The Story of the Fox

I watched this 1937 French stop-motion animated film last night on YouTube, and I thought it was a great film.

This film is also the second stop-motion animated film in animation history. The film is based on the old medieval stories of Reynard the Fox and all the tricks he plays with the animals in King Lion's court, who are trying to bring him to justice and whose punishment is being hung. You know, I could clearly see the inspiration for Disney's animated version of "Robin Hood," as well as the inspiration for the 2009 stop-motion animated film "Fantastic Mr. Fox."

Overall, I really enjoyed this film, and it is now one of my favorite foreign animated films.

I love this little gem of a film. It does deserve a place along side Snow White and the New Gulliver. I saw this quite by accident on Youtube and I am glad I did. I don't want to tell you anything about the story. Instead, read the great story it is based on. I read it in French. It is a refreshingly medieval take on morality, refreshing compared to the tales of Perraut or La Fontaine. Some here say the film can't be shown in the US because of some law or other forbidden the exhibiting of Nazi financed films. That could be, though I would find that very hard to believe as I saw both Triumph of the Will (at a theater in San Francisco) and Olympiad (on television-AMC I believe, though maybe not) in the USA. How more Nazi can you get than those two films and yet they are both distributed in the USA. So, to me, there should be no reason that this true, and joyful, classic should not be seen in the US. If not, see if you can see it on Youtube. It comes in six parts with English subtitles. There it is called 'Tale of the Fox.' Hope you can see it and laugh along.

Even in black and white, and years after it's been supplanted, stop-motion animation still impresses with the lush detail it's able to convey. The best movies rendered with graphics programs on a computer can tug at our heartstrings, but there's vivid, tangible life and texture in the meticulous frame by frame movement of figures and set pieces that is at least as awe-inspiring. It requires terrific imagination to produce any such feature, let alone a fable that anthropomorphizes animals and embraces pure fantastical whimsy. And that's just what we get in 'The story of the fox,' complete with a medieval setting and sometimes jarringly dark overtones. For various reasons this may not be for everyone, but one way or another there's no mistaking that this is a vibrant, dazzling viewing experience.

Inspired by classic folklore of the vulpine as a trickster figure, this treatment especially highlights the wily, sometimes cruel cunning. As it does, the picture bursts with wit, intelligence, and heart to build each scene and the overall story - figuratively and literally, as there are many small elements to painstakingly adjust from one shot to the next. All my congratulations to directors Ladislas and Irene Starevich, editor Laura Sejourné, and all others involved in the fundamental crafting of the picture: 'The story of the fox' is unquestionably a labor of love, and the hard effort shines through with rich, fanciful storytelling and film-making that stands tall and stands out even 85 years later.

Barely over 1 hour, the picture still arguably is a tad overlong, perhaps particularly at the climax. Nevertheless, the writing is excellent and whole, weaving in timeless archetypes, themes, and otherwise notions. Every square centimeter of the tableau laid before us, down to the slightest facet of a character's appearance, is considered and executed with utmost care. It's one matter to watch a Pixar film and recognize the 0s and 1s on the other side of the screen; it's another to see stop-motion animation and know there's not one scrap of the presentation that wasn't handmade, probably from scratch, and moved by hand. I feel like I'm repeating myself in saying so, yet that's just the point: most any film can tell an engaging story, as is true here as well, but the way in which the tale is told can make all the difference. This movie is simply a delight in every capacity.

For non-French speakers who don't care for subtitles, or for those whose personal preferences lie outside old titles or black and white imagery, some viewers may be better served seeking their entertainment elsewhere. Even for devoted cinephiles, I won't say that 'The story of the fox' is perfectly, absolutely enthralling. Yet it represents such a tremendous endeavor, and is so enjoyable on its own merits, that it's hard not to offer a blanket recommendation. It's not so essential that you need to go out of your way for it, but if you get the chance to watch this 1937 picture, it's well worth 62 minutes of your time.

Alternate title: The Frenchtastic Mr. Fox.

It's honestly crazy how this looks, and how well it's aged. It's hard to even describe the animation style, but what I can say is that nothing else looks quite like this. For the visuals alone, it's worth checking out for anyone who's interested in animation.

Thankfully, the rest of the film's also pretty good. The story is simple but interesting enough, and I liked the film's odd sense of humour, too.

This is an underrated decades-old animated movie that I never would have known about were it not for Letterboxd. Gotta love how easy it is to find such weird and cool movies online nowadays - I continue to make sure I don't take it for granted.

It is not officially available in the US, but you can sometimes get copies of the adapted European release through ebay and other online sources. Certainly, it deserves a full class presentation. This is one of those films you'll most likely re-watch several times, if you're a fan of stop-motion animation.

The German version was released in April 1937, thereby qualifying "Tale Of The Fox" as one of the Pre-"Snow White" Six of cartoon features. As far as puppetoon "epics" go, I guess it runs a tie with Alexsandr Ptushko's "New Gulliver" as first, since the bulk of the production was completed before 1931 (though there was certainly more tinkering done in the mid-thirties). However, apart from the impressionistic black and white photography, there's little that "dates" this classic. Starewicz's technique is so flawless and the facial expressions of his humanized furry stars so expressive, that it is hard to imagine anyone today mastering this type of animation without some digital help. As wonderful as "King Kong" is, it still looks more primitive in comparison.

... And speaking of "Kong", the forest set-ups in this one share some of the dreamlike quality of Skull Island, with plenty of soft-focus foliage. Basically, this is a swashbuckler with an all-critter cast, complete with King Lion and Lioness (passing affections to a singing cat), foolish bunnies, easy-to-be-had wolf and bear, dancing mice, workaholic badger and, of course, the wily star who gets the best of everybody. Most spectacular are the battle scenes waged against the fox's castle, but the gentle scoffing of authorities and "organized" religion (rabbits getting drunk in church, the fox's views of Heaven at the bottom of a well, etc.) makes this more avant-garde than the animated films we're used to.

Interestingly, Disney started making an adaptation of this story three decades later, but instead made a fox-version of Robin Hood. Usually, cartoon features don't star an anti-hero like Renart, who lies and cheats his way through life and wins out in the end. Although it boasts a Disneyesque level of production excellence, "Tale Of The Fox" is about as un-Disney like as you can get in thirties animation.