The Moon and the Son, by John Canemaker
Every Oscar Winner for Animated Short Subject, Ranked
From New York Magazine - Vulture "Devouring Culture" by Jeremy Fassler
Hailing from more than 20 countries and encompassing almost every style, the 86 winners of the Best Animated Short Subject Oscar double as a microcosm of the history of world animation. Watching them also reveals that the definition of what constitutes animation has expanded from the colored cells of Three Little Pigs to the cutouts-on-acetate collage of Frank Film. What follows is an attempt to rank all 86 winners, from a recent dud to some timeless classics that help define the medium.
In 13th place we find our UGTFV Professor John Canemaker's film, The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation.
#13. “The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation” (2005)
John Canemaker, an NYU professor and historian who has written authoritative books on animation, is the son of an Italian who spent five years in jail for (allegedly) burning down his hotel to collect the insurance money when John was a child. Ten years after his father’s death, he produced this “imagined conversation” between them with John Turturro as himself and Eli Wallach as the old man. Told through a collage of animation, live-action clips, and photographs, it tells a universal story about the necessary distance children must keep from their parents, and a father who, to paraphrase Philip Larkin, was “fucked up in [his] turn / By fools in old-style hats and coats.” It could have easily been a feature, especially with the stellar performances of Turturro and Wallach, but it’s a remarkable achievement at half an hour.