| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 英美語文學系 === 104 === This research focuses on the representation and re-creation of movement from photographic images in a slow motion analysis series produced by Max Fleischer’s Inkwell Studios in 1924-6, “Marvels of Motion.” This series showed one motion in different ways—first at slow motion, and then in freeze frame, fast-forward or backward. This research will answer two questions: 1) how movement was again attraction and novelty when representing motion was nothing big deal anymore in 1920s, and 2) why and how such a series of short films that sold movement as attraction was important in terms of the distribution and exhibition industry at that time.
This paper will argue how this series are animated films that created and reanimated movement from photographic images, treated as raw material and as graphic images. In other words, this series are animated films that make caricature of camera-recorded movement—transforming live action into slapstick-like movement—and such a playful treatment of photographic movement is what turns representation of motion into attraction and novelty, resulting in an entertaining effect desired by the audience. Evidence will be drawn from textual analysis of the moving images, advertisement and reviews found in trade magazines and newspapers digitized on Media History Digital Library, the Fleischer Studios’ production aiming at novelty and cartoons, and the importance of short films as variety and entertainment input in theatre programs in 1920s. In addition to a close reading of the animation technique applied in the film, my approach thus is mainly historical research but related scholarship on motion study, slapstick comedy, and animation will also be adopted.
This research hopes to remind that short series contribute additional values to a theatrical program by bringing variety and entertainment in the mid-1920s and aims to explain how distributors sells shorts accordingly at that time.
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