Animated clip of Plato's Cave?

January 19, 2012 4:23 PM

Trying to find a recent film that featured a few-minute-long animated version of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

I saw a film (may have been a feature film or a documentary) within the last five years that had an animated segment of Plato's Cave. It is not this adaptation in clay but did have a similar look. The thing I remember most clearly is that the shadows that appeared on the wall were the result of people carrying cutouts of animals on sticks like these, not actual animal shadows.

I tend to watch farily mainstream stuff, for the most part, and I remember everything being in English. Help???

posted by jabes to Media & Arts (11 answers total)

Is it the allegory as narrated by Orson Welles?
posted by decathexis at 5:13 PM on January 19, 2012

I swear I remember seeing this too. My memory is of it being something I saw quite recently, and possibly in the middle of another animated thing (maybe even something like South Park, Futurama, etc) but with a distinctive animation style? If it's the same version I'm thinking of, it would have been very brief and in the middle of the plot, not something that was mainly intended to present Plato's views.

Can't find it now, but still looking.

There's the animated sequence of the Story of the Three Brothers who try cheat death, in Harry Potter, which has a very distinctive animation look, similar to shadow puppets.
posted by LobsterMitten at 5:25 PM on January 19, 2012

decathexis -- not the Orson Welles version

LobsterMitten -- YES!! As far as I remember, it was in the middle of something totally not about philosophy, but I thought the rest of the film was live action and the Cave segment was the only animated part, and I remember it only lasting a few minutes, at most. I keep thinking it was some kind of documentary about high schools or education or something? I found the Harry Potter sequence you mentioned, and that does look kind of similar, but the guy behind that is Ben Hibon and I haven't seen any of the other films he's worked on....
posted by jabes at 5:35 PM on January 19, 2012

I don't remember anything like this in the Werner Herzog documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams, but just noting it here on the off chance.
posted by LobsterMitten at 5:58 PM on January 19, 2012

Shoot - I saw this too. Was it in The Secret of Kells?
posted by Mchelly at 7:57 PM on January 19, 2012

I haven't seen either Cave of Forgotten Dreams or The Secret of Kells :(
posted by jabes at 7:55 AM on January 20, 2012

I know I've seen this too, and I just happened to have finished watching The Secret of Kells and it's not in there. I also feel that this sequence was in a live-action film... or maybe in a film that went from a digital, 3D-style animation to a flatter, more traditional style? Argh, this is going to drive me nuts.
posted by Rora at 12:50 PM on January 20, 2012

Could it have been in Rango?
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:38 AM on January 21, 2012

I haven't seen Rango either. I'm almost positive I saw this somewhere between 2007-2009 based on the tv I remember watching it on.

Thanks for the suggestions, everybody! Keep them coming!
posted by jabes at 1:05 PM on January 21, 2012

Any chance it was in The IT Crowd or Peep Show or similar Brit sitcom?
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:14 PM on January 21, 2012

Thanks for all the suggestions, LobsterMitten, but I haven't had cable in ages so it most definitely wasn't a Brit sitcom. I think this is just going to continue to drive me nuts.
posted by jabes at 2:32 PM on January 23, 2012