabinett.

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