Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters interact directly with human beings. Who Framed Roger Rabbit stars Bob Hoskins as a private detective who investigates a murder involving the famous cartoon character, Roger Rabbit. Charles Fleischer co-stars as the titular character's voice, Christopher Lloyd as the villain, Kathleen Turner as the voice of Roger's cartoon wife, and Joanna Cassidy as the detective's girlfriend.
Walt Disney Pictures purchased the film rights to the story in 1981. Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman wrote two drafts of the script before Disney brought in Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment to help finance the film. Zemeckis was hired to direct the live-action scenes with Richard Williams overseeing animation sequences. Production was moved from Los Angeles to Elstree Studios in England to accommodate Williams and his group of animators. While filming, the production budget began to rapidly expand and the shooting schedule ran longer than expected.
However, the film was released to financial success and critical acclaim. Who Framed Roger Rabbit brought a re-emerging interest in the golden age of American animation and became the forefront for the modern era, especially the Disney Renaissance. It also left behind an impact that included a media franchise and the unproduced prequel, Who Discovered Roger Rabbit.
A milestone in film and animation history – four Academy Awards
A “technically-marvelous film” blending animated, ink-and-paint cartoon characters and flesh-and-blood live actors” (FilmSite review)
Hybridity and intertextuality (comedy-noir) Mix of live and hand-drawn 2d
Two ‘worlds’ (real and Toontown)
Use of lighting
Use of screen space
A “technically-marvelous film” blending animated, ink-and-paint cartoon characters and flesh-and-blood live actors” (FilmSite review)
Hybridity and intertextuality (comedy-noir) Mix of live and hand-drawn 2d
Two ‘worlds’ (real and Toontown)
Use of lighting
Use of screen space
How does the film emphasise both the difference and the connections / transgressions between the ‘real world’ and the ‘cartoon world’?
The real world is dark, and there a lot of brown, greys and blacks, the cartoon world is bright and colourful. In the cartoon world there is more singing and dancing and everyone seems happy there. Throughout the film, on a few different occasions Roger says that it is a toon’s job to make people laugh, Eddie however never laughs. I think these two worlds represent the two characters Eddie and Roger, Roger is mostly happy and optimistic even when he thinks his wife has played pattercake with another man, he writes her a love letter rather than go off into a jealous rage. Whereas the human world everything is dull and dark, Eddie is quite dark as his brother was killed by a toon and the toon was never caught so his attitude towards the toon world is negative. And the contrast between toon world and the ‘real’ world mirrors the contrast between Eddie and Roger’s characters.
METALEPSIS
Definition from narrative theories:“paradoxical contamination between the ‘world of the telling’ and the ‘world of the told’” (Pier 2011)
“any intrusion by the extra-diegetic narrator or narratee into the diegetic universe (or by diegetic characters into a meta-diegetic universe” (Genette, in Pier 2011).
Definition from narrative theories:“paradoxical contamination between the ‘world of the telling’ and the ‘world of the told’” (Pier 2011)
“any intrusion by the extra-diegetic narrator or narratee into the diegetic universe (or by diegetic characters into a meta-diegetic universe” (Genette, in Pier 2011).
In animation:
Cartoons – often, as they rely on “exaggerated comedy, meta-reference, or the presence and omnipotence of an authorial entity”
Experimental and hybrid films, mixing different animation techniques, or live-action with animation
Computer or object animation - less frequently, as neither “want to distract from the illusion of a perfect mimesis or the illusion of animate objects” . Sometimes used as a historical reference to classical cartoons
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, there is “a clash of two different physical, social, and moral worlds, and even of two different kinds of perception. Toons and humans move in the same spatial environment, but they still inhabit different sub-worlds, which only partially overlap” (Feyersinger 2010, p 289). “A metalepsis combines the representations of contradictory concepts; two worlds that are perceived as mutually exclusive are connected at the same time. The perception of the viewers is important as their knowledge of reality and common sense determines whether two worlds are understood as mutually exclusive or not” (Feyersinger 2010, p 281).
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