playing pattycake with the tendrils of madness
During my teenage years and most of my adult life I've surrounded myself with art that was just plain weird. Usually the creepier the better - basically, anything that didn't conform to consensus reality or hasn't been properly contextualized and set on the shelf of our comfort zones or grown as another vine on our symbolic lattice. This sort of fascination I've had to think about, where it came from, what it means. It's easy for me to say that if the question from where the nascent image emerged and how it arrived in my brain was answered, then I've lost interest. But where it comes from? Hell if I know for sure, but in trying to find out via digital time machine, I may have come one step closer to a pseudo-understanding - and surprised that the most virile example of my fascination was to be found in the annals of my childhood. Oh, though the process may have given Crow a whole new bucket of nightmares to contend with.
One thing I've been quick to realize is that while all artistic mediums can be used as praxis to bucking trends in traumatic and confusing ways, that rarely any of them are inherent to that end. Except for one.
Claymation. No no, hear me out. I'm not talking about stop-motion in general, not 'foamation' or mechanical articulation (Jan Svankmeyer can definitely use these to mind-boggling ends, though) - no, I mean pure and simple claymation, with actual clay. Now, this sort of medium is almost a staple for any child, and has certainly entered into the lexicon of our imaginations over time. However, its identifiability is one of the reasons its effect is likewise so confusing. By inuring ourselves to it over time what sets it apart has become more potent and more subversive. What sets it apart, exactly? If I knew, it wouldn't creep and delight me the fuck out.
In abstract terms, though, I can see it's imbued with something more than it is. The pliability of the world implies something beneath the surface, bubbling at the lip, a nightmare delivered at 24 frames per second and spilling over in suggestive horror. The longer you stare at it, the more unsettled you become, until the mere idea enters your subconscious like a poison needle that each successive experience with it may drive you mad, where the foam at your mouth and the blood in your eyes break the levee of your sanity as it sips and absorbs the viscera of all you knew. This is why there has been only one full-length claymation movie ever made.
And we watched it, from beginning to end. It was once a vague memory from my childhood, possibly repressed like so much infant rape, but blossoming once again from its cthonic tomb with the arrival of an amazon.com box.
The Adventures of Mark Twain.
Wha? you say? Some of you may remember this evil little gem from occasional airings on the Disney channel or Showtime for kids. What you don't know, however, is that the original, uncensored film which played in theaters was banned from TV forever. Not something I agree with, but understandable considering the fear parents have for anything even remotely navigating existential truth. The joke, however, is on them - as claymation itself refuses to completely embed itself in the fabric of our symbolic world, giving us all the slightest taste of the traumatic nature of reality. However, if it were unleashed in its most potent form, who's to say we wouldn't be inhabiting a world of even greater madness (hard to imagine, I know)?
Oh, it can't be that bad, can it, you say? No, it takes a particularly sensitive mind to see its inherent lack of relation to anything familiar or wholesome, and become truly transformed by it with too much exposure like clay yourself. But sometimes, just sometimes (perhaps more often than we give credit for) the medium will show its hand, will guide the fingers of the animator and emerge from the shadows of our subconscious in a form akin to terror, showing just enough of its true self, like burning eyes in a blackened closet; or the muffled, tinny music from a locked antique cupboard jettisoned from the perverse past of a dead relative:
What's interesting about this particular clip isn't the motives of the animators, or even that of Mark Twain (it's based on his book The Mysterious Stranger), but that claymation had somehow clouded the acceptability of this scene, masked the intention with a feeble impression of a child-friendly medium, preying on the vagaries of an imagination long lost to us as adults. No matter how subversive the message is (notice how, despite the name and words coming from the mysterious stranger's mouth, his actions conform almost exactly to that of God's) claymation not only made it acceptable, but imbued it with a power that curdles our very sanities.
Those of you who know me know my love of all things animated. Something about it transcends live action, seems more in-tune to the whims of the artist. Only one style of animation, however, seems to beckon that you become in-tune to it, for better or worse. Will Vinton never directed another full-length claymation feature film. Sometimes, when the amorphous head of Mark Twain appears before me while I whisper in the dark, I can feel the ligaments and tendons of my mind buckle in helplessness and kneel in tribute to a man who nearly sacrificed himself to a primordial art whose roots are eulogized in the first chapters of the Bible, having indulged far too much in a forbidden myth, perhaps driven mad by proximity to tools not meant for mortal hands, and whose efforts impart on us a small taste of That Which Should Not Be. But damn am I grateful.
One thing I've been quick to realize is that while all artistic mediums can be used as praxis to bucking trends in traumatic and confusing ways, that rarely any of them are inherent to that end. Except for one.
Claymation. No no, hear me out. I'm not talking about stop-motion in general, not 'foamation' or mechanical articulation (Jan Svankmeyer can definitely use these to mind-boggling ends, though) - no, I mean pure and simple claymation, with actual clay. Now, this sort of medium is almost a staple for any child, and has certainly entered into the lexicon of our imaginations over time. However, its identifiability is one of the reasons its effect is likewise so confusing. By inuring ourselves to it over time what sets it apart has become more potent and more subversive. What sets it apart, exactly? If I knew, it wouldn't creep and delight me the fuck out.
In abstract terms, though, I can see it's imbued with something more than it is. The pliability of the world implies something beneath the surface, bubbling at the lip, a nightmare delivered at 24 frames per second and spilling over in suggestive horror. The longer you stare at it, the more unsettled you become, until the mere idea enters your subconscious like a poison needle that each successive experience with it may drive you mad, where the foam at your mouth and the blood in your eyes break the levee of your sanity as it sips and absorbs the viscera of all you knew. This is why there has been only one full-length claymation movie ever made.
And we watched it, from beginning to end. It was once a vague memory from my childhood, possibly repressed like so much infant rape, but blossoming once again from its cthonic tomb with the arrival of an amazon.com box.
The Adventures of Mark Twain.
Wha? you say? Some of you may remember this evil little gem from occasional airings on the Disney channel or Showtime for kids. What you don't know, however, is that the original, uncensored film which played in theaters was banned from TV forever. Not something I agree with, but understandable considering the fear parents have for anything even remotely navigating existential truth. The joke, however, is on them - as claymation itself refuses to completely embed itself in the fabric of our symbolic world, giving us all the slightest taste of the traumatic nature of reality. However, if it were unleashed in its most potent form, who's to say we wouldn't be inhabiting a world of even greater madness (hard to imagine, I know)?
Oh, it can't be that bad, can it, you say? No, it takes a particularly sensitive mind to see its inherent lack of relation to anything familiar or wholesome, and become truly transformed by it with too much exposure like clay yourself. But sometimes, just sometimes (perhaps more often than we give credit for) the medium will show its hand, will guide the fingers of the animator and emerge from the shadows of our subconscious in a form akin to terror, showing just enough of its true self, like burning eyes in a blackened closet; or the muffled, tinny music from a locked antique cupboard jettisoned from the perverse past of a dead relative:
Click to viewWhat's interesting about this particular clip isn't the motives of the animators, or even that of Mark Twain (it's based on his book The Mysterious Stranger), but that claymation had somehow clouded the acceptability of this scene, masked the intention with a feeble impression of a child-friendly medium, preying on the vagaries of an imagination long lost to us as adults. No matter how subversive the message is (notice how, despite the name and words coming from the mysterious stranger's mouth, his actions conform almost exactly to that of God's) claymation not only made it acceptable, but imbued it with a power that curdles our very sanities.
Those of you who know me know my love of all things animated. Something about it transcends live action, seems more in-tune to the whims of the artist. Only one style of animation, however, seems to beckon that you become in-tune to it, for better or worse. Will Vinton never directed another full-length claymation feature film. Sometimes, when the amorphous head of Mark Twain appears before me while I whisper in the dark, I can feel the ligaments and tendons of my mind buckle in helplessness and kneel in tribute to a man who nearly sacrificed himself to a primordial art whose roots are eulogized in the first chapters of the Bible, having indulged far too much in a forbidden myth, perhaps driven mad by proximity to tools not meant for mortal hands, and whose efforts impart on us a small taste of That Which Should Not Be. But damn am I grateful.