Puppetry's Irrational and Intellectual Gap

Animation is an incredibly versatile medium. From silhouettes to paint-on-glass to stop-motion to CGI, it’s a medium that offers filmmakers a near limitless swath of tools to bring their ideas to life. Yet, why does animation work? There’s plenty of insight into the mechanics of the medium already; we know how animation works on a technical level. But if we ask why, we start to delve into some interesting ideas about animation’s untapped potential. And curiously enough, a major clue came to me while learning about puppetry and theater.

In the first episode of Jim Henson Presents the World of Puppetry, he interviews French artist Philippe Genty about his thoughts on puppetry in between sequences of his performances. During one of the interview segments, Philippe talks about how he believes puppetry works on two levels for the audience (0:03:51 - 0:05:50):

Philippe: There’s one level, which is what we call an intellectual level. We know if we, I don’t know, if we animate this glass, well, and you don’t see [under] the table [...] you see it is animated by itself. You know that obviously there is someone who is manipulating the glass behind it. But the glass will symbolize something. So, the approach to that from the audience will be the audience will take it as a symbol. This is [the] intellectual approach. [...] [The glass] will symbolize something else.

Now, the second approach is [...] the irrational part, which is very important, which sometimes permits you [to] forget about it. It is the fact that this glass—also somewhere behind in our irrational thought—we keep an archaic memory, I would say, where we have all these memories, this animism in old time, where we would believe that there is a soul in a tree or a soul in a stone. And this is still there. And we like to believe that somewhere, maybe after all, this glass is really moved by itself.

Jim: It’s alive.

Philippe: Yes, it’s alive, yes. And I think this is what fascinates, what is fascinating in this world of puppetry. It is that we appeal to both sides of the psyche. (emphasis mine)

When I heard that, everything clicked. Not only is puppetry an experience that is simultaneously felt on intellectual and irrational levels, but it is precisely because of these opposing levels that it can be so thrilling and entertaining to watch. And animation, in a way, achieves this same effect.

When we watch an animated film, for example, we know on an intellectual level that we’re watching iconic (as Scott McCloud would say, rather than “symbolic”) graphical representations of people, places, or objects on-screen. At the same time, on an irrational level, we can also believe that these iconic representations are alive! (Yes, even with seeing all the puppet rods…) They can convey complex emotions, thought processes, and a playfulness that feels real and immediate even while we are fully aware of the artifice of it all. In fact, these same forces are present in live-action films, too. To a lesser extent, we know what we are watching is not an actual window into events that are happening in real-time, but rather still images, synced to sound, and played back to us at a constant speed to simulate movement (hence the argument that all of cinema is animation).

The most fascinating thing about animation to me, in this respect, is that the medium really tests the conflict we feel between these intellectual and irrational planes. It pushes at the limits, more so than live-action, in trusting the audience to know that what they’re watching isn’t real while simultaneously charming them into believing it can be. Think of early work by Norman McLaren like Blinkity Blank (TW for strobing imagery) and the way that these coloured scratches made on celluloid film have their own temperaments. Or the way that animators often bring a sack of flour to life as an early exercise in acting. They’re alive in the same way that Philippe describes!

Now if we consider the medium more closely, animation appears most analogous to painting and the freedom that a blank canvas provides. The major difference here, though, is what also makes film so distinct from the other visual arts: temporality. And this temporality can be wielded by animators just like any other tool at their disposal.

What do I mean by this? At the heart of animation lies the sequencing and the timing of its drawings. While a film may be rendered at 24 frames per second, for example, it doesn’t necessarily mean that each frame of animation is new and unique from the ones that come before or after it. Animators often play around with the exposure of each frame to give an action more zip or weight.

While some live-action films play with the exposure of what we see on-screen (think of intentionally choppy, slow-motion footage in dramatic scenes, like step printing in Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express, for example), these decisions are ever-present in animation. Especially in anime and in some independent short films. But does this intentional choppiness detract from our viewing experience? Amazingly, not as much as we think.

When the exposure between each drawing is extended past its typical length, it doesn’t diminish our ability to connect with the on-screen characters, even when the pauses are noticeable. Action can be chaotic yet fully understandable, movement can stop and start, or characters can all hold a single pose and flap their mouths if it’s handled in the right way by animators. Intentionally widening these gaps between the irrational and the intellectual, calling attention to animation’s “animated-ness,” is animation’s real power.

This is similar to the effect achieved by Sony Pictures Animation in the Spider-verse films or by what was being discussed in this great piece by Julian Bata on the anime Kare Kano and “Lo-Fi Animation.” With such wide gaps between drawings, these works are playing with the limits of what we’ve come to define as animation in the most exciting ways. In Julian’s piece, he questions our assumption that, “to have ‘full animation’, to have quality, is to prioritize malleability and fluidity.” One only needs to consider the cutscene animations of early console video games, such as those for Final Fantasy II, and the richness they were able to convey with such limited visual fidelity at their disposal, to see how quickly the assumption that only “full animation” allows audiences to connect with these works falls flat. Even more recent examples like Undertale and Deltarune have shown that audiences don’t need incredibly fluid and detailed animation for memorable character moments. Writing, staging, and sound can go a long way to fill in those gaps for us!

All this is to say that there’s still an incredible untapped space here to play in when it comes to working at lower fidelities in animation. By widening the gulf between those irrational and intellectual planes, via visuals and temporality, I believe that we can strive for something truly exciting when it comes to animation, if only we as creators and audiences give ourselves the chance.

Special thanks to Josh McKenzie for the feedback.