We like to share for your holiday pleasure our series following on High Note, the Chuck Jones cartoon with today's selection, What's Opera, Doc. Sit back and enjoy a night at the theater. (please use the video below to view the classic. No pun intended.)
Would those of you in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry.
John Lennon
A film director, like an orchestra conductor, is the lord of his domain, and no director has more power than a director of animated films. He is set free from the rules of the physical universe and the limitations of human actors, and can tell any story his mind can conceive.
Jones and other masters of the cartoon short subject created a world apart from the real world and also apart from feature-length animation, which tended to be more story-driven. Three of his cartoons have been included in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress: Duck Amuck (1953), One Froggy Evening (1955) and What's Opera, Doc? (1957).
With What's Opera, Doc? Jones gives himself freedom to rewrite cartoon conventions. In the opera spoof, bits of half a dozen Wagner operas create a pastiche of romantic turmoil as Elmer woos Bugs. There are sensational shots (the opening lightning storm) and quieter moments that surprise us, as when Elmer Fudd seems sad and takes the plot seriously.
For the first time, we feel sorry for this creature who exists to be the foil of Bugs. There is a scene where Bugs appears to be dead, tears drop from a flower on a broken stem, and Elmer mourns, “Poor little wabbit." Jones seems perilously close to breaking through the ritual of the Elmer-Bugs feud into the reality of their endless Sisyphean rivalry. At the end, amazingly, Elmer is not defeated, but strides off in his helmet and with his spear, the wabbit under his arm. Doesn't that break all the rules?
Bugs then asks us, “Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?"
For more information contact All About Jazz.
