This is a beautiful and sophisticated vintage animation of Edgar Allan Poe‘s The Tell-Tale Heart. The illustration hearkens back to the early days of the Thirties, and particularly reminds me of my copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which is illustrated by the American Lynd Ward.
raincoaster 
That is truly amazing. Absolutely love the occasional growing patterns of veins just growing and vanishing, true madness. Anyway, what strikes me as a wee bit unnecessary (if one of the things that make old movies really cool in a weird way) was the little epigram ‘This story is told through the eyes of a madman…’ I mean..couldn’t they let us figure that out ourselves..it is a wee bit obvious even from the first line…Anyway..still really cool
I thought that was pretty obvious too, but remember: at the time, books were for the intellectuals. Film was thought to be for the people who “didn’t enjoy reading”. So dumbing it down was a given at the time.
I guess so. I mean..like I say..in this case it ads to the charm. I just wish they still didn’t dumb down so much film these days. There’s some damn smart film out these days…its just in the midst of a massive pile of crap. i guess that’s the same for book sthough when you think about it. Its just that the books that matter have the staying power..and since its an older medium ther’s more of them around…or something.
It’s always been considered intellectual, though. Film came into being for people who couldn’t read, basically, or who didn’t have a common language. But they did put out crap back in the day as well, we’ve just forgotten because, with the exception of Nancy Drew, etc, they’re lost to history.
It’ll be interesting to see what film crap passes the test of time. There’s the old truism about Shakespeare being a writer for the masses, dumbing down his work compared to people like Kit Marlowe and Ben Jonson. I wonder whether there’ll be a load of populist tosh films from this century that kids end up studying at school in a few centuries time.
I wonder if the list will include Pulp Fiction. That one is a keeper yet also extremely schlocky. But look, Godzilla is already being taught at University as a filmic articulation of nuclear anxiety, and that analysis holds up. In the end it’ll be the ones that speak the clearest of their time, not neccessarily the ones that are the greatest artistic achievements, which will be remembered.
Tis true, but then, assuming that you mean the original Japanese Godzilla, I think its partly to do with the kitsch value that the film still has. Pulp Fiction will be remembered for popularising a post modern kind of film making. Godzilla for giving a message of the psyhology of fear at the time (although I prefer Wargames myself).
I’m definitely referring to the original Godzilla. I never did see the American travesty. But I’m Team Mothra all the way!
There is an animated version of The Tell-Tale Heart at:
http://www.adamsmithacademy.org/The_Tell-Tale_Heart.html
Yes, and there’s one right on this very post. I’m not sure if that comment of yours is mindless spam or not. Care to explain?
Certainly knocking it up a notch there.
If you like this video, then you’ll probably like this, the same video, on a different site.
Variety is the spice of life. After all. Or the spam of life, I forget which.
Same circus, different clowns?