Brad Bird, Ayn Rand and Frustration

Brad Bird

I haven't seen Brad Bird's new film, Tomorrowland, yet, but once again various reviewers are connecting Bird to novelist Ayn Rand's work, something that Bird denies.  This article in Slate by Forrest Wickman says that Bird is drawing more inspiration from Walt Disney than from Rand.  I think that both are missing a key point, possibly because nobody in the discussion has ever worked in the film or animation business.

The criticism of Bird is that his films contain characters who are innately superior to the majority.  This strikes many as elitist, though common sense tells us that we all know people who have an aptitude for something, whether it's music, math, sports, languages, drawing, etc.  It's interesting that the idea of talent has become so controversial.

Many claim that Bird expects his characters to be treated differently than those without their talents, and there's some truth in this, but not in a way that Ayn Rand would endorse.  I am no Rand expert, but what I know of her writing is that it is elitist; those who are superior should not be dragged down by the inferior and should it happen, then the superior are justified in withdrawing their talents from society.

As the Slate article points out, the idea of the elite going on strike is nowhere present in Bird's work.  Rather than springing from elitism, I think Bird's work springs from artistic frustration and I think his career should make that obvious.

In The Incredibles and in Ratatouille, the characters are trying to exercise their talents in ways that are beneficial.  A key scene in The Incredibles is when Bob witnesses a mugging while being dressed down by his boss.  His frustration doesn't stem from his inability to exercise his powers, but from the altruistic need to help someone who is being victimized.    In Ratatouille, Remy risks his life repeatedly to get closer to cooking, something that would benefit people if only they didn't let their prejudices get in the way.  Both are frustrated by a world which stops them from being who they are, even though the world would benefit.

Now look at Bird's career.  He was an animation prodigy, being tutored by Disney animators at the age of 14.  His time at Disney after Cal Arts did not lead to any films of note.  It was a low point in the company's management history, where no one with vision (artistic or economic) was willing to take a chance on the kind of animation that Bird wanted to do.  At that time, Disney had Bird, John Lasseter and Tim Burton on staff and essentially wasted them all.  Talent went unrecognized and unfulfilled.

Bird tried to get several projects off the ground, such as his animated adaptation of Will Eisner's The Spirit and his own Ray Gunn without success.  He didn't get to direct his first animated feature, The Iron Giant, until he was in his forties, twenty years after leaving Cal Arts.  In moving into live action, he wanted to make 1906.  He took the Mission Impossible film as a way of gaining credibility, but even after the success of that project, he couldn't get 1906 into production.  Instead, he directed a film with a link to a Disney theme park.  While fans are no doubt happy to hear that Bird will be working on a sequel to The Incredibles, he's going backwards at the age of 57, having to revisit an earlier success.  As he's closer to the end of his career than the beginning, there are a limited number of films he has time to make. How many of them will be the films he wants to make as opposed to what Hollywood will allow him to do?

Forget Ayn Rand and look at the animation business.  It's filled with artists who would say that they're not doing their best work or are stuck labouring on projects that they have no great love for.  It's true across the industry, which is why so many artists are involved in side projects that are an escape from the frustration of their day jobs.  Bird has been more successful than most, but he still can't get his chosen projects onto the screen.  The Incredibles and Ratatouille are fantasies where characters overcome obstacles to fully realize their talents.  Unfortunately for Bird and the rest of us, it rarely happens in life.

Animated Oscar Nominees

Nominees for Best Animated Feature

Perspeolis (Sony Pictures Classics) Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud

Ratatouille (Walt Disney) Brad Bird
(Ratatouille also got a nomination for Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound, Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing.)

Surf's Up (Sony Pictures Releasing) Ash Brannon and Chris Buck

Nominees for Best Animated Short

I Met the Walrus
A Kids & Explosions Production
Josh Raskin

Madame Tutli-Putli (National Film Board of Canada)
A National Film Board of Canada Production
Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski

Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven) (Premium Films)
A BUF Compagnie Production
Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse

My Love (Moya Lyubov) (Channel One Russia)
A Dago-Film Studio, Channel One Russia and Dentsu Tec Production
Alexander Petrov

Peter & the Wolf (BreakThru Films)
A BreakThru Films/Se-ma-for Studios Production
Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman

I have seen all of the feature nominations this year and I hope that Perspeolis wins. I have great admiration for Ratatouille, but Perspepolis points in a direction that I would like to see animated features follow. An Oscar win would certainly help that. Also, Perspepolis has yet to get a wide release, so an Oscar win would benefit the film economically in theatres as well as on DVD. The other two features are no longer in theatres and they've already made the majority of their DVD sales.

Some may argue that Persepolis could win for animated feature and Ratatouille would get the award for screenplay as compensation, but I highly doubt that an animated film will ever get the award for screenplay. However, it is a tribute to Ratatouille and Brad Bird that the script was worthy of a nomination.

I've seen three of the five shorts nominations. I won't name which ones because none strikes me as a truly great film. As a result, I don't have a rooting interest in this category. If people have comments about the nominations (and the shorts category in particular), I'd be happy to hear them.

Oscar Politics

I don't consider the Oscars anything more than a marketing opportunity. Certainly, I never assume that because a film has won the award in a category it actually represents the "best" in that area for the year.

The N.Y. Times has an article on the dilemma facing Disney over positioning Ratatouille. Do they go for a best picture Oscar, as the film has been financially successful and so well-reviewed, or would that risk winning the award for best animated feature?

Members could vote for the film in both categories. But Oscar campaigners assume that many would choose just one — a dangerous situation, given the small voting pool and the razor-thin margins that can determine a winner. Such a split could leave even a film as widely admired as “Ratatouille” — A. O. Scott, co-chief film critic for The New York Times, called it “a nearly flawless piece of popular art, as well as one of the most persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film” — without a prize. Meanwhile a strong competitor like, say, “Persepolis,” about growing up in Iran, might slip into the animated winner’s circle.

The studios’ reluctance to advance their animated wares as candidates for best picture is enforced by a perception that actors, the academy’s largest branch, with about 20 percent of the membership, are reluctant to honor movies without live performances. Additionally, the academy has a definite allergy to family fare, like the G-rated “Ratatouille”: 28 R-rated films have been nominated for best picture in the last 10 years, while only two PG-rated movies — “Finding Neverland” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” — have. And none with a G rating have made the cut.

So if you have any doubts about the Oscar as a standard of excellence, remember that the best picture nominees will most likely feature live actors and be rated R, regardless of what other kinds of films are out there. Knowing that, should Disney shoot for the big award and most likely lose, or should they stay within the animation sandbox where their chances are better? Does Disney shoot for the big payday or take the smaller one? Increased revenue will be the inevitable result of an Oscar win and that's what will drive the decision.

Ratatouille: Food for Thought

Now that Brad Bird has directed three feature films, certain themes are becoming apparent. The first is that society persecutes the talented. Perhaps the Iron Giant shouldn't be thought of as talented so much as alien, but certainly The Incredibles and Remy are talented and all three films feature persecution.

The characters struggle to overcome the persecution, but not because of the persecution itself but because the persecution stands in the way of them exercising their talents. Bird appears to feel that talent should rise to the top and that others should willingly defer to talent. This is where the charge of elitism, and even fascism, are leveled at Bird. What he never shows is how talent has to be developed and refined. The Iron Giant is built with all his capabilities. The Incredibles are presumably born with super powers. Remy is born with a genius nose.

Contrast this with Joe Johnston's film October Sky, based on Homer Hickam's book Rocket Boys. It's about a group of boys in a mining town who are inspired by Sputnik to take up rocketry. The standard path in the town is for boys to graduate high school and enter the mines, so the boys stand out for wanting something different from the social norm. While the town attempts to discourage their efforts, especially when it appears that one of their rockets caused a fire, the film also deals with the boys struggling to figure out rocketry and documents their early failures. As talented as these boys might be, it takes effort to develop their talents.

As an artist, Bird has to know this. There's no way that his first work was as good as what he's doing now. For whatever reason, though, the maturation of talent doesn't interest him. The abilities of Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Remy are fully formed.

For Bird, ambition is not for personal glory, it's simply to reach a position where talent can be exercised. This is an interesting contrast to John Lasseter's characters in Toy Story and Cars. In those films, Woody and Lightning McQueen attempt to lead out of ego and only discover happiness when they forsake ambition. Both directors deal with ambition, but it signifies completely different types of characters.

In Lasseter's world, ambition always pits a character against a rival. Success can only come by overcoming a competitor. For Bird, the talented are either all in agreement (like the supers in The Incredibles), or unique like Remy or the Iron Giant. What would happen in Bird's world if two equally talented protagonists attempted to express their talents towards competing ends?

By avoiding the struggle to develop a character's talents or having a character compete against equally talented opponents, Bird slants his films heavily towards his chosen characters. In much the way the Disney princesses are fated to ascend to their rightful places, Bird's characters also triumph. While the princesses live in fantasy worlds, Bird's live in ours, but his films are just as much fairy tales as the Disney films. Bird's characters don't compromise and aren't diminished by a hostile environment. Their talents are fully exercised and they accomplish everything they're capable of. And if that isn't a fantasy, I don't know what is.