Top 13 Don Hertzfeldt Films

[MMM]

sup

Today, I'm gonna talk about arguably one of the most influential animators of today, or all time, Don Hertzfeldt. He does shorts. Combined, they've won over 200 awards and gained a lot of popularity. He still does great stuff to this day, so hey. Why not do a worst to best list of all his work?

RULES:

The Simpsons couch gag doesn't count.

The three parts of It's Such A Beautiful Day will each have their own spot, rather than the whole thing on one.

He has a new film come out this month, but it won't be on here.

I'm currently watching all the films and working on the rankings. See ya later, I guess.

[Elastic Dawg]

I'll keep an eye on this thread. I think "Billy's Balloon" is my favorite (out of the ones i've seen so far, anyway).

[MMM]

13. Ah, L'Amour (1995)

 

 

Alright, let's begin the list. Starting off, we have Don Hertzfeldt's first film, done while he was at college, and so were three others. This one is really just keeping everything simple, as well as likely being the shortest film on the list. It's about a guy trying to get a girl, and all of them violently beat the heck out of him, until "I have money" gets him one. I should mention that the "Bitter Films" name that Don uses for his website, and....is company a good word (?) goes as far back as here, cause some of the girls in the short are sort of like caricatures of girls Don used to know, and it's sort...of....bitter. Actually, a funny story is that Don was sort of embarrassed with this short, and thought women would get pissed at him if he screened it....but just the opposite happened. Anyways, onto what I think of this short. Is it funny? Well, it sort of goes into the direction of slapstick and black comedy (something you'll be seeing a lot along the way), and that's fine. It worked for this. The animation is good enough, but it's really shaky. Yes, as I said, first time, but, still. Looking at his later work, it just doesn't stack up, and you can't really expect it to. This thing is almost 20 years old, and Hertzfeldt has definitely improved in that time frame. I do like the way that after every time the guy gets rejected, the paper crumbles up as it to say, "Oh, that didn't work. Let me try something else, see if everything will go together right.". At least, that's what I thought of it. Overall, it isn't awful, but the other 12 on the list are better. 

[CyanideFishbone]

I absolutely adore Hertzfeldt's work, so

[MMM]

12. Genre (1996)

 

 

Okay, his first two films are back to back, but they're a good start, I suppose. But, when I saw this short for the list, I thought it was pretty good, but then I watched more films and thought about them some more, rewatched a bit, and suddenly, this is towards the very bottom. Actually, this is Hertzfeldt's least favorite, and that might have to do with the fact that this film sort of had to be rushed to meet the deadline he had. The idea behind Genre is pretty simple, but pretty charming. Basically, a faceless animator is working on a rabbit, and the two can communicate with each other (with the power of stop motion and tape, it's all possible). The rabbit gets thrown into different genres (sci fi, romance, sci fi romance, horror, disaster, and even the adult stuff), and it's pretty fun to watch. I think it's pretty funny, for what it is. I like the way the rabbit reacts to everything, and there's some really good timing thrown in here, too (like the sci fi romance scene and of course the stop motion). Speaking of stop motion, how is the animation? It's definitely an improvement over last time, and still pretty good on it's own. The normal animation is pretty good, and very fluent as well. As a whole, Genre is about five minutes long, and there isn't many moments where the hand drawn sort of slows down. When we're talking about the stop motion, it's really good, as it looks as if it's a video instead of frame after frame after frame of Don's hand in the shot. Except for the credits, then it gets a little weird to look at. But, stop motion is just sort like that, for the most part. Anyways, next time I might do a triple whammy, and you'll find out why soon enough.

[Elastic Dawg]

"Ah, L'Amour" is the most accurate metaphor for life i've ever seen.

[MMM]

Okay, I might update this after school.

[MMM]

11. Welcome to the Show (2003)

10. The End of the Show (2003)

 

 

 

 

So, this is the point where the films get pretty good, or at least for what they are. These two I have here were part of the 2003 Animation Show, created by Don and Beavis and Butthead/King of the Hill creator Mike Judge. It's pretty much an animated film festival. The 2003 show was the first one to be done, and Don made these three films to go along with it. One for the beginning, one for intermission, and one for the show of the end of the show. They're weren't things that Don just sort of did....they were like any other film of his. Even though this was done right in the middle of production of the Meaning of Life, it looks like a lot of time got spent on it. Together, all of three of them just barely crack eight minutes, and it's a fun watch for what it is. The intermission is a little further down the line, but these are still pretty similar, so why not put them together? Welcome to the Show features...uh, fishsticks (can anyone tell me what kind of fishsticks they sell wherever Don lives cause it looks like a hairball). They introduce the show and go over the rules. By the way, I should mention that all three of the films' primary background music is...Swedish christmas carols. Yeah, really. Wanna hear Jingle Bells in Swedish? The intermission has it. Anyways, one asks what animation is, and the other one explains that animation is a frame by frame drawing process that can be made into film, and then saying that anything can be done with it....and pandemonium ensues. But, the real kicker is out of nowhere, a random cut of a bunch of food dancing to a jingle (let's all go the lobby) advertising the snack bar, with one of the fishsticks now a mutant and on fire in the background. As for the end of the show, it's really just the fishsticks saying goodbye, and then all of a sudden, ROBOT BATTLE YAYAHAY PLOOEY. It's pretty funny, though, and the first one was hilarious. It's animated well in that iconic Hertzfeldt style, and just has that iconic Hertzfeldt style. Anyways, i'll update this pretty soon, but for now, bye bye.

[MMM]

9. Wisdom Teeth (2010)

 

 

In the rules of the list, I say something about something with three parts called "It's A Beautiful Day". Well, wedged in between parts two and three, was this little thing. It pretty much goes back to days of Rejected, Lily and Jim, and more at the start of his professional career. Speaking of Rejected, during production of it, Don had a webcomic called "Temporary Anesthetics". A lot of them starred a guy named Bill (yep, that Bill), some were about other stuff. Wisdom Teeth is based off a Temporary Anesthetics comic, and there really is not much big difference in the two, except here, everyone talks in German or Swedish. There's translations, which is good, but at points, you can sort out what they're saying by some words that sound like the words translated (all in favor of asking Don to change his company name to Butter Filmy?) It runs around six minutes, shorter than most of his works. Wisdom Teeth features two guys. One just got a wisdom teeth operation, and the other one wants to unravel his stitches, and the other lets him do one. It's really long, and as it turns out, it's attached to a baby. He tries to put it back in....in public. A bunch of people start beating the crap out of him, while not as graphic as the comic, but that doesn't matter. It's pretty funny, especially the random and unexplained other language. Don said Wisdom Teeth was really him taking a break, but it's animated well. Especially that two minute long sequence of just the dude pulling the stitches with only one camera angle, no music, no skipping anything. That must have been so tedious, good lord. Anyways, this is probably the most forgotten about film he's done, but it's still good. 

 

http://www.bitterfil...tics-teeth.html

[MMM]

8. Intermission in the Third Dimension (2003)

 

 

By now, you guys probably know that I like weird stuff. King Worm IS my favorite Adventure Time episode, after all, and it features a flying unicorn fish that has a giant tape hole nose. But, we're not here to talk about that, we're here to talk about this. This was the intermission film during the 2003 Animation Show. The first half is the two fluffy fish sticks explaining the third dimension. The second half is the one of the fluffy fish sticks put on some 3D glasses, and....oh, wow. He has a colorful, blurry and literal meltdown, does some weird stuff with the other fish stick, and then....well....look at the picture. We get a stop motion sequence of a bunch of toy horses and dolphins and cows and crap on this semicircular rainbow. Then we get a yellow tinted flower dance, and more stop motion with a spider infested lollipop. This was only supposed to be just for intermission, but the animation is really good and well crafted. There's a few interesting tricks thrown in, most notably the color meltdown and how the camera sort of blurs and unblurs the frames. The Animation Show is pretty funny all the through, but this is probably the highlight of that humor. The first half is charming humor, the second is more random humor. Also, I said something about Swedish christmas carols. That's the music the second half it's set to. The best part is that it's obviously Jingle Bells. Also, the stop motion is pretty good. Genre, while the stop motion was pretty good, it was just a little off at time. Here, it's really fluid, especially the lollipop bit. Anyways, that just about wraps up the Animation Show. Let's see what other wonders await us.

[MMM]

7. Lily and Jim (1997)

 

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Okay, now that the Animation Show is over, let's go to the top 7. Yes, the bottom two on the list were Don Hertzfeldt's first two films in that order, but this is his third. It's easily his ambitious college film, and it probably took the longest and hardest to produce of those four. It cracks at about 13 minutes long, also. Anyways, while all of Hertzfeldt's films are complete, this one feels like the most complete. Mostly because of all the colors and complete backgrounds and extensive dialogue. But anyways. what is it about? It's about two people going on a blind date, and it doesn't go well. In fact, it gets even worse as it goes on. But. not the film. Let's start with the humor. The awkwardness is hilarious. There's always a bunch of pauses and random conversations that having a beginning that don't have an ending (apparently a good percent of this was improvisation). There's also the sort of....I don't know how to describe them....those moments where Lily and Jim are just talking to the camera. I don't know if they're relatable or not, but there's some good lines in there, like the first grade thing and Jim's fast food metaphor. The animation is pretty good, I guess. Something like 10,000 pieces of paper were vandalized to make this possible, and it's a lot of effort that shows. It's likely that this is the only time i'll ever bring up the dialogue as a factor for this list, but since this short has a lot of it, I will. The dialogue is incredible, probably the best about thing about Lily and Jim. I already told you guys about how charming the awkwardness was, and how I just thought it all sort of played out pretty good. Anyways, that's it. As a spoiler, this next one i've heard is a favorite among many.....

[MMM]

I'm gonna keep doing this.

 

Next update soon.

[CyanideFishbone]

Nice. Love Don Hertzfeldt.