The Clown and His Donkey

1910
Silent
4m

A pioneering effort in bringing shadow puppetry to the cinema

The ancient art of shadow play made a natural transition to the cinema. Though it is most associated with the German animator Lotte Reiniger and her 1926 silhouette animation feature The Adventures of Prince Achmed, artists like Charles Armstrong had already made films with the technique. Unlike others he uses the negative image to create white character on black backgrounds. He made at least half a dozen films, including a WWI series 'Armstrong's Trick War Incidents', but they do not appear to survive. The surviving German title is evidence of the films' international appeal.

Creatures Great and Small

Fur, feathers, bugs or beaks: from the start animators have cast the whole natural world in their human comedies and dramas

Would you know Mickey was a mouse if you didn’t know his surname? Many of the most famous animated characters are drawn from the animal kingdom, but they rarely behave quite as nature intended. Anthropomorphism has a long history in storytelling - going back to Aesop and beyond - and animation has imported it into film. But whether it's Bonzo the Dog or Charley the Cat, these characters are really studies in human nature.