The Classical Animated Documentary and Its Contemporary Evolution

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The Classical Animated Documentary and Its Contemporary Evolution is the first book to provide an historical insight into the animated documentary. Drawing on archival research and textual analysis, it shows how this form, usually believed to be strictly contemporaneous, instead took shape in the 1940s. Cristina Formenti integrates a theoretical and a historical approach in order to shed new light on the animated documentary as a form as well as on the work of renowned studios such as The Walt Disney Studios, Halas & Batchelor, National Film Board of Canada and never before addressed ones, such as Corona Cinematografica. She also highlights the differences and the similarities existing among the animated documentaries created between the 1940s and the mid-1980s and those produced today so as to demonstrate how the latter do not represent a complete otherness in respect to the former, but rather an evolution.

Reviews

This is a valuable addition to debates around the under-theorised subgenre of animated documentary. It traces the historical emergence of a graphic (and aural) vocabulary for this subgenre, dating from the early twentieth century within a variety of national and institutional contexts. It convincingly demonstrates the deep historical roots of the range of animation within newer online, interactive and immersive forms of documentary. * Craig Hight, Associate Professor in Creative Industries, University of Newcastle, Australia *
A tour de force through the wide history of the animated documentary. This is the book I have been waiting for! * Gunnar Strm, Professor emeritus, Volda University College, Norway and author of The Animated Documentary (Animation Journal 2003) *
Formentis The Classical Animated Documentary and its Contemporary Evolution is an essential point of reference and is surely destined to be a seminal text for many years to come. For anyone wanting to understand animated documentary, Formentis words guide the reader expertly through the often-uncharted realm of animated documentary, providing crisp insights regarding the history of the form, conceptual debates and stylistic evolution, as well as hinting at what the future may hold for animated documentary. * Chris Pallant, Reader in Screen Culture, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK *

Author Bio

Cristina Formenti is Assistant Professor in Film Studies at University of Udine, Italy. She is author of Il mockumentary: la fiction si maschera da documentario (2013), and editor of Mariangela Melato tra cinema, teatro e televisione (2016) and Valentina Cortese: unattrice intermediale (2019). Her work has appeared in various national and international journals, such as Studies in Documentary Film, Alphaville, and Horror Studies. Dr. Formenti is also the co-editor of the journal Animation Studies and currently serves on the Board of the Society for Animation Studies.