The first American animated film - 1906 - Humorous Phases of Funny Faces - James Stuart Blackton

One of the brilliant repercussions of Melies’ trick film-making is the discovery of animation. Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is widely considered to be the earliest surviving American animated film – and it is as primitive as it is delightful.

The film was directed by John Stuart Blackton, who alongside Albert E. Smith formed one of the first movie studios, Vitagraph Motion Pictures. Before entering the world of film, Blackton had been a vaudeville cartoonist.

An important question to ask as we evaluate the first animated film on this list is: how much of a difference is there between animated films and ‘moving pictures’ (I think moving pictures is a more appropriate phrase than motion pictures when referring to early silent films)? I would suggest that there is a substantial gulf between the two categories.

For example, if we were to draw a family tree of the genealogy of the arts, animated film would stem from a different branch to the ‘moving picture’. The moving picture can be traced back to the earliest photograph, which was produced by the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Animation, on the other hand, can trace its roots back far earlier to the earliest drawings that were made thousands of years ago.

Yet again, the answer of how the contemporary audience would have responded to this film would be extremely helpful. Although seeing the earliest Lumiere Brothers’ films would have startled the audience for obvious reasons, what they were witnessing were things which they could experience witness in their day to day activities. A film like Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, however, surely would have completely 

bamboozled them, as they were seeing a drawing come to life.

Also, unlike with the Lumiere Brothers’ first film, La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon, where the workers could not help staring at the camera, the animated film would offer its creator complete control of his/her entire environment. 

   

The Animation Archive provides us with a helpful background to the film as well as the process behind it:

Smith and Blackton created what were then called "Trick Films"... the camera was stopped for a moment while the scene was changed, making things magically appear and disappear; images dissolved from one to another; and shots were double exposed to create ghostly images. In 1900, Blackton experimented with putting his lightning sketch act on film in a movie called "The Enchanted Drawing", but it was in April of 1906 when he made his most important breakthrough. In a trick film titled "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" Blackton created what is regarded as the first American animated film.

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces sees several of Blackton’s drawings come to life. The most sophisticated animation is reserved for the final character, the clown, who instructs a lion to dance on his arm and then jump through a hoop.

It is an awfully simple film and its joy partly derives from the possibilities that the film hints at. When you think of the incredibly sophisticated and layered animation work that goes into the latest Pixar or Miyazaki release, it is important to understand the humble and simple beginnings of animated films.

But it also serves an important lesson for modern animated film makers – animated film is a completely different entity to moving pictures and this should be embraced – I hope that the success of Toy Story 3 does not mean that most major animated films will be shot in 3D. More often than not, simplicity trumps all, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces exemplifies this point.