Phillip Bergson's blog

This is a wonderfully engaging study of a Cinderella who went to so many 'Oscar' balls.Clare Kitson has written a characteristically engaging,pertinently-detailed and wrily-amusing study of the heydays of animated film in Britain, in the 1980s and 1990s as championed by the ground-breaking new national, commercial television Channel 4, and its sad subsequent,apparent decline, as the narrow-caster that was created- largely by Jeremy Isaacs-to innovate, experiment, and generally give a freer hand to creative professionals to make original programmes for niche audiences (some of the news slots at one time had so few viewers they technically counted as zero for statistical purposes, I recall, and the idiosyncratic Charlotte Street channel was described as 'catering to audiences who ate muesli out of a wok').Inevitably it now seems to have degenerated into a network obliged to seek ratings and advertising via American imports and increasingly down-market domestic 'celebrity' reality shows, and no-shows.

But this is not Kitson's theme. She is uniquely placed to-write about the flowering of British animation, nurtured,funded and showcased by Channel 4 and she is unduly modest about her own contribution as chief gardener with a ready watering-can. For she is an evident expert and enthusiast of this strange, surreal kind of film-making- an 'amateur' in the French and best sense of the word, who used to schedule animated programmes at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the early 1970s, as Walt Disney's output was declining,and who a decade later was a key, popular and respected programmer at what was for long called our National Film Theatre (but which now, for reasons which continue to escape me, has been re-styled BFI Southbank, like some London bus depot). Her special brief included scouting for product,for seasons and festivals- in former happy times-before and behind the Iron Curtain, certainly remembering, as a colleague commented, when animated films were all about 'bald symbolic persons pushing stones up hills'. Years spent attending filmweeks in the Communist bloc clearly equipped her for working well inside the BFI, and later as commissioning editor for a state-regulated TV channel in Albion.

Her brisk early chapters chart the creation of the new channel and how from its very inception animation seemed to play an important, if initially,ill-defined role.These are models of lucidity and insight and she always writes well, sensibly and sensitively.The reader's delight grows as the Channel-and she- grow in confidence, and the films she helps bring broad and multiplying audiences, critical plaudits,and awards at festivals around the globe,with several achieving the ultimate accolade-Academy Award nominations,and several 'Oscars' won. The wealth of talent on display in these well-illustrated pages,employing a range of animation techniques, is another triumph of British grit and flair, operating- as always-on minimal budgets.Kitson matter-of-factly chronicles how she brought together disparate but kindred spirits-the young,the experienced,the absolute beginners, matching musicians to scenarists, marrying puppeteers with visual artists,yet always fighting for narrative coherence,respect for the medium of film,and finding for the finished products a well-timed and promoted slot on screen,even if literally sometimes at the end of the viewing day.

Her accounts amount to an incidental tribute to the formation and feet-finding of Channel 4 itself,and are vital reading for media students in general as well as aficionados of animation. Her eventual resignation in 1999, evidently prompted by scheduling conflicts, speaks volumes about the way the Channel has changed, but Kitson has no axe to grind and adds a generous chapter about its efforts to aid animation after she left.

The bulk of the book comprises splendid critiques of some 29 productions, from the early-and perennial-Christmas treat 'The Snowman'(1982), 'The Street of Crocodiles' (1986) by the Brothers Quay who have since transferred their gothic squints to live-action features, up to the more recent, and much more expensive co-production with Poland 'Peter and the Wolf' which attracted 1.8 million viewers on Wigila 2006 and carried off both a Golden Rose in Montreux and that gilded statuette in Hollywood.

Kitson's critiques are filled with fascinating details about the production process, the aims and accidents of the film-makers, and her many interviews interestingly fill in the artists' backgrounds as well as current concerns.The pages are handsomely illustrated with full-colour stills and many monochrome drawings.

The book should appeal to anyone at all drawn to animation, as a casual spectator, serious student,or professional practitioner.Kitson has that rare ability to communicate an enthusiasm intelligently, intelligibly,and with an easy humour that makes you want to view all these little marvels of modern British movie-making again, and appreciate them anew with the benefit of her insights. Although Channel 4 may not currently be flying the animated flag so determinedly, the success of Aardman Animation elsewhere is indirectly due, I am sure, to many of the efforts recorded here.

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