Shadow Of A Mouse Film Analysis

In his book Shadow of a Mouse: Performance, Belief, and World-Making in Animation, Donald Crafton investigates what “performance” in animation is. Brad Bird, known for The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouille (2007), argues that “animated films are performances” because the “animated characters are actors who may convey strong emotions” and “the audience responds emotionally to the acting”. In result, the “emotions [that] originate with the animators” make them, the animators, “real” performers (16). Crafton agrees to an extent. The extent to which, animated films are “a conditional performance, the condition being that the film will be completed and projected to its viewers” (17). With that being addressed, performance falls into two types: figurative and embodied. The two types differ in how they approach animating the performance, with the first focusing on “distinctive movements and characteristic gags” and the latter focusing on “emotive personality, character nuance and emotional expression” (23). Crafton defines and exemplifies each type but concludes that despite the differences, the two have a fine line that separates them and one is just an extension of an aspect in the other. The figurative approach “remained a

She isn’t a completed character, but she does have a personal background, individuality, and some agency” (26). She is arguably more figurative due to her acknowledgment of her creator and audience and lacking “an interior core of emotion or individual expressivity” (28). However, Crafton declares that “Betty Boop definitely had a personality and [although] “made of pen and ink,” [she] will indeed “win you with a wink”” (15). Crafton also goes as far as to stating that “she’s one of [his] favorite actresses” (16), translating to she is partially embodied because “she’s more than a drawing, more than a collectible”