On August 16th 2019, Richard Williams died at his home in Bristol. The world didn’t know until the next day, and the animation world went into mourning.
I was a blubbering mess for two, possibly three weeks. The shock had a profound effect on me and I don’t think I’ve ever really been the same since. I’m trying to say this without sounding like a gushing, insincere fan girl. It still feels like there’s a bleeding wound in my heart that might never really go away. Even a year on I think of him and his work a lot. It feels almost less like I’ve lost an animation hero of mine and more like a best friend who’s work and words helped me to find my feet and create things in my darkest hours, helped me to find my own strengths and give me happiness with his own creations. I probably wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now if not for him.
And I certainly wouldn’t have made it so far in life if not for Fran Higgins, my school headmistress who fought for the rights of disabled and autistic kids like myself. Fran also died around September 2011, only days after relocating the small school to a three floor Georgian building in Chatham. It goes without saying that the end of August and start of September is an emotional, melancholy time for me, thinking about these wonderful people that came into my life and then were taken away. I love autumn, of course, and look forward to all of its beauty. It’s a nature photographer’s utopia. But this time last year I was so depressed I was forgetting to wash dishes, take my meds and drink water, crying myself to sleep at night and drawing cobblers to try and help cheer me up, to only limited avail. The whole thing tore me apart. I was admittedly a bit embarassed afterwards, but I can’t help having emotions.
But perhaps it isn’t helpful to be entirely negative. It’s important to remember the accomplishments and legacy of an artist who, while no longer alive in the physical sense, is immortal and enduring within every single pencil line and frame that his hands and imagination have given us. Watching Dick’s work is like watching part of his life and hearing his voice, his soul etched into every frame of work and every animation cel photographed.
Richard had an on and off relationship with the craft of animation in his early days of making films in Soho Square. It’s always inspiring to watch The Little Island, his very first film, and then go and watch Prologue, his last great accomplishment. It’s truly incredible to see just how much he changed and progressed. It’s also incredibly motivating to hear that he was animating right up until the evening he died, never retiring from the medium that he loved and believed in so dearly. In his 80s he was still being nominated for Oscars, attending animation festivals and working on new material! That’s such dedication and spirit! A real triumph.
It’s difficult for me to pick a favourite work of his, or a piece of animation. There is a unique charm to his illustrations for the Nasrudin stories collected by Indries Shah just as there is something uniquely beautiful about his animation for the Pink Panther movies or Prologue. Each work has a lyricalness and poetry about it that’s difficult to describe, because it has to be seen. One of the best things about his work is that it’s difficult to define his style, because he worked in so many styles!
Here’s are the animated sequences for Tony Robinson’s Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)
And here’s a commercial for Long Life beer
And one can’t mention Richard Williams without thinking of Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
Or of course, the tragic yet extraordinary The Thief and the Cobbler:
Speaking of The Thief, that’s the film that gripped and pulled me towards Williams’ work in the first place. Discovering it is a strange experience. It pulls you into a beautiful, completely mad and complex rabbit hole of animation history that you just can’t escape from. The deeper you go, the more you discover, the more you want to explore, the more you want to find. At least that’s how it was for me.
Of course, everyone in the animation kind of knows the story now, or at least the story in a nutshell. Thirty years of work, bad luck, missed deadlines, budgeting issues, lack of funding and disagreements culminated in the collapse and butchering of a magnificent project that was never completed or released in it’s entirity. Kevin Schreck has described his documentary on the making of the film, Persistence of Vision (2012) to be a ‘character study’ of Richard Williams. It does so remarkably well, using various interviews from the people who worked with him to present the animation maestro as a wonderful, ultimately flawed, sometimes stubborn and bad tempered but altogether inspiring and ambitious perfectionist who wanted nothing more than to make a great work of art. Perfectionism is both a blessing and a curse, sometimes a personality trait worthy of great praise and a product of passion, other times a self destructive monster that ends up alienating others and getting in the way of what we want. In Persistence of Vision it’s all of these things.
The movie itself, that is, The Thief and the Cobbler, is one of my favourite films, not just my favourite animated film, but my favourite of cinema entirely. While it may always unfortunately be an unfinished giant of the medium, it’s a giant nonetheless. Imogen Sutton, Richard’s widow, described it as ‘an opera rehersal where half of the characters are in costume and the other half are missing.’ The Thief certainly does have the scale and gradiloquence of a great opera. It’s often compared with Lawrence of Arabia or 2001: A Space Odyssey. What sets it apart from a vast number of contemporary animated films is that the plot is a backdrop against the world and its and themes rather than the world being the backdrop against the plot (my disdain for the ‘story is king’ mantra is showing.)
The original film was around five hours long and had an intermission and more characters. Whether a version of this film will ever surface is difficult to predict, but I admittedly one day hope that something that resembles that vision might happen. It was animation as an art in its purest form – animation that existed almost purely for its own sake, for the purpose of exploring and experimenting with the medium and seeing just how far it could be pushed, what could be done with it, how far it could go. It was a film made purely for the love of doing so as an expression of sheer love for the art of moving drawings. I try and make my work more like that, or at least I want to make work that feels like it embodies those principles. Just animate for the love of animation. Do what makes the animator happy, make animation for the animator. While people often criticise these kinds of films for their lack of ‘plot’, it speaks volumes about how animation as a medium is often viewed with such little confidence, as if it can’t exist for its own sake and be its own thing because it has to be a slave to a traditional three-act structure, because that’s what everybody expects of animation. Animation is so much more than it’s given credit for. I never hear the same criticisms levied against animated films against mediums such as painting, live action, music etc. Perhaps if The Thief and the Cobbler were a live-action film (God forbid that Disney gets any ideas!) people wouldn’t accuse it of being ‘style over substance’ or ‘no story.’
I find Cobbler very comparable to experimental and conceptual films like Bambi, The King and the Mockingbird, Fantasia, Heaven and Earth Magic, Pom Poko or Tale of Tales. All of these films use animation to explore an idea or build a world rather than tell a traditional story to entertain mass audiences. I don’t mind that the plot is simple because it’s a plot that’s timeless and easy to understand and doesn’t need to be any more complex than that. It’s animation that leaves me hungry for more and more, leaving me to form my own ideas about the characters and their individual subtlties. Films like these are very patient and very meditative. They’re loose and free, as if every frame is breathing and taking its time doing so, marching to the beat of its own internal rythym. There’s no rush to get from point A to B, or need for exposition or long moments of dialogue. It has an organicness comparable to a flowing river that never hurries for anyone and has a sublime beauty that can only be experienced by sitting by it, listening to it and watching it. Perhaps Cobbler is comparable to nature itself, as is Bambi. Richard’s son Alex posted this video talking about his experience on the film days ago, calling the film ‘a member of the family.’ In a strange way, The Thief and the Cobbler does feel like part of all of the people that worked on it and watch it. In it’s own eerie, wonderful way, it feels less like a film and more like a living creature made from layers of pencil, paper, celluloid, ink and paint.
Much like a fairy tale, The Thief and the Cobbler has many different versions, which only adds to my interest. When I first heard about it I assumed that it was indeed an adaptation of an already existing fairy tale. Each version and edit feels like a cultural variant of an oral folk tale, with its own details that set it apart from others.
While Richard never got his wish for the film to be completed and released, what does exist of it is still beautiful in and of itself. There is a beauty in its incompleteness, like a chipped and cracked vase. What materials and stories have been told about the film are just the tip of the iceberg, and that excites me. Who knows what we might later discover? What new artwork or reels might be found? Schreck calls it an ‘animation fossil record.’ I’m not sure if we’ve even scratched the surface!
Ultimately, it’s a heartbreaking, bittersweet story. Life was often cruel to Richard and his team, Richard was often cruel to his team in turn. It’s a cautionary tale and an epic saga all at the same time. But what I love about Williams and his work so much is that he was such a trier. I know it sounds condescending of me to say so, but that he could have such an ambition, want it so badly, love it so much and make such an effort to do it it was truly counts for me. I tip my hat to anyone who dedicates three decades to making what he wants to be the greatest animated film ever made. And even after the horrible, devastating fate the film suffered, he was still able to learn from his mistakes, never give up, and keep creating. While he did temporarily retreat from the world of animation and refused to even acknowledge the film’s existence for some years, he eventually managed to accept the film as it was, recover and grow as a creator and embrace the flawed masterpiece. He certainly had the last laugh, and it’s a laugh that we can all laugh with. To go through such trauma and still screen the film at venues like the BFI and carry on with new, even better and more ambitious projects is his victory. I’m proud of him.
That all being said, there is still half of me that wishes that The Thief and the Cobbler was the film Richard always wanted it to be, and that it was completed and that the world was able to see it. It may have had a niche audience, but an audience nonetheless. Thinking of what could have been always makes me emotional. The same is true of his last film, Prologue, intended to be part of something even bigger – a film based on a play by Aristotle. What was completed was the ten minute Prologue, the first chapter of the intended film, and some drawings for what we can assume was the second part. Seeing Prologue is enough to make me wish with all my heart that this was a complete feature. Richard joked ‘will I live to finish this?’ It’s horribly cruel and unfair that he was unable to, just when he was getting started and had so much more to give. It’s enough to make me misty eyed and angry at the same time. It just isn’t fair. It isn’t fair at all.
But I don’t think Richard would want anyone to lament over what wasn’t, what hasn’t been, or to dwell on the negative. If I know anything about what he was like, he would be the eternal optimist thumbing his nose at fate and naysayers, creating for the love of doing so and thinking ahead, celebrating his triumphs and the appreciation people had for his work. The Thief and Prologue are incomplete, yes, but what we have of them is marvellous and should be celebrated, studied, analysed and loved. We can cry that they were never finished as intended, but we can also smile at what they accomplished, pioneered and inspired. After all, Richard’s motto, to all of his fellow animators was ‘Persist! Do it for the love of it, because they’re going to try and stop you if they can.’
Kevin Schreck consoled me with this piece of advice the day Richard died: ‘Appreciate the legacy. Grieve in healthy ways, channel that sadness into doing the things that make you happy.’ I think Richard would have said precisely the same thing.
I accept the fact that thinking of him, especially now, makes me emotional. I’m not ashamed to shed tears. But if anything, that grief shows just what a positive impact his work had on me, and I should be grateful for it’s existence. I’ll always think of how happy his films make me, and how glad I am for their existence. Complete or not, they were worth making and fighting for.
Many of us in the animation world are thinking of him now, still, after a year. How could we not, around the anniversary of his passing? People are still talking about, paying their respects and writing articles like this one:
https://pullingarabbitoutofahat.com/the-story-continues/remembering-richard-williams/
We might all remember August 16th as the day we lost him, but maybe that goes to show just how much love we had for him, and we should always keep in mind that love comes from a place of positivity. This article in particular talks about a memorial Alex Williams has organised, though postponed thanks to the Covid 19 climate, which in a strange way, makes me feel quite excited – a true celebration of Richard’s life, his trials, tribulations, and contributions! I’m unsure if this is an event that for invites only, but I very much hope that when it does happen, I will be able to attend and come together with others who were positively affected by him. It might be cliche to say that the historians, animators and fans are something of a strange family, but I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t made some great friends thanks to my interest in The Thief and the Cobbler. And just as exciting, the article hints at an autobiography by the maestro to be posthumously completed. It’s cynical to say that people only seem to care about artists once they die. Perhaps there is a flicker of truth in that assumption, that we often take the living for granted. But that people still come together in their love and appreciation of a man’s creations and legacy is always a great thing, whether that man is alive or not. It’s human nature, perhaps, to value and miss someone even more when you no longer have them.
Speaking of autobiographies, I’ve been working on a book of my own about Richard William’s animation, especially the history of The Thief and the Cobbler. Of course, for some time now it’s been on a slight hiatus since attending this master’s degree, travelling backwards and forwards from London, etc. When Dick died, I promised myself that I would work hard on it. Of course, I’ve been thinking about him a lot this week, and looking for more research material. I’ve been on a cobbler binge and I’m all fired up again!
I owe Dick a great deal of gratitude for a lot of things, from helping me to find my own animation styles and themes, inspiring me to create, helping me to make friends and being the person to initially lead me to Neil Boyle, who is now something of a penpal of mine. Oh, and that’s not forgetting Tack the cobbler himself, who has given me plenty of happiness and comfort.
When I animate, I’ll think dearly of him. I’ll also think dearly of the animation legends of whom upon the shoulders he stood – Ken Harris, Grim Natwick, Milt Kahl, Art Babbit, Emery Hawkins. They aided and nurtured him, and in turn, Richard did the same for others. I’ll tell his story in my book, help to inspire others and spread the word of his work, encouraging others. I’ll do my best to try and be as great as he and his teachers were as animators. And I’ll definitely do as much life drawing as I can!
I’ll smile, I’ll cry. His story and legacy is inherently moving, animation as an art form is inherently a rather emotional and tearjerking art form. I’ll regret what never happened and what could have been if not for whatever, but I’ll also use those tears to make great things. I wish he could have been with us for much longer and given more of a chance. His energy and passion was far too good to just die as it did. But perhaps Richard Williams will never truly die as long as his creations live on and are loved by millions. It sounds cheesy, but he lives in all of us, in the very art of animation itself. I’m not religious, but perhaps it’s comforting to think that Richard is now reunited with his own animation idols. I remember on the night of 17th August last year, when I was grieving after the announcement of his passing, a bird flew through the back door, into the living room, and then out again, startling me. Rationally, it was nothing more than a confused animal. But it’s lovely to imagine that perhaps this was his way of saying goodbye. That probably sounds so corny, but I type this right now with tears sliding down my face.
Of course I miss him, and always will. Those feelings will always have an affect on me. But I’m so grateful for the legacy and his creations, and the happiness, comfort, laughter and tears that they’ve given me. We’ll mourn and celebrate, we’ll keep animating. For every tear, there will be a smile.
Persist.