exceedinglyenglish

I've finally had the time to sit down and watch the entirety of The Scrooge Mystery. I wanted to have enough time to really absorb everything and appreciate it, so it's taken a while to fit that space in my schedule! I'm glad I did make space for it though, because I really feel this documentary deserved it. This team have made a singularly wonderful thing. As an animator/storyboarder I could wax lyrical about the pacing, the subtle and suitable shots, the allowance of time (again, that vital 'space') around the words and around the statements, visual or otherwise, and the brilliant resonance that brings. Such patience in a documentary is increasingly rare and I hugely enjoyed it. I could also say how I loved the camera angles, the lighting, the choice of wide exterior establishing shots and interior movement, showcasing the size and flavour of every location from the museum to the convention halls to the crypt-like corridors of Don Rosa's 'Comic Bin'.

I could tell you all these things, but I wouldn't do it well enough, because I am not a very smart movie-reviewing expert who knows big long words.

What I can tell you is just how glad I am that this movie exists- that it can and doubtless will be viewed by people as an article of history, as a monument to poor decisions by large companies and the enduring hard work and love created by small-yet-worldwide communities in spite of them. I cried twice, though it may have been more, I wasn't particularly paying attention- and what I must endorse about that is that while certainly I cried at the sadness the thing is that I always cry at films that are good. I'm hopeless about it! I cried once because the editing in an advert was so good with a music build. Ridiculous. But yes, the thing I'm trying to say is that this film moved me both emotionally and artistically. I don't know if there's a word like that for being moved at the visual recording of a historically significant figure (archive-ally?), but certainly that was in there too. I also absolutely (and this may be the oddest thing) loved to see the little defects on the film as it played; I am and always have been a huge fan or silent and early cinema, and the little glimmers of light and artefacts on the reel absolutely made this documentary feel just as it ought. I hand drew the same errors for animation so I suppose it is no surprise that I have affection for them. It fit the content and atmosphere, the spirit? Of this film so perfectly, and gave the whole thing a warm, quaint glow that I do not think it would have had otherwise. It is an entirely harmonious, self-celebrating and heartfelt little gem of a picture and I hope the creators are as proud of it as they ought to be.

Why not ten stars? The only (and it is a very small defect) issue that I found with watching it was there is a little wobble on the sound balance: in cutting between interviews and scenes sometimes the volume lurches, not hugely, but significantly, and occasionally it feels as though it has 'blown out' the mic that it was recorded on. One could argue, again, that this adds to its charm and hand-made appeal, but occasionally I found it distracted from the content (again, to a very small degree).

That said I deeply hope this work will be played at comic and film schools in the future, as this is a vital story of a vital influence to many millions of artists, and indeed an excellent warning and recording of all too common negligence and greed in the industry. Perhaps, if some of the people in the said industry watch it, and learn from their own history, these cruelties might yet be avoided in the future... so long as we don't wind up blowing up the planet before then.