Tim's Toons: World of Hertzfeldt
Thursday, January 22, 2015 at 6:30PM 
Tim here. It's such a beautiful day to be animator Don Hertzfeldt, whose newest short, World of Tomorrow, premieres at the Sundance Film Festival tonight - his seventh film to play there, a record. It's an even better day to be a fan of Don Hertzfeldt, for in addition to WoT (which has been popping up on "most anticipated" Sundance lists all over, as well it should), news has come down today that Hertzfeldt is about to beginning working on his second feature, Antarctica. It's going to be the first project of his career made with an actual team of animators, owing to its unprecedented complexity compared to everything he's ever made (besides which, his last feature took over six years to complete, dribbling out in the form of three short films released as they were ready). And let me tell you, the notion of a Hertzfeldt film of unprecedented complexity is exciting on a deep, primal level. The kind of exciting where all movies released between now and then will be disappointing just by virtue of not being Antarctica.
Since I, for one, am not prepared to think of anything but Hertzfeldt today, I've taken the liberty of putting together this little primer of some of his work. For those of you who haven't seen any of it, I can't imagine how you could have gone on this long without your life being complete, and for those of you who have, it's never the wrong time to re-watch his stuff, right?
Billy's Balloon (1998)
Hertzfeldt's fourth short, completed when he was a 21-year-old UCSB student, was his big breakthrough. It bears all the hallmarks of an early work - the limitations of his hand-hewn aesthetic feel more like limitations, and not the secret strengths he'd make them in later projects - but the groundwork for all of his later films can be spotted here. To wit, we live in a universe of capricious cruelty, where everything that seems nice will turn on you, and there's no such thing as finding a human connection to make that cruelty easier to take. All done with surprising, absurd, morbid humor. There's a reason his production company is called Bitter Films.
Hertzfeldt's Oscar nominee, and his first feature below the jump
Rejected (2000)
The Big One, the Oscar nominee, and the one film that I hope and pray you'll watch out of this whole post, as it represents the best mix of inventive animation, totally unexpected comedy, and the savagery lying like a tiger trap beneath the weird line drawings and goofy comedy. It's a film in which characters are made as deliberately unlovable as possible by an idiosyncratic artist, and then punished for his own frustration when they prove to be unloved. In short, a study of God punishing us because He made us imperfect. Hilarious and bold in its manipulation of media, it's one of the great animated shorts of the last quarter century, and as essential as it gets. Not to mention that "my spoon is too big" has become a shibboleth for the indie animation faithful. (A version on YouTube with Hertzfeldt's text commentary can be seen here)
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
First released as the individual shorts Everything Will Be OK (2006), I Am So Proud of You (2008), and It's Such a Beautiful Day (2011), Hertzfeldt's magnum opus - so far - is the best animated feature of the 21st Century. Period. It condenses and re-arranges time and perspective in dauntingly complex ways that never feel like a chore to watch, while it looks into the mind of a lonely and confused man with empathy and a clear lack of weepy sentiment. It manipulates the simple ink-on-paper technique of all Hertzfeldt's work to stronger narrative effect than in any of the director's previous work, using the medium to create new and unprecedented avenues into the life of its schlubby protagonist Bill, deepening it as a psychological portrait even as its one of the most exciting experiments in style that any animator has crafted in recent memory. The individual parts can be hunted down on YouTube, or the whole feature is currently streaming on Netflix. Either way, it's the best 62 minutes you'll spend today.
Reader Comments (6)
The baby falling down the stairs in "Rejected"... so damn hilarious!
I love any spotlight on one of my favorite animators working today
Been a fan of Hertzfeldt for a while now so it's always a welcome to see some recognition of him. I'm excited for his follow-up, just hope I don't have to wait too long for it.
Rejected is so genius I can't stand it. It's Such a Beautiful Day has been on my Netflix queue since I saw it was available and I can't wait to watch it!
It's Such a Beautiful Day is some sort of magical, soaring work. Damned criminal that more people don't know about it (and since it wasn't Oscar eligible due to being collated from shorts already released it was never going to be noticed outside of that LFCAA award).
I saw Billy's Balloon at a film festival so many years ago. It made me laugh so much, and now when I see a kid with a balloon, I flash back to that film. I haven't seen the other movies, but will do so today. Thank you!