Fantasmagorie
1908 · 2 min · FR
Directed by Émile Cohl
The first fully animated film, and one of the most joyfully anarchic things ever drawn. Émile Cohl's stick figure materializes on screen and immediately starts causing mayhem — morphing into shapes, swallowing objects, collapsing and reassembling in a stream-of-consciousness delirium that anticipates everything from Tex Avery to Adult Swim. Each of its roughly 700 drawings was photographed individually, and the result is a minute and a half of pure, unrestrained imagination. Cohl couldn't have known he was inventing an art form, but that's exactly what happened on this animator's desk in Paris.
Comedy · Animation
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1908 · Source: phantascience
Public domain presentation
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Public Domain Source
phantascience
In First Steps
From the Reading Room
Article
The first fully animated film ever, the 1908 'Fantasmagorie' was made by Émile Cohl — The Vintage News
Historical article on Cohl's pioneering animation and its conceptual uniqueness.
Article
Émile Cohl, Fantasmagorie, 1908 - by Johanna Drucker — Substack
Scholarly analysis of the film's animation methodology and artistic approach.
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Émile Cohl
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