SURREALISM — current posts — Fantasy/Animation

The ICUF: A Surrealist Approach to Character Mystery Narratives

Stories typically follow a structure of beginning, middle, and end, where characters move from their known world into a challenge, and then either overcome or fail it, leading to change. Joseph Campbell’s monomyth (2008) highlights this structure's universality, but exploring alternatives to traditional narrative patterns can lead to unique storytelling approaches. The narrative of mystery, according to Knobloch-Westerwick et al shows that the balance between suspense and resolution enhances audience satisfaction. The Interpretive Character Unravelling Framework (ICUF) builds on these ideas by applying the mystery genre’s principles and concepts of surrealism to character development, engaging the audience in unravelling characters themselves through interpretation rather than direct exposition.

An Analysis of George Dunning’s Yellow Submarine

Based on the music of the British pop band The Beatles, Yellow Submarine (George Dunning, 1968) is a film that perhaps best resembles the tradition of the jukebox musical. It tells the story of Pepperland, a music-loving utopia falling under siege by the music-hating Blue Meanies. By command of the Mayor, Captain Fred boards the titular yellow submarine to seek help. He discovers The Beatles and urges their help given their musical talents and their resemblance to Pepperland’s favourite musical group: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Beatles join Old Fred (Fig. 1) on a journey back to Pepperland, and rally Pepperland’s citizens to rebel against the Blue Meanies. Harnessing the groovy power of psychedelic pop, they sing their way to freedom.

EDITORIALKirstin Stevens SchmidtJuly 19, 2024MUSICAL, SURREALISM, BRITISH ANIMATION, STYLE, AESTHETICS, COLOURComment

One Hundred and One Dada-lmations

For nearly 100 years, the name Walt Disney has been synonymous with top class, polished, and popular animation. Teams of animators churn out major films every couple of years, often to great financial success, and usually with a very particular ‘Disney-esque’ style. Timothy White purports that this style is, at least partly, typified by an attempted realism and continuity editing, typically associated with “Hollywood” cinema (1992: 3-16), meanwhile Paul Wells similarly ascribes a “mimetic” quality to Disney’s style, describing it as “orthodox” (2003: 220).