Episode 304: IT'S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY (2012)

Trylove

Don Hertzfeldt’s creative, experimental animation style is almost universally acclaimed. His early short works helped him bridge the gap (albeit accidentally) from festival darling into a filmmaker synonymous with pre-YouTube online video culture. His first feature film, IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY, tells the story of Bill, a man defined by his neurotic observations about the world around him.

In part, IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY is a parade of awkward interactions with strangers, bizarre family histories, and non-sequiturs narrated by Hertzfeldt himself. But a strain of melancholy runs in parallel to the cute, simplistic aesthetic: Bill is losing his mind, his memories, and most of his faculties. Through a medley of formally innovative sequences, the movie’s depiction of Bill’s decline creates a unique tension: Mixing animation, photography, distortion, and destruction, extends the effects of Bill’s internal condition onto his two-dimensional world, the narrative, the narrator, and the audience itself.

References:

• Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket prices!
• Watch IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY on the Internet Archive
• “Don Hertzfeldt Has Something to, um, Tell You” by J.R. Jones for Perisphere, the Trylon blog
• “Hertzfeldt to Miyazaki to Life: How Negative Space in Animation Gave Me the Time to Live” by Zach Staads for Perisphere, the Trylon blog
• Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/
• Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/

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Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "Das Rheingold Scene 1: Vorspiel & Weia! Waga! Woge, du Welle!" (Excerpt) composed by Richard Wagner, performed by the Wiener Philharmoniker, and conducted by Sir Georg Solti from the IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY soundtrack.

Timestamps coming soon! I know I’ve said that about other recent episodes and then not provided them, but I super pinky promise swear I’m gonna do it for this one. : )