Richard Fleischer, Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleischer and the animation revolution (University of Kentucky Press, 2005)
Animated films have long fascinated me. When I was a child my parents took me to see Bambi. It was a revival in the mid-50s, Disney still re-cycles the classics regularly. I'll never forget that film, although I've seen it several times since, the way those animals moved and spoke. As an art student I tried animating my own films. I made two short films, influenced by the great Canadian animator Norman McLaren; they are long gone. But some of my favourite 'cartoons' did not come from the Disney corporation. They appeared on Saturday morning television. The characters moved with ease, they were wise-cracking, sometimes nice sometimes nasty, sailors. Shipmates yet competitors for the hand of the damsel in distress. Popeye and Bluto had real personalities, they were not cute. And they were as funny as all get out! These cartoons were made decades before I watched them, but they made the newer versions seem stilted in story, in dialogue and in animation. They were made by the Fleischer Brothers, Max and Dave. This new book, Out of the Inkwell written by Max's son Richard, tells the fascinating story of his father, his life and innovations, but it needs to be read with the films playing somewhere nearby!
Betty Boop, Popeye, Olive Oyl, Koko the Clown, Superman, and many more. They are illusions. A series of drawings, projected one at a time at tempo that allows, nay, encourages our eyes to see them in motion. Seamless, if done well. And Max Fleischer did it well. The Fleischer Studio was Disney's major competitor for many years. Not, perhaps, competitor in finished product...but in the development of animation! It was Max Fleischer who invented "rotoscoping" by which photographed movement was traced to achieve the perfect illusion.
Many of the Fleischer Studios films are classics. They have been ill-served by the DVD revolution. Often you can find Fleischer films at bargain basement prices on shabbily duplicated discs. When buying Popeye, Betty Boop or the rest read the package carefully, and if the price seems too good to be true...it probably is. On the other hand...$1 for the great Fleischer rendition of Gulliver's Travels is well worth it, I suppose.
These characters came from Out of the Inkwell, through the mind of Max Fleischer and off the nib of his pen. Richard (who is a Hollywood driector responsible for such diverse entertainments as Soylent Green and Tora, Tora, Tora) pays fine tribute to his father. He was close enough to his father to have some real tales to tell. And he's a good enough writer to tell the stories well. He describes the development of the "rotoscoping" process, . . . filing the patent application was one thing. Demonstrating that the theory worked was another. Max started fooling around with the old Moy movie projector that he had inhgerited from the outdoor movie theater debacle to see whether it might somehow be adapted for use as a one-frame-at-a-time projector as well as a stop-frame camera. The more he experimented, the more excited he became. He needed someone to talk to, someone to share his excitement . . . [his wife thought it was another of his crazy notions but Dave, his younger brother] . . . was working in the film industry...'Dave was fascinated by it. He couldn't sleep anymore.' They were determined to get the Rotoscope built and running."
This excitement is contagious. Even through tales of funding woes, and the ups and downs that came and went throughout the Fleischers' career, the author speaks with passion about the work of his father and uncle. This kind of passion is good to see. If you have been a fan of their cartoons then you won't be able to tear yourself away . . . and if you've never heard of Max Fleischer and his body of work then you'll find yourself searching through the animation section of the local video store looking for his films!
The Max Fleischer who is described on these pages is a fascinating, almost obsessive man. He is described this way, "It seems that Max's aim in life was to be fully occupied and challenged all the time. He had an enormous capacity for creative work. However, his mind reached out in so many different directions that I don't believe he could ever be completely satisfied." Bad business decisions, unfortunate partnerships, and bizarre contracts which provided for the destruction of each Popeye cartoon as it reached ten years in distribution led to a decline in income. While Disney is able to continue reissuing their titles for each generation, the brilliant films made by the Fleischer studios were lost in limbo. They later showed up on television with Max's credits removed! Some were re-edited to make shorter films which would fit better in television time-slots!
Richard Fleischer gives enough of the nitty gritty details of the lawsuits for the reader to understand what happened, but doesn't weigh you down under the paperwork. Suffice it to say, Out of the Inkwell is a cautionary tale. The story of a brilliant man, and his creations . . . who desperately needed business advice. But the legacy of Max Fleischer is the work that he produced. The still hilarious animated films filled with memorable characters, smooth action and wit! The Fleischer Superman films are ome of the finest cartoons ever made. And Betty Boop! There's no one like her, anywhere. his is a rich story of an important time in the history of film. And if you can find the movies . . . get them . . . they're wonderful.
