For decades now, the conventional wisdom in the film industry has been that there are films made for entertainment, and films made with depth, with the two rarely overlapping. This has never truly been the case, as filmmakers have always snuck social messages and introspection into their films in a variety of ways, but that adage can still be felt in the way that blockbuster movies intended to appeal to a wide audience are typically treated as being slight, fanciful and unimportant. This goes double for animation and family films, as any that are regarded as “important” or “educational” are typically seen as boring, and everything else lazily caters to kids’ fickle tastes. Again, this is only true in a general sense, as many animated films are now seen as both entertaining and impactful, but the conventional wisdom still stubbornly stands. That’s why films like the upcoming The Inventor, which seeks to blend educational historical elements with dazzling stop-motion animation, are leading the way to change that type of thinking.
There’s no doubt that Hollywood’s horizons are expanding, as more and more types of films become both recognized and successful. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, whom one could refer to as the McDonald’s of the cinematic landscape in terms of ubiquitousness and popularity, have helped expand visibility for women and people of color both in front of and behind the camera, with films like Black Panther (2018), Captain Marvel (2019), and 2020’s upcoming Eternals, directed by Chloé Zhao. Conversely, arthouse films that 30 years ago may have been only seen (let alone heard of) by cinephiles are not just winning awards, but becoming huge box office successes: Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite (2019) was already a hit before it won Best Picture at the Oscars, having earned $44 million to date.
Change happens slowly, of course, and this wave of progress has yet to really hit the world of animation. After the heyday of Walt Disney in the ‘30s and ‘40s, it wasn’t until the films of Pixar that mainstream animated movies began to be again regarded as art with depth and wide appeal, and the perception of animation has only grown by small increments since the studio’s debut in the ‘90s. The works of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki have managed to cross over in appealing to a wide audience, and shorts like the Oscar-winning Hair Love prove that the medium can be both entertaining and impactful. Yet the overwhelming bulk of mainstream animated films (especially those targeted at children) are noisy, flashy, and generally empty. Sure, they mostly contain “messages” so as to appear wholesome, and they’re often packed with reference humor (not to mention voice talent) that attempts to appeal to any adults in the audience, but these films tend to be almost insultingly pandering and crass.
There is hope, however, and evidence of that can be seen in the animated films that are just on the horizon. One of these is The Inventor, which will be presented at the Cartoon Movie event in Bordeaux, France, from March 3-5. The Inventor comes from the mind of co-director Jim Capobianco, whose pedigree ranges from The Lion King (1994) to Ratatouille (2007), the latter of which he co-wrote. The Inventor chronicles the last few years of Leonardo da Vinci’s life, as he takes residence in a French court. Attempting to discover the meaning of life itself, he’s aided by the princess Marguerite de Nevarre, and in the process da Vinci’s own history is explored. Capobianco and his team seek to make a film that is as rich as it is aesthetically entertaining, providing the historical content of a biopic while utilizing the freedom of imagination animation provides. The fact that such a movie can be produced and be considered for a wide release speaks to how conventional wisdom in Hollywood is changing, and with the medium of animation being a part of that change, the limits of storytelling are excitedly expanding.
