The Way of Pixarism
By Armond White
Posted by Our Town on May 27, 2009 · View Comments
Pixar rules pop media like nothing since mid-20th century General Motors held sway as the preeminent American corporation (and the bane of grassroots individualism). Every Pixar film—including the new Up, gushed over by Cannes Film Festival shills—is greeted with nearly patriotic fervor. This absurdity clarifies contemporary news media’s unprincipled collusion with Hollywood capitalism.
Up’s uninteresting story of an old widower who attaches his home to helium balloons and floats off to Venezuela with an overeager kid in tow follows the same formula as the previous nine Pixar movies. But artistic standards get trumped by a special feature: sentimentality. Pixar’s price sticker includes enough saccharine emotion to distract some viewers from being more demanding; they don’t mind the blatant narrative manipulation of a sad old man and lonely little boy. They buy animation to extend their childhood like men who buy cars for phallic symbols.
As a child, Carl Fredrickson, already a young fogey, thrilled to the airborne adventures of daredevil explorer C.J. Muntz. But in retirement, Fredrickson sulks; mischief deeply buried beneath blandness. Carl’s not an irascible audience-surrogate like the urban curmudgeon Mr. Magoo. Only Russell, the pie-faced, father-abandoned, 8-year-old scout, is cuter. “Cute” is how Pixar oversimplifies the world.
Even the montage showing Carl’s marriage to childhood sweetheart Ellie (their wedding, companionship, childlessness, then Ellie’s illness and death), is over-sentimentalized. This silent interlude is no more daring than the utterly conventional Wall-E: It concludes with Carl, alone, holding a blue balloon at Ellie’s funeral. Sheesh. Although Chaplinesque music underscores these maudlin scenes, they’re not emotionally pure like Chaplin; they preen. Critics who forget that movies should be about people defend this reduction of human experience.
When Up trivializes Carl and Russell’s loneliness—treating it to the same Journey/Rescue/Return blueprint as Finding Nemo, Cars, Wall-E, Monsters, Inc., A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 1 and 2—the predictability becomes cloying. And the inevitable shift to anthropomorphism—Carl and Russell float to South America, encountering a prehistoric bird and mysteriously “talking” dogs—is very nearly depressing. Almost as depressing as Wall-E. Despite some imaginative imagery (gray-blue night storms, dark yet vivid jungle scenes, compositional values J.J. Abrams knows nothing about), Up drops its emotional elements for chase mechanics and precious comedy. This way, Pixar disgraces and delimits the animated film as a mushy, silly pop form.
Pixarism defines the backward taste for animation. Refuting Chuck Jones’ insistence that he didn’t create his great Warner Bros. cartoon for children, Pixarism domesticates and homogenizes animation—as if to preserve family values. The only exceptions have been Brad Bird’s Pixar movies The Incredibles and Ratatouille—both sumptuously executed in Bird’s belief that animation should show “how things feel rather than are. Indulging in the human aspect of being alive.” Yet their conceptual weak point was cuteness—same as Up’s glossing over Carl’s “public menace” court conviction and that inconsistently imagined dog pack.
After ripping-off Albert Lamorisse’s classic The Red Balloon, dispersing it into Carl’s thousands of colorful orbs, Pixar then literalizes the meaning of flight as a commercial icon: Up. Here, it’s simply the means to “adventures” and not an ecstatic elevation of individual identity. Last year, elitist film nerds forgot how Hou Hsiao Hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon also dishonored Lamorisse’s beautiful tale—as they cynically overrated the entropic Wall-E. All this deflated cinema and Pixarism mischaracterizes what good animation can be, as in Coraline, Monster House, Chicken Little, Teacher’s Pet, The Iron Giant. Up’s aesthetic failure stems from its emotional letdown.
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Up
Directed by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Runtime: 96 min.
While I found the opening sequence moving rather than maudlin, the inevitable transition to Disneyesque villainy and to talking animals was extremely disappointing. Certainly airborne sequences were a thrill (vertigo!), but I know I would have preferred the moodiness and melancholy all the way through, without slapstick and melodrama as mediators. Somehow, for me, the middle undermined the endcaps.
Still, I came home to my 77-year old mother — who is mourning dad’s rapid mental deterioration — and told her the movie was about loss, grief, aging, not giving up on life, and loving your dog. I left out the bits about zeppelins and dogs piloting planes. I will say, though, that what’s trite for some is ‘identifiable’ and ‘resonant’ for others.
Anyway, thanks for your review. I don’t usually horn in on comments, but I agreed with a lot of this noise, including your examples of “good” animation. I found Up to be the very least of the Pixar movies I’ve seen. I don’t think that makes me heartless — in fact, I only liked ‘Up’ when it felt sincere.
Your review’s only failing is, it takes Pixar more seriously than your readers do. Thank you for respecting the work enough to punch it in the face. Good luck to you.
Up would have worked better as a short that ends when the house lifts up from its foundations and floats through the city. Make that two shorts; the cute bird and the cute dog could have been featured in their own. The movie’s third act is little other than scene after repetitive scene of peril.
The central metaphor of the movie is not lift – the lyrical impossible scene of an ascending house – but drag: the man and boy towing a unsettlingly low-hanging looming house.
I found the conflict with the adversary both creepy in set up and disturbing in outcome, more reminiscent of Apocalypse Now than a family film. And is the dog pack supposed to be lovable or murderously menacing?
It is a convention in Pixar movies and their imitators that the buddy-heroes have a falling out after which they reconcile. In this case the falling out was particularly contrived.
I think that Chicken Little is mediocre at best. But Meet The Robinsons is better than most Pixar movies.
A message to fellow commenters: not loving a Pixar film is neither unpatriotic nor blasphemous.
“A message to fellow commenters: not loving a Pixar film is neither unpatriotic nor blasphemous.”
Another message to fellow commenters – loving all or most of Pixar’s movies does not make one cinematically incompetent. Most individuals appreciation of their films is not because they’ve bought into the corporate style, but rather because they actually, genuinely like the stories they tell and their method of storytelling. That is to say that one’s enjoyment of Pixar films isn’t the indictment of one’s taste that some here would claim it is.
And while I completely agree that there’s no problem with not liking Pixar films, there is a problem with White’s approach to criticism.
I can’t help but think that anyone who believes that we need more Armond Whites in the world is not judging so much by the actual content and style of his reviews but more by the fact that he attacks some popularly beloved movies/studios that the commenter also doesn’t like – as if that is actually a particularly brave thing to do (note: writing things that get you called names on the internet doesn’t actually make you brave.) The fact that his defenders are criticizing the commenters for ad hominem attacks, red herrings, and unsubstantiated claims is evidence of their lack of knowledge about White’s previous reviews, since White himself is the king of such fallacies. He himself has called those who disagree with him “dolts” and “snake-hipped wordslingers” and, too frequently to count, “hipster nihilists” (a phrase he himself can’t even seem to provide a steady definition for, other than “bad people who disagree with me.”) His “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About the Movies” (along with a good percentage of the rest of his reviews and essays) is basically one, long unsubstantiated claim, and he is absolutely the king of inept namedropping of movies completely unrelated to the one being reviewed (just so he can remind us of the inferiority or superiority of the said director/film.) There are occasional nuggets (sentences or paragraphs) of useful criticism in his reviews – “things that make you think” – but they are almost inevitably drowned out by a series of unrelated and completely nonsensical criticisms. In the case of the above review, I would say that there’s barely any more substance in White’s paragraphs than there is in the majority of comments being made here.
I agree with Mr. White. Up is a weiner. It is made of the worst parts of storytelling wrapped in a pixar tube. The only condiment that makes this movie watchable is the amount I paid for admission. If you have children that you love, face them towards the other side of the theatre.
It was painful to watch as every stereotype from old men peeing themselves, to fat boys constantly eating candy was paraded in front of me. I wish I had a few hundred balloons to float my ass out of that theatre.
You lost my attention when you said that Chicken Little was a good movie.
I must say, pretty original review though. It seems like you completely missed the point of the movie, however.
After the film UP i felt like banging my head on to a wall….It is sentimental crap ….The bottom line is i see a move for entertainment ….and that filim was nowhere near entertainment
Your comments reflect what I would say precisely. Thank you.
You sir, are a soulless contrarian (and an idiot). Someone on RT once said, “I’ll bet 10 bucks the first one to give Up a negative review will be Armond White.” What does that tell you?
P.S.: You seriously think Chicken Little is better than any Pixar movie? Or are you just saying that to get a reaction out of people, like with your reviews?
I hope you get fired from your job as a film critic.
Good job being different, you’re really good at it. Even though you only have a different opinion so people read your reviews, I respect being different.
Now go hump a tree.
I was with you until this:
“elitist film nerds forgot how Hou Hsiao Hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon also dishonored Lamorisse’s beautiful tale” —
whaa?? please explain! how did that film dishonor the first one? I thought it a lovely, funny, homage.
There's a lot of things I could say, but I'm still speechless about you referring to Chicken Little as good animation. I admire your honest, but you're not exactly credible.
Mr. Armond, I've read a lot of movie reviews online and I do appreciate that we agree that Iron Giant and Coraline are good movies. However I do have one question. WHAT THE HELL?! You put Teacher's Pet in the same perspective? Really? Up was supposed to be simple. Yes, there were things done to establish emotion, but it was done to help connect with the character(s).Carl reminded me so much of my grandpa it nearly brought me to tears when he had lost his wife. Why? Because it helped you connect with the character. Don't you have a grandpa? Were you not paying attention to the oddities that he held on to around the house? Old people do that because it reminds them of what a great life they've had or to hang on to the past, whichever you prefer. As far as the “talking” dogs, Russell, and the bird, you have to remember, this is a piece of FICTION. A fantasy, if you will. You know like TRANSFORMERS. Sheesh. If you really hated this movie, along with so many other great movies with heart like the rest of Disney/Pixar's wonderful library of work, there's just not that much I can say to you other than “I'm sorry you have no heart.”
You criticize Up for being depressing, and yet you praise Coraline.
Chicken Little was the most commercialized, boring, overdone animated movie I've ever seen. It was created purely to sell.
Pixar movies (particularly Up) have humor, heart, beautiful artwork, outstanding original soundtracks, and several other little charming aspects that make each a jewel.
Also, these movies appeal to almost all audiences, which is what really brings in the cash for Pixar.
My personal opinion is that you either:
A. Criticize Pixar films simply because nobody else will, or
B. You have no taste.
Seriously?
I'm almost certain this guy just loves the attention of being different than everyone else.
Also, try using some common words for a change. Most people don't want to read a review that requires a dictionary every second sentence. For example….
“But artistic standards get trumped by a special feature: sentimentality. Pixar’s price sticker includes enough saccharine emotion to distract some viewers from being more demanding; they don’t mind the blatant narrative manipulation of a sad old man and lonely little boy. They buy animation to extend their childhood like men who buy cars for phallic symbols.”
I see that Mr. White is well-acquainted with Ye Olde Straw Man.
If you need a dictionary to decipher that sentence, you need to read more books, plain and simple.
How does having one's own opinion not make one credible?
i have read some crap in my time but this? get a grip, blatantly a brilliant film