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The Cinema Of Ralph Bakshi

MrRING

MrRING

Android Futureman
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Aug 7, 2002
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Personally, I think he's done some really good things... like Wizards, Fritz the Cat, the controversial Street Fight, the 60's Spiderman cartoon... never seen Heavy Traffic, but I'd like to. And his late 80's Might Mouse was a classic.

But I hate his Lord of the Rings - ponderous! And Fire & Ice has some fun sequences, but it's largely a bore. Never could stomach the whole Cool World film either.

Anybody else got an opinion?

http://www.ralphbakshi.com/home.php

And the curious Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Bakshi
 
American Pop was brilliant. Streetfight, aka Coonskin, a shade less than brilliant, but still very good.

Everything else he did sucks.
 
I've been watching Bakshi's output over the past few weeks!

I always caught Lord of the Rings on Channel 4 when I was younger. I still like the first hour or so, until it becomes sluggish when it moves into The Two Towers territory

Heavy Traffic is availible on R1 DVD from MGM - in my opinion it was better than Coonskin.

Wizards has a great R1 disc from 20th Century Fox... Bakshi explains the film was doing well in 1977, until Fox pulled it after a few weeks to make way for something else of theirs called Star Wars...

Still, he wasn't too bitter about it, and Mark Hamill has a small part in Wizards too.

American Pop is Availible on R1 Columbia DVD - only the trailer for an extra - I was planning on watching last night but never got around to it, lol.

And Fire & Ice is availible on Blue Underground's R1 limited double-disc DVD - http://www.blue-underground.com/movie.php?movie_id=78
 
I saw Heavy Traffic when I was 14 and it completely changed the way I appreciated movies. Its still hard for me to put my finger on just what it was, but there was something in it that touched me.

To this day, over 16 years later I still find myself attracted to stories of youths in hard circumstances living in the grungey city.

I saw Lord of the Rings as a child, and liked it a lot, but later when I read the books I grew to loathe it. His Wormtongue alone is worthy of sinking the movie, the only thing it was missing was the Peter Lorre accent. really really bad.

I've seen Coonskin and thought it was ok, but no Heavy Traffic . . . I like Fritz the Cat but would prefer to read Crumb's comics . . . and I've never seen all of Fire and Ice.

I suppose that's my two cents.
 
MrRING said:
And Fire & Ice has some fun sequences, but it's largely a bore.
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Members may make their own judgment here:

I'm an admirer of Frank Frazetta's artwork, and the film--as ever with Bakshi--has something that draws me in.

 
I think that the rotoscoping of key scenes lends the film an otherworldly feel and dramatic dynamism when it matters.

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Yithian said:
I think that the rotoscoping of key scenes lends the film an otherworldly feel and dramatic dynamism when it matters.
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Agreed ... In spite of the issues that affected acceptance and popularity of Bakshi's work, I always thought the rotoscoping proved to be very effective.

There's something about the rotoscoping that prevents the viewer from engaging the film as merely animated artificial images or solely as actors playing roles on a set.

I thought of it as placing portions of the film at the boundary / intersection between 'real' and 'imagined' imagery, and this reflected a sort of tension between the 'real' and 'fictional' aspects of myth and fantasy literature. The result wasn't so "live action" as to make you see it only as 'Hollywood' stuff, yet not so "drawn" as to make you see it as a complete fabrication.

By blurring the line between these two aspects of the production the viewer couldn't comfortably assume it was 'real' transforming into the 'artfully drawn' versus the drawn emerging into the 'real'. Not fully 'history'; not fully 'myth' ...
 
Yithian said:
I think that the rotoscoping of key scenes lends the film an otherworldly feel and dramatic dynamism when it matters.

View attachment 46638

View attachment 46639
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The LOTRs film and to a much, much, lesser extent Ice and Fire are so evocative. He's been ripped off so many times. Just amazing. I remember as a big Tolkein fan at 12 seeing the movie for the first time.

Legolas yes. Gandalf, yes, Frodo yes, Aragorn, no but really grew on me to the extent that when Viggo Mortensen, (he is brilliant whatever he does), was cast I was thinking has no one watched Bakshi??

Aragorn needed to be an older dude - even with his blood heritage. However, Viggo did the job.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
The LOTRs film and to a much, much, lesser extent Ice and Fire are so evocative. He's been ripped off so many times. Just amazing. I remember as a big Tolkein fan at 12 seeing the movie for the first time.

Legolas yes. Gandalf, yes, Frodo yes, Aragorn, no but really grew on me to the extent that when Viggo Mortensen, (he is brilliant whatever he does), was cast I was thinking has no one watched Bakshi??

Aragorn needed to be an older dude - even with his blood heritage. However, Viggo did the job.
Click to expand...

The original guy cast was even younger than Viggo, he was replaced last minute, I think they had already started filming.
 
Just watched `Fire and Ice`

It was good, but so much more could be done with the basic premise.

And the underdressed characters very much of their day. (a shame, though of course historical folk who lived in cold climate tended to dress carefully...though yes, there are exceptions, and the idea of folk running around in snow in their underoos is not fully impossible).
 
Kondoru said:
Just watched `Fire and Ice`

It was good, but so much more could be done with the basic premise.

And the underdressed characters very much of their day. (a shame, though of course historical folk who lived in cold climate tended to dress carefully...though yes, there are exceptions, and the idea of folk running around in snow in their underoos is not fully impossible).
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They were made of sterner stuff in, erm, made-up times...
 
It's strange - I do like the LOTR designs Bakshi's team concocted, but they do look very American in a way I can't quite define. Anyone know what I mean?
 
Feet too delicate. I suspect hobbit feet are robust as well as hairy.

And he looks like a victim. Bilbo is vulnerable but no victim.
 
I dunno when I'm always running away from me mam's rampant goat herd I get pretty ripped.

Sorry switched into RPG mode there.
 
Kondoru said:
Feet too delicate. I suspect hobbit feet are robust as well as hairy.

And he looks like a victim. Bilbo is vulnerable but no victim.
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The feet are bigger in the film itself.
 
I realised that I had no idea what Bakshi looked like. I think this is an 'in character' shot, but I'm not sure how far it meets or defeats my expectations.

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Also, I've not seen Cool World, but this artwork by Barry E Jackson makes me want to give it a try.

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GNC said:
It's strange - I do like the LOTR designs Bakshi's team concocted, but they do look very American in a way I can't quite define. Anyone know what I mean?
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Totally. The horned helmet and mini skirt combo.

There is a certain er... old fashioned and florid graphic design often found as cover art on US or US versions of fantasy novels, that is instantly recognisable as "American". Maybe it's that?

(Check out, for example, things like original cover art for Wheel of Time, and similar genre books - it seems somehow really twee and staid compared to similar UK fantasy novels). I can remember browsing in US bookshops in the 1990s and being then really struck by how distinctly US the cover art - esp for fantasy novels - seemed. I think Bakshi strays maybe towards this tweeness that is reminiscent of say, bad 1950s' versions of Robin Hood.

Still enjoyed his LOTR in a way, and don't know his other work.
 
If you don't know his other work, his fantasy stuff like Wizards and Fire & Ice will be of interest. But beware, his social satire stuff like Fritz the Cat, Coonskin or Heavy Traffic is not for the faint hearted.

Funnily enough the director Boaz Yakin was on the Trailers from Hell podcast this week, and halfway through started rhapsodising about Bakshi and how he meant so much to him as a kid in the 1970s. Bakshi doesn't get a lot of love these days, so that was interesting to hear.
 
GNC said:
You should hear him speak!
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Now I'm intrigued!

Elsehwhere, I saw this evocative still and was struggling to recall whether it was the Nazgul leaving Bree.

FOieRLCWUAAdvUJ.jpeg.jpg
 
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