Film Filter 101:

November 18, 2009 9:58 PM

I am looking for films that use animation to help push their stories along.

For example, the animated sequence that Michael Moore used to tell the 'brief history of the united states' in "Bowling for Columbine" or the anime sequence that Quentin Tarantino used to tell O-ren Ishii's story in "Kill Bill, vol. 1".

Any help would be much appreciated.

posted by AlliKat75 to media & arts (49 comments total)

"Run Lola Run" had animated segments, of Lola running, at the beginning of each version of the story.
posted by ValentineMaynard at 10:03 PM on November 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

Monty Python and the Holy Grail
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:07 PM on November 18, 2009

The Wall
posted by lilywing13 at 10:08 PM on November 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

Kill Bill Vol. I had an animated interlude introducing O-Ren Ishi.
posted by timoni at 10:08 PM on November 18, 2009

Oh whoops, just realized you used that as an example. Sorry.
posted by timoni at 10:09 PM on November 18, 2009

The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys definitely qualifies.

The best part of Hedwig And the Angry Inch was animation, although it's debatable whether it really pushed the story along.
posted by bingo at 10:10 PM on November 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

There's some of this in Natural Born Killers, though I don't know if how it fits in narrative-wise fits the bill you're looking for.
posted by nanojath at 10:11 PM on November 18, 2009

Science of Sleep
posted by rocco at 10:13 PM on November 18, 2009

One Crazy Summer
posted by paperzach at 10:24 PM on November 18, 2009

One Crazy Summer had some animation interspersed in it and The Rocketeer had that Nazi propaganda cartoon scene.
posted by cazoo at 10:26 PM on November 18, 2009

Reefer Madness: the Movie Musical.
posted by McBearclaw at 10:29 PM on November 18, 2009

Awesome examples! Keep 'em coming!
posted by AlliKat75 at 10:30 PM on November 18, 2009

The first film that came to mind was Eating Air. The second film that came to mind was, er, Enchanted.
Oh! And I just remembered - The Happiness of the Katakuris (stop motion animation / claymation, if that counts... )
posted by aielen at 10:32 PM on November 18, 2009

Not sure this counts but, Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou certainly had a lot of animation integrated into it.
posted by Mizu at 10:32 PM on November 18, 2009

Spun has a short animated scene.
posted by griphus at 10:38 PM on November 18, 2009

Also Better Off Dead, yes? Man, it's been forever.

Unrelatedly, but also animatedly, Frida.
posted by mumkin at 10:42 PM on November 18, 2009

Age of Stupid
posted by Sustainable Chiles at 10:45 PM on November 18, 2009

I don't know if this fits your criteria but Waking Life... ?

Yes, technically the whole movie is animated (Rotoscoping to be precise) there are times when the animation overly is almost exactly the original cinema frame, and other times where the animation is played up and departs extremely from the original frame for various reasons. As well there are completely animated elements that appear in at least one scene I can recall.
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:54 PM on November 18, 2009

Annie Hall had that Disney Snow White scene
posted by cazoo at 11:00 PM on November 18, 2009

Shimotsuma Monogatari.
posted by Dreamcast at 11:10 PM on November 18, 2009

Also Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
posted by lisa g at 11:26 PM on November 18, 2009

American Splendor.
posted by SarahElizaP at 11:27 PM on November 18, 2009

The surreal claymation scene in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure?

And maybe the animated educational short in Jurassic Park, although there the characters are actually shown watching it.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 11:35 PM on November 18, 2009

The Jurassic Park scene lays a bunch of pipe for everyone, enabling Spirlberg to cut to the mayhem with less exposition.

Similarly, 2012 has a brief motion graphic about how everything's going to go down that imparts all kinds of pseudoscientific authority to John Cusack's character later.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 11:42 PM on November 18, 2009

Heavenly Creatures
posted by paperzach at 11:46 PM on November 18, 2009

Tron
posted by zippy at 11:56 PM on November 18, 2009

subtly, "punch drunk love"
posted by rhizome at 11:58 PM on November 18, 2009

Tangentially related material, perhaps:

- The Penguin Dance and Jolly Holiday sequences in Mary Poppins
- The animated musical sequence in 9 to 5
- The Beautiful Briny Sea musical sequence from Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
- Dali's dream sequence in Spellbound.
posted by prinado at 12:14 AM on November 19, 2009

King of California, which I don't think anybody saw except the people who worked on it, but is not terrible at all, has an animated dream-ish sequence that conveys some information that's crucial to the story.
posted by dersins at 12:34 AM on November 19, 2009

The recent film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy frequently interrupted the action with animated out-takes from the titular Guide. You can watch some of these sequences on YouTube:

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book..."

Vogons

The Babelfish and the Non-Existence of God

The Infinite Improbability Drive

The Point-of-View Gun

The TV miniseries had the same gimmick, but the animation from 1981 isn't quite as slick-looking:

None At All

Dolphins

The Worst Poetry in the Universe

Vogons (again)

Babelfish (again)

The Universe (Some Information to Help You Live in It)

G'gugvunt-Vl'hurg War

posted by Rhaomi at 1:06 AM on November 19, 2009

Elf
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 1:14 AM on November 19, 2009

200 Motels
Enchanted
posted by Locobot at 1:53 AM on November 19, 2009

also Crank 2 High Voltage has a slide show segment that "explains" a bunch of what is going on. -- fun movie
posted by Locobot at 1:58 AM on November 19, 2009

Bunny and the Bull.
posted by freya_lamb at 2:17 AM on November 19, 2009

Look Both Ways
posted by smoke at 2:32 AM on November 19, 2009

The Kingdom - Opening Sequence
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle - Dream sequence is partially animated
posted by arruns at 2:57 AM on November 19, 2009

Summer Interlude by Bergman.
posted by fire&wings at 3:03 AM on November 19, 2009

Kurosawa's "Dreams" has that segment with Martin Scorsese as Van Gogh with a New York accent and the dude walking through paintings. It's not exactly animation, but...
posted by Red Loop at 3:18 AM on November 19, 2009

The Fall has a stop-motion bit towards the end, which depicts one of the characters undergoing surgery.
posted by dogwalker at 4:57 AM on November 19, 2009

The Most Beautiful Night in the World by Daisuke Tengan.
posted by misozaki at 5:37 AM on November 19, 2009

All of Jan Svankmajer's films feature animation quite prominently. I wouldn't say they're used to progress the plot but you may be interested none the less. In general his live action films switch between puppetry, stop motion animation (often using people) and claymation.

Here's some clips. Faust is my favorite. But Little Otik does use animation to reveal plot points. His Alice in Wonderland is also quite good.

Faust
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnOh6ZdN9Fg

little otik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF8SSyQi-2c

Alice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5wHMgTPF-s

you can also find all his short films on youtube. Many are brilliant. Such as this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuBwXfg3Mr4
posted by Smegoid at 5:48 AM on November 19, 2009

Not a feature film, but the British TV series The Mighty Boosh uses animation in a few episodes.

Tarsem's film The Fall also has a very cool stop-motion sequence.
posted by Prospero at 6:08 AM on November 19, 2009

Also not a film, but the 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' Christmas special has a Rankin Bass style stop-motion sequence.
posted by Andy Harwood at 6:40 AM on November 19, 2009

Al Gore uses a clip from Futurama in "An Inconvenient Truth"
posted by haveanicesummer at 7:40 AM on November 19, 2009

How about the Russian urban fantasy-action film, Night Watch?

It has a striking animation near the start -- like a mix of silhouettes, zoetropes and ink blots -- which is used as the back-story for one of the characters.
posted by laumry at 7:47 AM on November 19, 2009

My personal favorite Godzilla movie: Godzilla vs. Hedorah!
posted by rlk at 7:49 AM on November 19, 2009

There's famous scene with Jerry the Mouse in Anchors Aweigh.
posted by frecklefaerie at 9:38 AM on November 19, 2009

The 10th anniversary release of Clerks has an animated scene (at the funeral parlor) that wasn't in the original movie (due to cost).
posted by Twicketface at 9:45 AM on November 19, 2009

kamikaze girls
posted by eatdonuts at 12:33 PM on November 19, 2009