Grasshoppers (Cavallette)

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Grasshoppers (Cavallette)
Grasshoppers2.jpg
Directed by Bruno Bozzetto
Written byBruno Bozzetto
Produced byBruno Bozzetto
Music byRoberto Frattini
Release date
  • 6 March 1990 (1990-03-06)(Italy)
Running time
9 minutes
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian

Grasshoppers (Cavallette) is an Italian animated short by Bruno Bozzetto which condenses the whole of human civilization into 9 minutes, focusing primarily on the human race's predilection for warfare and the vanity of war. [1] It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1990, but lost to Aardman's Creature Comforts . [2] [3]

Contents

Summary

Each piece of history is presented as a simple vignette, usually depicting a few simply-drawn characters arguing and making war, over and over again. Generally, a single figure is meant to stand in for an entire group (i.e., a single Caesar-like caricature for the entire line of Roman Emperors).

There is very little spoken dialogue; instead, most of the cartoon is accompanied by a bouncy piano-driven score, which frequently changes style to suit the particular historical era. However, the score rests on a single simple theme, which is Antonín Dvořák's "Humoresque No. 7" , to which it frequently returns in between vignettes. [4] [5]

Plot

In the course of 9 minutes, Grasshoppers takes us through the following parts of history:

As the centuries (and later decades) pass, the pace of the animation grows gradually faster and more frantic.

At the beginning and end of the cartoon, and occasionally in between vignettes, the cartoon abandons the struggles of humanity to focus briefly on a shot of grass growing and insects buzzing over the ruins of previous battles. In the final shot, the camera finally zooms in tighter on the grass to allow us to glimpse two grasshoppers happily mating.

References

  1. "Grasshoppers (S) (1990)".
  2. Moliterno, Gino (12 October 2009). The A to Z of Italian Cinema - Gino Moliterno - Google Books. Scarecrow Press. ISBN   9780810870598 . Retrieved 2016-03-19.
  3. Oscars (7 July 2015). "Short Film Winners: 1991 Oscars". Archived from the original on 2021-12-15 via YouTube.
  4. "Grasshoppers (1990) - Bruno Bozzetto - Review - AllMovie". AllMovie.
  5. "Open Roads 2010: The World According to…Bruno Bozzetto! - The House Next Door - Slant Magazine". Slant Magazine . 8 June 2010.