Animated Films

From July 1 to September 14, 2003 – Museu del Cinema

From Zoetrope to 3D

A series of still images projected at a certain speed gives us the illusion of motion. But this motion does not exist. We all know that. In actual fact, shooting a film, creating the image, cancels out the motion, it paralyses it. It is restored later, in the projection, in a phantasmagorical form. One image after another, and we let ourselves be carried away. Put another way, there really is no difference between animated films and what we understand as a conventional film. What's more, we could say that every film is an animated film.
Nevertheless, with regard to the term animated films, this groups together the films created thanks to the frame-by-frame (or stop motion) filming technique and its essence lies in the power to bring to life everything that is inanimate, whether they be drawings, marionettes, silhouettes, plasticine, or in short everything that frozen in time cannot be considered to be alive. In this exhibition we shall see, then, how animation is not exclusive to cartoons, although they are its flagship, and beyond, also, how it is by no means an art form for children only.