The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics

Experimental animators usually commit the mistake of thinking that experimentalism must be hermetical, non-objective, and abstract. Chuck Jones proves his point by making an animation film which brings characters and a storyline, but makes it look like a wild piece of experimental animation.

Without sound, the film would look like wild moving pieces. It's the narration and the soundtrack who do the trick. Weird non-objective mathematically abstract images who become human-like characters just with a little voice and music. Brilliant.

I'm personally impressed by this piece, since I saw it on TV as a kid, and instead of learning mathematics out of it, I decided to be an experimental animator. And I am one now :)

We don't always get the same narration so I rarely mention it, but here Robert Morley provides a lovely tone to his alliterative narration depicting this most unlikely of love stories. The straight line, dependable and steady, loves the dot. The dot, suitably dotty, fancies the innovative and lively squiggle. This neglect attracts the attention of his fellow lines, but try as they might to make him see sense, he remains wistfully obsessed. Now he just spends him time imagining himself as a much more active and noble creation, but in the end - a line, is a line, is a line... This self deception is no good. Maybe he might as well just admit defeat? He will never be squiggle. Maybe he can be an angle, though? A series of the things? Might dot like this new talent? Well he'd best practice til he can make an infinite number of shapes and even curves. This is all empty though - he needs dot to join in. Can he dazzle her? This is cheerily scored with the subject matter providing Chuck Jones with a veritable myriad of shapes, colours and sizes and though it's maybe a bit repetitive it's still quite a good fun watch and personally, had I'd be line or squiggle I'd have told the fickle dot to get lost!

Yes: Amazing coincidence (and shades of the Blair Witch coincidence) Mr. Richard Wiley Jerome and I, Mr. Raymond Kenneth Petry, both of Sacramento CA USA at that time in Arden Junior High School, did Norton Juster's, The Dot And The Line, on his family's home movie camera - we called it, Planar-Vision - the camera had a single-frame feature, and with their tripod looking down on our display board, we pinned variously cloth cuttings of the Dot, velvet hemming for the Line (except when he looked thin and drawn and on-edge, we drew him, on-the-edge) and Squiggle was mohair yarn ... we shot the whole story. For voice we added his little sister, Jeanie, and for hours we re-recorded over our giggles and laughter, till we had it just right and well-timed: then we single-shot each scene straight-through by timings.

In 1965-69, we went to Rio Americano High School, and showed our mathematics class, eventually: We were both scholars: Rich went on to be Salutatorian for Rio Americano in 1969, and matriculated at Stanford, and I took 1st Place in the Central Valleys Math Quiz (against the MAA perfect-top-scorer) in 1969, and matriculated at UCSD, for my BA in mathematics.

The Dot and The Line is a most memorable story done in fun: We're delighted that Hollywood thought enough of it, too.

/rkp

No longer working at Warner Bros., Chuck Jones made this mystifying short about a drab delineation in love with a dot. He can't catch her attention until he realizes that he can make angles and all sorts of shapes.

Now that I've seen "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics", I would say that it's the sort of movie which I wish that I had seen in math classes. Directed by Jones, it's certainly a clever one. However, I wouldn't call it the greatest cartoon. All the stuff about the scruffy squiggle sounds a little bit like they were chastising young people for being independent; ironically, the whole cartoon seems kind of psychedelic! So, it may not be Chuck's masterpiece - in my view, "What's Opera, Doc?" easily gets that distinction - but still worth seeing. Narrator Robert Morley also starred in "The African Queen" and "Theater of Blood".

I remember watching this as a young child. It was a real treat to be able to see it, since it wasn't like the other programs I'd watch. Although there was only one Dot and the Line, it was better than the Rugrats. The Dot and the Line will remain a part of what defined my childhood. When I told my friends about this great cartoon, they didn't understand what made it so interesting or funny. The art style alone is enough to try and find this film. The last time I saw it was back in 2000. Flash forward a few years. I'm walking through SF when I find myself at a small sidewalk sale. I take particular interest in one book. The title seems familiar. It's a reprint of Norton Juster's book. If you can find it, the book is just as good.