Despite the unexpected critical admiration Byron Howard and Nathan Greno’s Tangled seems to have gained, I was somewhat neutral in approaching the film. In the end, though, I found much to admire in it, especially its use of lighting.

The film, which is inspired by the Brothers Grimm version of Rapunzel, is not without its problems. The story does not really gain traction until towards the end and its efforts to harken back to earlier Disney films  is a bit too self conscious. (For example, the scene in the boat pictured above seems to rather deliberately evoke a scene from The Little Mermaid.) Similarly, one could sometimes hear quotes from Beauty and the Beast’s music in Alan Menken’s score.

But the boat scene, however corny it may seem, does reflect the filmmakers’ use of lighting to invigorate a sometimes weak story. In the film, Rapunzel is kidnapped by Gothel, an elderly woman who covets the child’s magical hair, which can keep her eternally young (the hair glows when it performs its magic). Each year on Rapunzel’s birthday, the king and queen (and their subjects) send lighted lanterns floating into the sky looking for the lost princess. 

In addition to light being central to the film’s narrative, the filmmakers have also used it to strengthen its dramatic and comedic impact; unfortunately, the stills available barely hint at what art director David Goetz and look and lighting director Mohit Kallianpur were trying to do.

The use of a spotlight is an old trick that dates back to the early silent films of Cecil B. DeMille and is associated with his use of Lasky/Rembrandt lighting in movies such as The Cheat (1915) and Carmen (1915).  In the shot above,  the “spotlight” highlight’s our hero, Flynn Rider’s comic predicament. Below, similar spots are used to highlight Flynn’s more serious predicament after being arrested.

Perhaps more interesting is the scene where Rapunzel discovers Flynn after he has climbed into her tower. Sunlight creates another spotlight which shines on him, but initially she’s in the dark; she then slowly walks into the light, as if to mirror her sense of discovery. Again, this sort of staging and lighting is old hat in live-action films, but I don’t recall other animated film doing anything quite like it.

What is so exciting about Tangled’s use of lighting is the sense of discovery in being able to use digital technology to expand the animation filmmaker’s palette. As such, it is a reminder of the fact that the possibilities of computer animation have barely been touched. Credit must be given David Goetz and especially to Mohit Kallianpur, whose job as and lighting director seems somewhat akin to that of a cinematographer.

Credit, of course, should also go to the film’s directors. It’s interesting to note that in commenting on Bryon Howard’s previous effort, Bolt, which he co-directed with Chris Williams, I praised the film for  its use of 3D stereo “technology to evoke some very credible environments ,” especially its impressive “recreation of the streets of New York and Los Angeles.” The use of stereo in Tangled is also helpful in similar ways, and shows that the folks at Disney seem to understand how to utilize stereo more effectively than their cousins at Pixar.

The young David Lloyd George’s dream of David and Goliath in Maurice Elvey’s The Life Story of David Lloyd George.

On July 14th, the UK’s National Commission for UNESCO announced the 10 items and collections to be included in its first UK Memory of the World Register, which follows in the footsteps of  UNESCO’s worldwide Memory of the World Programme, which I previously posted about here. Included are two films, both rather obscure — one because of its subject matter and the other because it was a film that was never shown publicly and believed to be lost. The latter is Maurice Elvey’s The Life Story of David Lloyd George (1918),  a biography of the British prime minister, which was repressed and presumed destroyed; the latter is  St Kilda, Britain’s Loneliest Isle (1928), a documentary of  life on a island in the Hebrides that was soon to vanish.

Luke McKernan provides a fascinating rundown of the history of Elvey’s film on The Bioscope, his invaluable blog about silent movies. He notes that the film has

a remarkable history of idealism, political intrigue, slander, subterfuge, disappearance, rediscovery and restoration. The Life Story of David Lloyd George was made in 1918, vanished before any cinema audience had a chance to see it, and re-emerged to astonished acclaim in 1994. Its place must be in virtual history rather than actual film history, because its story is one of if onlys and maybes. But what a story it is.

The 152-minute film is available on DVD from The National Library of Wales here and includes 47 minutes of extras, including an interview with ace film historian Kevin Brownlow.

As to St Kilda, it is

A filmed voyage by steamer from Glasgow to St Kilda, containing scenes of the ports en-route and life of the population on St Kilda. Research supports the conclusion that the scenes on the island of Hirta were taken in May 1923, with footage of the voyage from Glasgow out to St Kilda shot later, c. 1928. The film was made on the eve of the evacuation of St Kilda, August 1930, and with it the end of two millennia of human habitation on the island.

The film can be seen on YouTube in two parts (part 1 is embedded above), though you can also see in one sitting on the Scottish Screen Archive site here, which contains additional information on St Kilda.

Meanwhile …

In preparing for this post, I checked UNESCO’s Memory of the World site and discovered its list of Current Nominations, which include a number of film-related items. These include the EYE Film Instituut Nederland’s Desmet Collection, that includes “films, company documents, posters and film stills from the 1910’s” collected by Jean Desmet and Rossellini 77 Triptych, about Roberto Rossellini’s final project. Others include the Audiovisual Collection of Max Stahl, which includes material relating to the founding of Timor Leste, the Thor Heyerdahl Archives (Heyerdahl, the 20th century explorer, made Kon-Tiki (1950),one of the most popular post-war documentaries), and Collection of note manuscripts and film music of Composer Aram Khachaturian.

Thanks to The Bioscope, from whose site I cribbed the frame grab at the top from The Life Story of David Lloyd George.

I’m writing this from Edinburgh, Scotland, where my wife and I have been enjoying a really wonderful Society for Animation Studies conference. A full report will follow when I get back home, but I can’t help responding to the Motion Picture Academy’s new rules for defining what is animation (see press release here), which states in part that,

a sentence regarding motion capture was added to clarify the definition of an animated film. The language now reads: “An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of greater than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time.”

It was mentioned during one of the conference’s many discussions of motion capture and drew some incredulous responses from the packed room (the person reporting it wasn’t sure if it was correct), but a comment by Sheridan Institute of Technology’s Tony Tarantini made around this time about James Cameron’s assertion that there’s no animation in Avatar is worth reporting. He basically felt that at a time when animation is becoming the dominant mode of production, Cameron is try to take it [the field] away from animators.

In the paper my wife Vickie and I gave yesterday, we discussed how live-action directors, like Cameron, liked motion capture because it enabled them to do animation in a way similar to the way they film live-action (i.e., they direct actors instead of animators). For whatever reason, he does not want to see himself as an animation filmmaker and I suspect the new rules regarding motion capture were added in part to assuage people like him; it would also please Pixar, DreamWorks Animation and Blue Sky, as it would reduce possible future Oscar competition. (Needless to say, I feel motion capture is animation.)

In a discussion about the new rules at Cartoon Brew, a number of people felt that motion capture films could still be considered animation if the data was finished by animators frame-by-frame, while Ryan McCulloch asked whether this would disqualify Happy Feet, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature several years ago (I believe it was the same year that another mocap film, Monster House was also nominated)? And the ever sane Floyd Norman said, “This is only going to get crazier.”

Raz Greenberg, in a post on the Society for Animation Studies discussion group, pointed out the above Spanish-language clip from a Euronews report on Ari Folman’s new film, The Congress, which mixes animation and live-action. The movie is based on Stanislaw Lem sci-fi novel The Futurological Congress and is follow-up to Folman’s acclaimed animated documentary, Waltz with Bashir.

Europa Film Treasures, which I wrote about earlier here, has really put a major treasure online in the form of Max Linder’s The Three Must-Get-Theres (1922), the last of his American films, which he also considered his best film;  a hilariously anachronistic spoof of Douglas Fairbanks’ Three Musketeers (1921), it is presented in a fine restoration by Deutsche Kinemathek of the German release version, with a new musical score by Maud Nelissen. (The original American version has been lost.)

As David Robinson wrote of the pioneering French comedian, in The Oxford History of World Cinema,

Max Linder was one of the most gifted comic artists in the history of the performing arts. Inscribing a photograph to him in the early 1920s, Charlie Chaplin called him ‘The Professor—to whom I owe everything.’

And one can see in this photo how Chaplin’s tramp costume might easily be seen as a sort of hobo version of Linder’s dapper persona.  His early French films (he started acting in films in 1905) are remarkably sophisticated and certainly set the standard not only for Chaplin, but for many of the great silent film comedians. Unfortunately, by the time he made The Three Must-Get-Theres, his star had been eclipsed by Chaplin and he eventually committed suicide in 1925.

Thoughwell known to film historians, Linder’s films have been generally neglected even by many fans of silent comedy. For those interested, I highly recommend Film Preservation Associates’ DVD, Laugh with Max Linder!, which includes the feature-length Seven Years Bad Luck (1921), an excerpt from Be My Wife (1921), as well as a handful of his early shorts.  A recent DVD, The Actors: Rare Films Of Max Linder from Classic Video Streams, which includes Be My Wife and 14 of his shorts, came out in August, but I haven’t seen it yet. And you apparently can still find copies of his daughter Maud’s 1983 documentary-compilation film, The Man in the Silk Hat which was issued in the US by Kino only on VHS.

Thanks to The Bioscope.

Trailer for Yash Raj Films’ Roadside Romeo coproduced with Walt Disney Pictures.

A veritable flood of locally-made animated movies were released in India in 2008, but according to The Times of India,

Trade sources confirm that Bollywood has had a bad run with animation this year. Between Hanuman Returns, Krishna, Roadside Romeo, Dashavatar, Ghatotkach and My Friend Ganesha parts 1 and 2, insiders estimate animation losses will total up to about Rs 70 crore [over US$14.5 million]. “Indian animation has suffered quite a few hiccups,” says a trade source. “What’s worse is that many animation films that are complete and awaiting release have no takers.”

Barely a year ago when Walt Disney tied up with Yashraj Films to commission their first joint venture Roadside Romeo (Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor dubbed for the lead pair), Bollywood pundits went to town claiming that animation as a genre had `arrived’. In fact, at least 25 animation films were announced by various corporations, and an estimated Rs 4,000 crore [over US$831 million] was to be kept aside for the animation studios that were being planned across India. “Everything is on hold now,” says trade guru Amod Mehra. “Film corporations are shaken with the blow-hot, blow-cold response to this genre.”

Another story on the situation, in The Hindustan Times, notes,

Roadside Romeo at least stood out from animation point of view while Jumbo made waves due to Akshay Kumar factor. [Jumbo, it should be noted, was really a Thai movie,  Khan Kluay, even though it was promoted as a Akshay Kumar film.] However, rest just fizzled completely hence putting a question mark on the future of animation films in India.

The story then attempts to analyze what went wrote, including the complaint that Roadside Romeo was poorly promoted.

The new batch of animated movies was perhaps inspired by the earlier success of Hanuman in 2005, but the still new Indian animation industry has been chomping at the bit to show it can be a world-class player. And what better way than with feature films.

When I was working for Toonz Animation some 8 years ago as Festival Director of the Week With the Masters Animation Celebration, studio head Bill Dennis (a former Disney executive) was trying to get a movie based on the story behind the Taj Mahal into production; it was a serious effort with Ishu Patel (an Indian best known for his work with the National Film Board of Canada) attached as director; Western artists were to be brought in to do most of the key animation, with Indian artists assisting them. Alas, the project never came off.

I am not qualified to speculate as to why the latest batch of animated movies failed, though animation has traditionally not been well received in India. When I was there, it was pointed out to me that films like The Lion King did not really do that well outside of large cities; this was  attributed to both a bias against animation and the overwhelming popularity of Bollywood films over imports. When Cartoon Network opened its local branch, attitudes among the emerging middle class started to change towards animation; in fact, Cartoon Network buys were vital in jump starting the production of local animated TV series.

The Indian animation industry appears to still be suffering from growing pains, including a shortage of trained animators. As such, the failure of the new slate of animated movies may be the result of producers trying to do too much, too soon.

Nina Paley‘s Sita Sings the Blues, the highly-acclaimed animated feature whose distribution has been hampered by copyright problems, will have a special screening sponsored by ASIFA-Atlanta at the Plaza Theatre (1049 Ponce De Leon Ave. Atlanta 30306. 404 873-1939), Wednesday, March 11th, at 7:30 p.m. Prices are $8 for ASIFA-Atlanta members and $10 for non-members and can be bought online through ASIFA-Atlanta’s website.

Paley, an independent filmmaker and comic strip artist, who does not have the resources of even a minor studio behind her, has been raising money to help clear up the rights problem. In the meantime, the film can be seen for free online (as well as downloaded, also for free) coutesy of WNET, the New York public TV station, at channel13.org. For more information on Paley’s plans for the film, check out her blog, or her new Sita website.

Although animated documentaries are one of the most exciting areas of filmmaking today, in an interview for Comingsoon.net, Waltz with Bashir director Ari Forman in discussing the problems getting funding, notes,

The problem was clearing the film as an animated documentary. This was the main problem, because people sit in documentary funds, they get 10 times less money than people in fiction, and then they have to spend the money, and they think, "Should I spend it on animation? Is animation a documentary? Is it real? Will people believe the story? Is it true?" They gave me a hard time. It was too risky for them, and today, I don’t give a damn. If I would do it now, I would declare it as a fiction film, animated, and this is it. Raise the money, work…

I am a little late in reporting my thoughts on Madagascar: Escape to Africa, the new DreamWorks Animation movie directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath, and Bolt, the new stereo 3D film directed by Byron Howard and Chris Williams. Madagascar 2, which continues the screwball capers of the original, seems much the better of the pair; the DreamWorks Animation team, under Jeffrey Katzenberg, seem to have gotten their comic formula down pat and now seem able to rattle off the visual and verbal gags like clockwork. I don’t know how much longer they can keep it up without getting tired, but so far they’re doing OK.

Bolt, however, tends to totter around a rather weak premise (a movie star dog who lives in a Truman Show/Buzz Lightyear-like cocoon escapes into real world), which is almost rescued by a good sense of pace and its use of stereo 3D. Like Meet the Robinsons, it use of 3D is much superior to the likes Beowulf and Journey to the Center of the Earth, which seemed to have taken their cue from the cheap stereoscopic effects that made Bwana Devil so popular in 1952. Instead, Bolt manages to avoid throwing things things at the camera and uses the technology to evoke some very credible environments — I was especially impressed with its recreation of the streets of New York and Los Angeles. If the promised flood of stereo movies from DreamWorks and Pixar follows Disney’s lead in this matter, we’ll all be better off.

Speaking of art direction, Madagascar 2, like Kung Fu Panda, uses an extremely rich and detailed tapestry almost unimaginable in the days of 2D animation. At least it was until digital ink and paint came along, which did away with the limitations of the camera stand. (Basically, 2D animators were limited by the size of animation cels, which usually could not be more than 16 field, or 16½  inches wide and 12½ inches high.) This enabled films like The Lion King to easily employ much more detailed imagery than previously thought possible.

The use of CGI further enabled 2D artists to expand their visual horizons. This can be seen in the trompe l’oeil effects used on the periphery of DreamWorks’ Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and in the spectacle of Ron Clements and John Musker’s underrated Treasure Planet. Thus, the visual virtuosity on display of late in the films of DreamWorks and Pixar can be seen as part of the continuing exploration by animation artists of the still new possibilities offered by animation’s digital revolution.

When I reviewed Michel Ocelot’s latest film, Azur et Asmar in August, I bemoaned the fact that it did not have an American distributor. This has now changed. As Dave Jesteadt wrote me:

I enjoyed reading your thoughts about Michel Ocelot’s Azur and Asmar, and wanted to let you know that the film is indeed getting a theatrical release (albeit limited) stateside. We first showed the film at the 2006 New York Int’l Children’s Film Festival, and our distribution arm, GKIDS, is now aiding the Weinstein Company in doing a theatrical release of the Prince’s Quest version of the film. The film just opened in NYC at the IFC Center, where it sold out all screenings and is getting held over for a second week, and we have added dates in Seattle, Chicago, Hartford, Washington DC and Columbus with hopefully many more to come.

For more information on the film’s American release, as well as the company’s other activies, please check out the GKIDS website.

Eric Brevig’s version of Jules Vernes’ Journey to the Center of the Earth is not a film I would usually comment on, but several things piqued my interest. First, I’ve always been something of a sucker for stereoscopic films ever since seeing Bwana Devil, the film that started the first wave of 3D films,  when it came out in 1952. Its recent resurgence is something I look on with interest, though I’ve limited my recent viewing to animated films such as Meet the Robinsons and Beowulf. And as I’ve recently taken up teaching the history of visual effects, it was also time for me to check up on what’s happening in the “live-action” side of things when special effects are involved.

The film, which has a modern scientist  discovering that Verne’s book is science fact and not science fiction, is a rather pedestrian affair. As expected, it has the usual, ill-conceived money shots, in which objects and fluids of all sorts are aimed or thrown at the viewer, which have plagued 3D movies since Bwana Devil. Better is a sequence of a roller coaster ride in a mining shaft straight out of Ben Stassen’s Devil’s Mine Ride, an early CGI ride film.

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Then there are the visual effects, which is interesting since the film is Eric Brevig’s feature directing debut, especially given that  most of his recent credits mostly were as visual effects supervisor on such films as The Day After Tomorrow. (Are visual effects, like TV commercials and music videos to be the new path to directing movies?) Though most people will focus on things like the mine ride and prehistoric beasts, including the obligatory T-Rex, I was intrigued by the problems involving the film’s use of matte paintings.

Matte paintings have been around movies from its very earliest days and continue to be an effective (and economical) means for creating environments ranging from simple houses to vast panoramas (as in the scene above). Matte artists have effectively adapted to digital technology in recent years, but stereo imagery seems to have posed a something of a problem in Journey. The thing is that the matte paintings sometimes look like paintings or backdrops better suited to a stage play than to a dimensional environment. I suspect this is not as evident in the 2D version of the film, but the film’s matte artists have not been able to effectively adapt to 3D. I would think matte artists will eventually overcome this challenge, but it’s always interesting to see how the film world copes with new technologies.

By the way, if you do see the film, stick around for Bruce Schluter’s animated  end title sequence, which makes much better use of the mine ride material than the film  itself.

As I noted in my previous post, I had the chance to see Michel Ocelot’s latest film, Azur et Asmar (France, 2006), in the British release version, Azur & Asmar: The Princes’ Quest, at the Society for Animation Studies conference in England, with the director present. Unfortunately, a lack of 35mm facilities meant a DVD copy was shown, which did not really do justice to the film’s rich imagery. As the film’s American distributor (the Weinstein Company) has bowed out, those in the United States and Canada  will have to bide their time. (Those who have region-free DVD players can get copies from Amazon UK and elsewhere. Hopefully, Korean NTSC DVDs, with English subtitles, may find their way here as well.)

Ocelot, whose short films were a fixture on the international festival circuit, had considerable success with Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998), which has also has been made into a successful stage musical in France.  It was this success which enabled him to have a bigger budget and more freedom in making Azur et Asmar; thus,  instead of having the film outsourced to five different countries, production could all be done in Paris.

There is a lot to like in Kirikou, but I felt that it did not sustain the charm and decorative beauty of its early scenes; nevertheless, I enjoy showing a clip from it in my Survey of Animation class, and students inevitably want to see more. (Several always happily buy it on DVD.)

With Kirikou, Ocelot was telling a tale based on West African folklore, something he was familiar with, since he spent much of his childhood in Guinea, the former French colony. This time, reflecting his concern about the problems of North African immigrants in France, he tells a tale of two boys set in the Middle Ages — the fair haired Azur, the son of European nobility, and Asmar, the dark skinned son of Azur’s Muslim nurse; though the nurse raises them as brothers, Azur’s father banishes the nurse and her son; years later, the two are reunited when Azur journeys to Asmar’s homeland, where they both undertake a quest for a Djinn fairy.

The story is really rather thin and the early part of the film seems rather weak. Ocelot, whose silhouette-style favors flat imagery, opted to render his characters with computers, who play out against often lavish hand drawn backgrounds. However, the early scenes in Europe lack the visual interest of the rest of the film, and the early going is somewhat tedious. However, once Azur sets out on his quest, Ocelot’s lavish pictorialism kicks in and it becomes considerably more appealing;  and it is this pictorialism, which is something like a series of Persian miniatures come to life, that carries the film.

(Interestingly, pictorialism of a different sort is also a feature of Kung Fu Panda and WALL-E. In Kung Fu, it certainly enriched a well-executed story, and in WALL-E, it was one of the film’s few saving graces. )

Kirikou‘s international success was not duplicated in the US, probably due to its rather matter-of-fact nudity. This is not a problem with Azur, but according to Ocelot, the Weinstein Company felt no one in America wanted to see the film. Perhaps this was due to its subject matter and the fact that much of the dialog is in Arabic, with no subtitles.  Ocelot was visibly upset about the Weinstein Company’s actions and hoped someone else would pick it up for US distribution. Let’s hope so, but given the large number of European animated movies which fail to get a theatrical airing here, I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime, here’s the British trailer for the film.

Doug Sweetland’s Presto, the new Pixar short that shows before Andrew Stanton’s WALL·E, is an absolute delight. As good as some of best classic Hollywood cartoons, it is brilliant, very funny and a much better piece of filmmaking than the accompanying feature. The nonstop piling of gag upon gag seems more in line with more recent DreamWorks Animation movies than to the run of the mill Pixar film (Brad Bird’s The Incredibles is a something of an exception).

For its part, WALL·E tries very hard to be a silent comedy, as its two main robotic characters hardly speak. Stanton admits to looking to the films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton for inspiration, which is not a bad idea; after all, Otto Messmer based the character of Felix the Cat on a close study of Chaplin films. But the film really does not, in the end, really work and seems a bit too precious. The story, an ecological fable about how the Earth has been abandoned for 700 years because of a garbage crisis, seems a rather weak thread to hang a feature film.

The film is not without its merits, especially in the design and rendering of the garbage-filled cityscapes on Earth .(Kudos to production designer Ralph Eggleston , who was art director on FernGully and The Incredibles, as well as directed the Oscar-winning Pixar short, For the Birds.) In comparison, Kung Fu Panda, is much the better film.

I was delighted that John Stevenson and Mark Osborne’s Kung Fu Panda, DreamWorks Animation’s latest effort. more than lived up to its hype. I really have little to add to general critical applause the film has elicited for its sharp take on martial arts films, which compares favorably with Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films (though it is considerably less bloody).

What impressed me even more, partly because I was not expecting it, was the film’s visual richness, which is sumptuous to say the least; I was especially impressed with the vivid detail which the film seems to luxuriate in. Afterwards, I regretted not having made the extra effort to see it in its IMAX version (which was playing a half hour away in Buford), which is obviously the way to see it. (The standard version in your local multiplex ain’t bad either.)

Both directors are new to the feature animation scene, at least in terms of directing. John Stevenson previously directed episodes of DreamWorks Animation’s ill-fated CG TV series Father of the Pride, and has a number of credits as a storyboard artist, including Madagascar.

Interestingly, co-director Mark Osborne is not new to IMAX, as his 1998 Oscar-nominated stop motion short, More (see QuickTime version  here) was made under the auspices of the Large Format Films Association; this was an initiative that involved independent filmmaker Christine Panushka and also resulted in the production of Aleksandr Petrov’s Oscar-winning version of The Old Man and the Sea. More recently, Osborne directed episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants and Dropping Out (2000),  an independent live-action comedy that screened at the Sundance Festival.

The Oscar for Best Animated Feature went to Brad Bird’s Ratatouille from Pixar, beating out Persepolis, which was my favorite. In so doing, the members of the Academy went against the trend to honor smaller independent films in the Best Picture category, as opposed to blockbusters like Ratatouille.

The Best Animated Short Film went to Suzie Templeton’s wonderful version of Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter & the Wolf, which was my favorite among the contenders.

Although the Visual Effects Oscar is not one usually embraced by the animation community, this year’s winner, The Golden Compass (which I have not seen) seems to have earned its statue because of its digital character animation. (One should remember that Ray Harryhausen, an animation icon if there ever was one, made his mark in special effects.)

Visual Effects Oscars seem to go to movies where the effects are of the How did they do that category. In the process, they ignore work which may be amazing in its own way, but does not try to call attention to itself. For instance, I was particularly impressed by the Dunkirk sequence in Joe Wright’s Atonement done under the supervision of Mark Holt. One would hope both types of visual effects would get equal visibility, but that’s not likely to happen much outside the effects community itself. (The producers of Atonement, I’m sure, were more concerned about getting a Best Picture Oscar than trying to compete against giant polar bears.)