Homework:
16 Comments
Sophia Moore
2/24/2018 11:18:59 am
I've read the novel for Coraline before and it honestly was even more creepy to me than the movie was. Something about the way it was written was incredibly eerie, especially with the pictures in the book. The movie has a bit of a slower frame rate than a live action movie would as a result of the stop motion and this works to bring in a lot of the same eerie feeling. One thing I really like within this are the connections between the normal world and the other world which are dropped as hints right from the start. For instance, Wybie says right off the bat that he isn't supposed to talk about what happened a long time ago, and later his mouth is quite literally zipped up. Additionally, there are parallels in the way things are placed in the set. The other father sits at his computer pressing keys in exactly the orientation the other father sits playing the keys of the piano. The animation makes this kind of stuff really clear and extra eerie which is the overall vibe of the movie.
Reply
Elissa Shumate
2/25/2018 04:18:40 pm
Coraline is an incredibly creepy, weird and eccentric film. I had never seen this movie before. I honestly can’t imagine watching Coraline as a child, I would have been terrified. The stop motion definitely added to the creepiness of this film, while still making it feel like a children's movie.The film was bizarre and entertaining. Although, I could have gone without the musical numbers. I absolutely loved the cat. He was by far the best character. I think it's interesting how Coraline was lured into the other dimension by things she wanted but didn't have in the real world. In the end, she learns that although her real parents are not perfect, they are the family she wants to be with.
Reply
Rien Hu
2/26/2018 08:14:02 pm
THAT MOVIE WAS WAY TOO CREEPY I CAN'T HANDLE CREEPY
Reply
Timothy Etter
2/26/2018 09:49:19 pm
Coraline's stop motion animation is really distinct and unsettling. There were several moments I checked the playback to make sure it wasn't buffering because the motion onscreen was so jarring. This was tough to watch at times, but it's meant to be. The non-fluid stop motion emphasizes the discord present in Coraline's new life. Obviously the second, button-eyed world is jarring and unfamiliar (which reflects the animation style), but the beginning of the film in the regular world features this discomfort as well, suggesting tension in Coraline moving to a new and isolated area as well as her disconnection to her parents. By the end of the film, however, this animation style is familiar and barely noticeable. This demonstrates Coraline coming to terms with her new home as well as forging a stronger connection with the parents after taking them for granted before almost losing them to the "monster" mom.
Reply
Ruta
2/26/2018 10:53:06 pm
The stop-motion animation adds a layer of surreality to the film that normal animation does not capture. In a way, it makes what would have been truly horrifying as a live action story into something more stomachable as animation. Deeper concepts can be explored because of the fact that reality is warped by stop-motion. The idea of the other family being almost exactly what Coraline was looking for would have made no sense if the buttons over their eyes had been exaggerated any further. The actions and fluidity of the people in both worlds (not in terms of animation but in terms of similarity) allowed the other world to exist in the first place. It abstracted away the idea of her warped imagination and replaced it with a warped reality that was too similar to her own.
Reply
Maddie Matsumoto-Duyan
2/27/2018 12:19:44 am
Coraline is one of my favorite stop motion films. It is understandably creepy and the medium really lends itself
Reply
Maddie Matsumoto-Duyan
2/27/2018 12:47:03 am
Whoops, accidentally hit the submit button.
Reply
Andrew Sun
2/27/2018 02:27:09 am
Coraline was a charmingly creepy experience whose unique visuals and stop motion animation added to the jarring story and themes of the movie. While the story was interesting, the characters are what sold me on the film. Each character had his or her own place and avoided the common issue of only existing for narrative reasons or only revolving around the protagonist. The parents had their own adult issues, and their perceived incompetence are really their dealing with the stress that accompanies a failing job. The actresses are dealing with their fading spotlight, refusing to give up their relevance as symbolized by their stuffing of their dead dogs. The gymnast is referred to as a drunk, but seems to just be a little bit of an oddball. Wybie seems to be the only protagonist-centered character, but even then he fulfills his role well. Coraline goes through growth as a child who learns that escapism may not always be the best way out of a situation that is not exactly ideal. Despite some pacing issues and narrative leaps, the fully realized characters and charming visuals make Coraline a worthwhile film with interesting adult themes while being a cautionary tale aimed at both children and parents.
Reply
Emerson Lin
2/27/2018 12:12:02 pm
If a story presented by live action film, no matter how fancy of the post-effect, you still feel that this story is happened in the real world. If it presented by animation, no matter how real it is, you still will realize that it is fake. However, in stop motion film, you always have a feel between virtual world and real world. Technologically, all the materials of the characters and scenes is real, which makes the audience feel that it really happened but in other world. After I read some articles of how they produced this film, I extremely admired their patience and insistence, creating the model piece by piece, shooting the image frame by frame. Without many digital effect, they reveal s story in a vivid way. Back to the story, there are actually many symbols in the film. Especially the buttons on some character’s face instead of eyes. People observe the world and discover the truth with their eyes. The ghost mother tries to replace Coraline’s eyes with buttons, which means she wants to block Coraline from the outside world and keeps her inside forever.
Reply
Aaron Basharain
2/27/2018 04:40:45 pm
The medium of the stop motion heavily adds to the narrative. I did not read the original novel, but the story overall is extremely creepy and I think the stop motion adds to it quite a bit. I think as a live action film this story would be too fantastical and it would be too hard to extend the imagination for it and traditional animation would not be quite as creepy as the stop motion. The animation style reminded me a lot of Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas, and after doing a very short bit of research I realized that Henry Selick directed both Coraline and The Nightmare before Christmas, which I previously did not know.
Reply
Brittany Chiu
2/27/2018 05:24:36 pm
Coraline is a film produced by the studio LAIKA that I found unsettling as a child, and this unsettling feeling still remains even now that I'm older. It is a beautifully surreal and creepy stop motion film that has a fantastical story and pays great attention to detail in the animation. Because it is a stop motion animation film, the frame rate is a bit slower than that of an ordinary animated film, but this only adds to the creepy nature of the film. Additionally, the use of stop motion gives the film creepy vibes by venturing slightly into the uncanny valley, with characters' features overly exaggerated yet still recognizable as people. This is a quality that no live action or even traditionally animated film can have; the characters being 3-dimensional in real life gives it a certain look that can't quite be replicated. In this way, attributes such as the buttons for eyes seem creepily natural and unnatural at the same time; because the characters are cartoons, suspension of disbelief allows the audience to believe that the characters truly have had their eyes replaced by buttons. In a live action film it would take quite a lot of special effects to convincingly replace the actors' eyes with buttons. These buttons are especially significant in the film for symbolizing Coraline's wanting the world around her to only show her what she wants to see; it is only after she realizes that her life isn't so bad after all that she is able to reconcile with her parents. All in all, Coraline is a charmingly beautiful film, although this is to be expected as one of LAIKA's works.
Reply
Alina
2/27/2018 05:58:33 pm
What/how did the stop motion animation add to the narrative?
Reply
Soohyun Cho
3/28/2018 04:42:13 am
The stop-motion animation added to the creepiness of the characters because the movements are jolty and exaggerated. It allows for a more wondrous setting and dramatic scenes. The use of color in Coraline was iconic and tasteful in every frame. Coupled with the composition, any scene picked at a random looks like a piece of art. Each shot and placement felt intentional and purposeful. The contrast between Coraline's colors is one of the examples of meaningful color selection. Her bright blue hair and colorful clothes against the muted background perfectly conveyed her personality's conflict with the boring world. In the more intense or dark scenes, the fact that the film is an animation helped to maintain a minimally playful and cheeriness. Had Coraline been portrayed more realistically, the tone and scenes would be a lot darker, scarier, and creepier.
Reply
Joshua Rafael Sanchez
3/29/2018 09:30:58 pm
What a creepy movie! While I thought the plot was basically straightforward, the animation and the fantasy world definitely added to the story’s overall main themes. I’m very impressed at the amount of detail that has gone into this full stop-motion movie; in fact, I watched a video about how the animators were able to execute particular effects that accentuated the creepiness of each scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpyk7eApRLo). Indeed, the movie’s visual representation, that is the physically fabricated reality of Coraline’s world, indicates rather bluntly the fabricated relationship which had started to blossom between the Other Mother and Coraline. Coraline’s medium as a stop motion movie may also attribute to the overarching theme of fabrication; indeed, in a stop motion movie, framed images are literally stitched together to create a motion picture, so this stitching could be seen as a fabricating of sorts. The buttons could even symbolize a puppets’ blindness to reality—in a way, agreeing to have your eyes replaced with buttons suggests a full embracing of a reality which is not real life.
Reply
Luke
3/30/2018 05:30:56 pm
Caroline masterfully utilizes the uncanny valley of stop motion animation to further develop the dark and spine chilling nature of the film. It exaggerates the emotion of fantasy, reflecting in a similar way Caroline herself rejects her own real mother. This sort of effect is truly difficult to reenact with traditional, life action film. The almost whimsical character designs reflect the childish nature of the audience, while still creating anxiety over the dissonance between a "childish" aesthetic and the frightening way it is developed.
Reply
Kate Winterbauer
4/1/2018 02:02:23 pm
I remember watching this movie as child and being truly terrified. Having seen it again as an adult, I can say it is only slightly less creepy. The idea of replacing someone’s eyes by sewing a pair of buttons really freaks me out. The entire film definitely has a sort of creepy and eerie feeling. I think the use of stop-motion adds to that feeling because all of the characters seem doll like and not quite right in the sense that their movements are jerky and unrealistic. I also think the story could not be told as effectively if it had been portrayed in another medium. Telling this story using live action or even animation would not allow for the very specific tone that is created in the movie. I thought the cat was a very interesting character because he was the only other person besides Coraline who was able to travel between the two realms. It was interesting to see how he facilitated her realization that this fantasy world wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. The mice also played a similar part but they couldn’t speak directly to her in the same way the cat could. Despite being creepy, the film was captivating to watch because the plot was interesting and the stop motion was visually stunning.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |