Movies you may not have seen #5
Jul. 18th, 2005 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynA lot of my friends are very, very into anime, but when I mention a little movie that has a kind of proto-anime style that influenced a lot of subsequent work in animation, inevitably I find that they have not seen The Point. And I'm always surprised. To say that The Point influenced my life heavily would be a huge understatement. For one thing, it was the first animated feature that really got to me, in a way that Saturday morning cartoons, even my favorite, Gigantor, or the popular Disney flicks of the '60s, never did. For another, it had this hipster zen cool dope sensibility that offered advice about life that has often sustained me when I couldn't quite make sense of the world. Remembering one quotation, from the Rock Man ("You see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear") has helped me through some really difficult situations throughout my life. And the music from Harry Nilsson's original album and soundtrack can brighten my mood when all else fails, and I've found myself turning to these songs (the only famous one is "Me and My Arrow") a lot lately since my sister's death, just because they take serious issues and turn them into something light and airy and just... endurable.
The Point was originally aired on ABC in 1971 (the album Nilsson himself narrates predates the movie a little bit), and the primary narrator and father character was voiced by Dustin Hoffman, with his son, and the character of Oblio, voiced by Mike Lookinland, the original Bobby Brady (I think it was Bobby... I was never a BB fan, so I don't remember for certain) from The Brady Bunch. Hoffman's narration was replaced years later by another actor, then finally by Ringo Starr, and it's his voice that's on the DVD release as well as the older VHS release. He's not nearly as good, sadly, and I miss Hoffman's version because his deadpan, clipped words were just so damn perfect.
It's the story of a boy named Oblio who is born in the land of Point, where everything and everyone has a point. On top of their heads, their buildings, etc. -- it's the land of Point, after all. Oblio, unfortunately, has a round head. When he makes an unintentional enemy of the evil Count's son (by beating him at triangle toss, a game he can play with the help of his trusty dog, Arrow, hence the song), Oblio is banished to the Pointless Forest because he violates the... well, point of Point by not having one. The rest of the film deals with Oblio's adventures and misadventures in the Pointless Forest.
The characters he encounters along the way are extraordinary, and the story is a lovely fable that doesn't stint on some of the sadder, more confusing, or scarifying aspects of what's happened to him. That's what makes his lesson so valuable in the end. The weak King, who allowed the Count to banish Oblio, starts to get a spine, Oblio's parents try to get him back, but in the end, it's Oblio and Arrow who really teach everyone what's important. So this is a great movie for kids, but it's got such bizarre '60s-'70s absurdist humor and surrealist stylings that it works beautifully for adults, too.
It was made in conjunction with a Japanese animation house -- one that also did Free to Be... You & Me, which I know a lot of my friends remember fondly -- and it's really obvious that both the American and Japanese producers took Nilsson's narrative album and gorgeously illustrated booklet (I still have my LP copy of all this because I've never found this on CD even though it's advertised on the back of the DVD, and that booklet is too beautiful to shrink) and really ran with it. While it's obvious people were smoking something, it never has that annoying drug-based humor or style that can date and diminish a movie so very badly over time. There are the bouncing fat sisters, the guy with multiple points, the Rock Man ("you been goofin' with the bees?"), a frightening swarm of bees and a big scary mama eagle, and on and on. The songs are beyond delightful (I've always wished I could find something to vid for one of these songs), and the whole thing is just such a pleasant, positive experience that I always feel like a little light is being shined into my life when I watch this.
There are wonderful messages about tolerance, about conformity (a huge topic in the early '70s), about what it means to be accepted and loved despite differences, and mostly, about diversity. The movie is never preachy, never "adult" in that annoying way message movies of the '70s often are. And the Peter Max-ian visuals combined with anime-factory flair makes it such an eye-candy treat. When I saw this first, in fifth grade, I think, I was sicker than a dog -- I'd had a terrible flu that had left me bed-ridden for days and days (during my birthday and Thanksgiving, I might add), I hadn't been able to eat or keep food down for almost as long. Even though I was weak and miserable, I had been determined to watch it no matter what. I'm still glad I did even though I was on death's door (literally, since I had to be hospitalized later), because it gave me such fond memories of Hoffman's narration, now lost to time, but it also kind of kept me going through the next few years, which were very difficult for me. I would remember the Rock Man's sage advice, or some of the goofier observations Oblio made about people having points, and no matter what life threw at me, I could find something from The Point to help me over it.
The Point was originally aired on ABC in 1971 (the album Nilsson himself narrates predates the movie a little bit), and the primary narrator and father character was voiced by Dustin Hoffman, with his son, and the character of Oblio, voiced by Mike Lookinland, the original Bobby Brady (I think it was Bobby... I was never a BB fan, so I don't remember for certain) from The Brady Bunch. Hoffman's narration was replaced years later by another actor, then finally by Ringo Starr, and it's his voice that's on the DVD release as well as the older VHS release. He's not nearly as good, sadly, and I miss Hoffman's version because his deadpan, clipped words were just so damn perfect.
It's the story of a boy named Oblio who is born in the land of Point, where everything and everyone has a point. On top of their heads, their buildings, etc. -- it's the land of Point, after all. Oblio, unfortunately, has a round head. When he makes an unintentional enemy of the evil Count's son (by beating him at triangle toss, a game he can play with the help of his trusty dog, Arrow, hence the song), Oblio is banished to the Pointless Forest because he violates the... well, point of Point by not having one. The rest of the film deals with Oblio's adventures and misadventures in the Pointless Forest.
The characters he encounters along the way are extraordinary, and the story is a lovely fable that doesn't stint on some of the sadder, more confusing, or scarifying aspects of what's happened to him. That's what makes his lesson so valuable in the end. The weak King, who allowed the Count to banish Oblio, starts to get a spine, Oblio's parents try to get him back, but in the end, it's Oblio and Arrow who really teach everyone what's important. So this is a great movie for kids, but it's got such bizarre '60s-'70s absurdist humor and surrealist stylings that it works beautifully for adults, too.
It was made in conjunction with a Japanese animation house -- one that also did Free to Be... You & Me, which I know a lot of my friends remember fondly -- and it's really obvious that both the American and Japanese producers took Nilsson's narrative album and gorgeously illustrated booklet (I still have my LP copy of all this because I've never found this on CD even though it's advertised on the back of the DVD, and that booklet is too beautiful to shrink) and really ran with it. While it's obvious people were smoking something, it never has that annoying drug-based humor or style that can date and diminish a movie so very badly over time. There are the bouncing fat sisters, the guy with multiple points, the Rock Man ("you been goofin' with the bees?"), a frightening swarm of bees and a big scary mama eagle, and on and on. The songs are beyond delightful (I've always wished I could find something to vid for one of these songs), and the whole thing is just such a pleasant, positive experience that I always feel like a little light is being shined into my life when I watch this.
There are wonderful messages about tolerance, about conformity (a huge topic in the early '70s), about what it means to be accepted and loved despite differences, and mostly, about diversity. The movie is never preachy, never "adult" in that annoying way message movies of the '70s often are. And the Peter Max-ian visuals combined with anime-factory flair makes it such an eye-candy treat. When I saw this first, in fifth grade, I think, I was sicker than a dog -- I'd had a terrible flu that had left me bed-ridden for days and days (during my birthday and Thanksgiving, I might add), I hadn't been able to eat or keep food down for almost as long. Even though I was weak and miserable, I had been determined to watch it no matter what. I'm still glad I did even though I was on death's door (literally, since I had to be hospitalized later), because it gave me such fond memories of Hoffman's narration, now lost to time, but it also kind of kept me going through the next few years, which were very difficult for me. I would remember the Rock Man's sage advice, or some of the goofier observations Oblio made about people having points, and no matter what life threw at me, I could find something from The Point to help me over it.
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Wait. There are people who haven't seen The Point?
Date: 2005-07-18 06:00 pm (UTC)Hey, re SGA -- I didn't get home/email until about 10pm on Friday. Did you watch in real time? Did you get sufficient explanation before hand? Did you hate with the fiery hate of a million suns? (And man, I will love Pileggi's little snake hips til the day I die. Hubba.)
Re: Wait. There are people who haven't seen The Point?
Date: 2005-07-18 06:23 pm (UTC)Christy gave me some explanation of it, but it didn't help. Even their huge lumps of expository dialog and characters explaining the expository dialog in case you didn't get it the first time ("I'm not sure I understand where you're going") didn't help. And the wraith people are just as bad as you said!
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Date: 2005-07-18 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-18 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-18 10:53 pm (UTC)I love the LP art -- that booklet was one of my favorite things from childhood. I thought I lost it a couple years ago, and I was devastated, but I found it the other day and rejoiced.
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Date: 2005-07-18 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2005-07-18 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-18 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-18 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-18 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-19 12:58 am (UTC)Do you have The Point? Because I didn't know it was around anymore.
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Date: 2005-07-19 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-19 04:01 am (UTC)The Point remains one of the few animated TV specials that didn't have a merchandising tie-in (that I knew about). Meanwhile, Oblio? adorable, just adorable.....
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Date: 2005-08-10 03:41 pm (UTC)The cd is at amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000077SX4/qid=1123688400/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_sbs_2/002-3755649-0691253?v=glance&s=music&n=507846), as is a double album (this is the one that I own, and the sound quality is good; I can't vouch for the standalone album, but the standalone may at least have the LP art). (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004VXG9/qid%3D1123688453/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/002-3755649-0691253)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-10 05:10 pm (UTC)