detaild analysis Coraline animation by Dai Lu

Detailed Analysis of The book and the movie Coraline Coraline is the movie which have been haunted me for weeks since I have watched it and it makes me think a lot. I watched many videos about the Coraline Theories analyzing, making assumptions about what does every character and objects in the movie suggest and the hidden meanings. Everyone have their own interpretations and this enchanted animated film gives the audience spaces and open questions to think about. Neil Gaiman, the book author of Caroline, said that he intended to write a short story for his daughter but the story grows and have its own life…the children will think it is an interesting adventure but the grown-ups will have nightmares after reading the story. The PG rated film is suitable for parents and teenagers to watch together. I found a Coraline book review by Philip Pullman, enthralled by the story, offering good analysis of the book. “The narrative voice is not Coraline's, but hers are the only thoughts and feelings we are told about, so she is at the centre of the story. This is the best point of view from which to tell a story about a child: the telling voice is an adult's, so it can plausibly observe and say things a child would not, but all the sympathy is with the child. Gaiman brings it off with a skill that you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it.” The other mother by Philip Pullman( https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/aug/31/booksforchildrenandteenagers.neilgaiman) This kind of narration not only makes it easier for the readers to enter into the story like onlookers or link themselves with any character, but also when we accompanying Coraline in the story the spooking effect will be reinforced. Furthermore it is a story suitable for adapting into play and cinema. And the matter-of-fact tone is important, because this is a marvelously strange and scary book. Everything in the other world is similar to reality but it seems more tempting, when the other mother try to make everything in the other world braw and warm, catering to the need of Coraline to lure her staying there. Even though Coraline found the woman with button eyes who looks like her mother, Coraline accept her at the beginning. Children are easy to be tempted especially when they are unsatisfied with the real world.There are many stories telling children not to accept a stranger’s candy. Coraline is brave enough but careless, which is the characteristic of every protagonist in an adventure story. They seem to be too brave as they know there will be danger but they don't care. Curiosity kills a cat. Like every adventure story the protagonist have allies, in the book there is a sardonic and feline black cat. The relationship between Coraline and the cat is also interesting. Coraline was not friendly to the cat at the beginning. Black cat is a symbol of adversity in some folk tale. In the movie Coraline even throws the cat to the beldam in their last fight. It seems that in the movie Coraline is more real, like a normal early teenage girl, kind of selfish and doubtful and flexible to cope with dangerous situation. But who is the cat? In some Coraline theories saying that the cat is like her other father, or in the movie the cat might be Ms Lovet(Whybe’s grandma)’s husband. Or the first kid that the beldam captured but failed to imprison his soul. Anyway the mystery is suppose to be unsolved and there’s not much sense in guessing and making new theories. But the movie is far different from the book as the theorizer says. And full of symbolism when we look thoroughly. In the film there is small detail like Coraline always wearing a dragonfly hair clip. The dragonfly as an animal totem symbolize the power of light and its the essence of the winds of change, the messages of wisdom and enlightment, and the communication from the elemental world, people with this totem have an abundance of good luck in their lives and are always in the right place at the right time. If dragonfly has come to one’s dreams, it symbolizes change and regeneration. It may also indicate that something in your life may not appear as it seems. Alternatively, the dream represents instability, flightiness or activity. You are always on the go. The Secret TRUTH About Coraline! [Theory] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwd3qsH2ZMg there are 3 ghost children became angels with wings and aura in Coraline’s dream, the background of the film image is Van Gogh’s painting—Starry Night. The painting is believed to be a representation of isolation. Van Gogh himself called that “A starlit vault of heaven, one can only call god.” The 11 stars in the painting represents Genesis 37:9 in the Bible, a verse that has to do with Joseph. Historians believe that Van Gogh identified with Joseph with his art because alike Joseph, he was a dreamer, and had just underwent years of imprisonment. Which is a significant symbolism of the children’s ghost. the movie uses a defect of stereoscopic celluloid cinematically to suggest that these children have passed away. Whereas Coraline’s model exudes reliable material fortitude, the Other Children flicker, like poorly projected film, and thereby connote death within the film, the death of film, and the death that has always haunted film. The ghost children invite one to reread the cinema for the inanimation haunting all animation, to regard the projector as an apparatus that gives existence to intelligibility, that—like the chora—must be excluded from the representable world and its animating principle. Benson-Allott, Caetlin: The Chora Line: RealD Incorporated. South Atlantic Quarterly, 2011, 110.3: 621-644. Hereby I should brought up chora, after reading the text The CHORA Line: RealD Incorporated by Caetlin Benson-Allot. She analyzed the technique and its function in the narrative of the film and analyzed every character and the details in film. So here’s what I found about chora in wikipedia: chora: Khôra (also chora; Ancient Greek: χώρα) was the territory of the Ancient Greek polis outside the city proper. The term has been used in philosophy by Plato to designate a receptacle (as a “third kind”, a space, a material substratum, or an interval. In Plato's account, khôra is neither being nor nonbeing but an interval between in which the "forms" were originally held; it "gives space" and has maternal overtones (a womb, matrix). wikipedia ”chora” So that’s why the story is about illusions in the space which the other mother creates. I think that there are some other meanings in Coraline’s name, people always mixed it up with Caroline, the normal name. Coraline is just a normal girl yet she has abnormal experience. But no one in the real world paid attention to her, nor did they believe her, as they did't pay attention to her name and say it wrong all the time. She is not bothering to correct them after the first time. In the film there is a conversation between Coraline and Wybie when they first met, Wybie ask about Coraline’s name. Coraline corrected him, he said,”Hm. It's not real scientific, but I heard an ordinary name like Caroline can lead people to have ordinary expectations about a person.” So Coraline is not ordinary. In her name its just a slightly change of the “o” and “a”, like the other world,which seems familiar but better than the real world at first sight. Also it’s like a mirror, things are kind of reversed in the mirror and nothing in the mirror is real. But the dangers are real, and part of the richness of the story comes from the fact that it offers many meanings without imposing any. For example, in the book when the other mother shows Coraline a mirror in which she sees her real parents, and hears them seeming to say "How nice it is, not to have Coraline any more . . . Now we can do all the things we always wanted to do," we can see for a moment what it would be like to read the story as the acting-out of some unconscious sense of rejection on Coraline's part; but it is touched on so lightly that a moment later it's left behind. The story is much too clever to be caught in the net of a single interpretation. The other mother by Philip Pullman( https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/aug/31/booksforchildrenandteenagers.neilgaiman) Here are some lines in the movie Coraline which could be ruminate over. Coraline's Mother/Other Mother: You know... I love you... Coraline Jones: You have a very funny way of showing it. When Coraline knows that the other mother wants her love and soul, she is very brave against the beldam and communicate with her in a sarcastic way. What she said is a true feeling of children when their parents offer them something they don't want and force them to be what their parents want. Sometimes love can be twisted. The showing of love extend variously in different relationship. Everyone could be selfish and when someone believes that he or she are doing for the other’s own good but actually its not. The other mother wants everything under her control. If Coraline doesn't obey her, She will be furious and there will be punishment. In the movie poster, a quote is very striking: Be careful what you wish for. There are all kinds of allurement in the real world. If we get what we want that easily it must be some kind of trap. The rapacious and weakness of ourself is something more dangerous than the wicked witch, or any obstacles. In the book, Coraline realizes that the other world which first seemed brighter and more intense is really not what she wants. “I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything u ever wanted? just like that, and it didn't mean anything. What then?” said Coraline. She realizes that her world , the real world is great,because there are bad things and sad times, which is what makes the great things so much greater. Many people asked why the other mother uses button eyes? In the Theorizer’s theory The Secret TRUTH About Coraline! [Theory]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwd3qsH2ZMg its because the buttons are sewable. Some says that the button eyes is the core of this film with deep meaning. The three ghost children in the film asked Coraline to find their eyes and set their souls free. Which means a child can’t use his or her own eyes to see the world is a child who lost his or her soul. Some parents want their child “to see things in our ways” is like sewing buttons to the children’s eyes. “why don't you be good” similar lines in Coraline. In the name of love, adults trapped children into their values. We need more communication, more listening and attention to the kid’s emotion and thoughts. Guiding instead of imposing. Parents and children can learn things together. In my opinion, the main core about the story is the relationship between Coraline and her mother. The story , like most of the fairytales with a girl as the protagonist, is actually a story about growing pain. The confrontation of Coraline and her mother and the other mother is pretty normal in our lives so that many audiences can empathy with it. I believe every children is secluded from the real world and have their own world. A world of wonder and imagination. A small door to the other world is what we dreamed of when we are small. especially after reading a lot of children’s book about it, like the magic wardrobe in Narnia, the door of a secret garden, the dimension door in Doraamon, the rabbit hole to wonderland. It’s sad that every children grows up and all the beautiful fantasies has gone or they only exist in dreams, books and movies. So nothing is interesting in the real world. We are all like Coraline, feisty, curious, and adventurous when we were 11 years old. The loneliness and unsatisfied of not having much attention from our busy parents. We grew up quietly but painfully. In this particular age around 10-15, we are likely to be rebellion, negative and angry accompany with the expansion of self consciousness and ego inflation. There is a word in the world of ACG(animation,Comic and game) describe this syndrome as “ Chunibyo“，literally means “eight-grade-disease”. Which I believe that Coraline is going through this period. Although some of the readers or audience might not like her, but she is such a true girl representing her age. An interesting fact that the Coraline in the book tend to be a calm and quiet British girl aged around 13 while the Coraline in the film is a 11 year-old clamant and incompliant American girl. The premise of Coraline is similar to stories such as The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and Labyrinth. All of these movies, including Coraline, follow the same basic blueprint: 1) The protagonist is a young girl that is curious, fearless, resourceful, and not afraid to speak her mind; 2) She is bored with her life and wishes for fun and adventure; 3) She magically enters a world that is strange, but wonderful; and 4) She gets “hooked” into the alternate world and doesn’t want to go back to reality. There is one thing somehow disturbing but I cant avoid to talk is that in many analyze articles and critique of Coraline mentioned the feminine incorporation. Coraline’s figural focus on webs, wells, caves, and portals unifies its metaphoric and technological interests. As Wired columnist Frank Rose observes, the digital 3-D “is even better [than its predecessors] at sucking you in. These effects also allow the film to comment on Western theories of perspective that have long emphasized depth over protrusion. The Chora Line: RealD Incorporated. Coraline is not accommodate to the fact that she will grow up and be independent. She wants to go back to the birth canal and be a kid again. When everything she need could be fulfilled. Being cared by parents and being safe and warm in mother’s womb. Coraline is a more perfectionist allegory to the Matrix. Here instead of taking the red pill or the blue pill, the protagonist chooses whether or not to have buttons sewn on her eyes. It’s interesting to imagine however, whether (other) Wybie or her father, or any of her neighbors were ever in the same situation, considering that they’re all seen in both worlds. Well, that’s actually an overly-complicated hypothetical, since the reason Coraline is the heroine of the story is because she has a strong likeness to a virgin (yes, of course she is a virgin physically, but it’s important to understand that her ultimate value is derived from spiritual_virginity), and as people like to ignore the fact (you could say they simply don’t wish to see it), virgins (children) are a ‘predator’s source of power. Of course, Coraline doesn’t go along with this, and essentially the real reason she’s special is because she pushes herself to save her friends and family by confronting and defeating the demon that enslaves them (with help). Coraline is the only story I know of which tells the honest truth (without bias) of the path of a true virgin. It really would not appeal to most children (not destined to stay as such) or adults even though it’s still a respectable film. I don’t mean to say a ‘true virgin’ is better than everyone else, but I will say they are the herald of the end of a dark age and the ‘first fruits’ of the next. To understand the heart of Coraline you must recognize just how far it goes out of its own way to tell a story that no one really wants to hear. In the same way does man lament when confronted with the nature of his relationship with God. Remember though, that with God all things are possible, and perhaps you will see that every soul has an inner child destined to go on a journey which will one day finally lead them to a place of rest. The Hidden Meaning of the Movie “Coraline” The story is also like Spirited away(2001) by Miyazaki Hayao. When the protagonist Chihiro going through the spirit world, she met her friends, saved her parents at the end, it is also a spiritual journey of a shy girl grow up to be brave and independent. In Spirited away there is Haku who helped Chihiro all the way, and Chihiro also helped him remenber his name. The imprisoned souls in Coraline also forget their names but they remember their mothers. In the book there is an interesting conversation between Coraline and the black cat: “What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?' 'Cats don't have names,' it said. 'No?' said Coraline. 'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.” If you forget your names, forget who you are and you lost your soul, you can never go back to the real world. This is the same point in both films. The parents of Coraline is lost in the dullness, careless and heavy duties in life, lacking of passion. The parents of Chihiro, lost in greediness and abusive use of natural sources. They were saved by their daughters but they don't know, which adds more surreal and dreamlike colors to the stories. Hope they can see things through the children’s eyes and evoke the love and conscious to cherish the days together. In the Coraline movie, the character Wybie is a new character who doesn't exist in the book. He introduced for the film adaptation so that the viewer "wouldn't have a girl walking around, occasionally talking to herself.” ”The making of Coraline”,Coraline DVD In an interview, Gaiman states that the two other alternatives to having a character like Wybie would be to have Coraline break the fourth wall and talk to the audience or to have her act as a narrator to the story. Wybie’s name Wyborn, “Why-were-you- born” suggest that he is also a lonely child that was not expected. But his grandma and the cat is always protecting him from the beldam. In the other world, the beldam created another Wybie, who is fixed to be silent but Coraline like him, which means Coraline not only wants communication but also accompaniment. All the fancy illusions made by the beldam is something needs to be shared with someone. But the other Wybie is made of sand so that he can't go out of the other world or he won’t exist. Although Coraline was not friendly to Wybie in the real world, he saved her life at the end. Unlike the evil beldam look of the other mother, the male character in the film seems to be just sidekick around Coraline. The father and the other father are trying to help Coraline. Mr. Bobinsky and Wybie, even the cat are thought to be female—so it seems to be evil at the beginning—but when he talks he became the ally of justice. Wybie is under control of his grandma and the other Wybie is control by the beldam but he has his free will and spared no effort to help Coraline. Even Wybie looks not brave, he’s head droop and never look right into Coraline’s eyes. But in the end of the film he wins Coraline and audiences’ heart. An adult’s view is that this process of accepting the male partner by female, just like some woman complains their male partner having those unbearable drawback. However in the end the male is vital to save the whole situation and they are cute in some sense.(In marriage and in family) In all, Coraline shows a girl’s growing story which is soul stirring.There are some other analysis such as A Jungian Analysis of Coraline, and The programming of a mind control slave at the hands of a sadistic handler… really disturbing enough. I am sure there are some other deep meaning under or in the film but its also good to leave some blank and space to breathe. Let’s talk about the filmmaking technique of Coraline. The excelsior team that create Coraline with 3D printed puppets and real builded scenes. Its a stop-motion and stereoscopic 3D hybrid animation. Which brought a nostalgia feeling to the audience. Coraline’s blend of computer-designed stop-motion puppetry and computer-aided special effects returns three-dimensional animation to its historic medium while also bringing the latter into the future of three-dimensional film: RealD. The Chora Line: RealD Incorporated I RealD enables the 3-D viewer to experience herself as three-dimensionally enworlded, to inhabit the embodied spectatorial practice foreclosed by previous 3-D technologies. A viewer can now move in three dimensions while watching a movie that features and is about three-dimensionality; for the first time, she can experience 3-D vision as properly uncanny, rather than simply unwieldy.The film thus draws on Toland’s celebrated deep-focus cinematography to contextualize RealD stereoscopy as another technological advancement in cinematic art. In the first scene of the film everything is creepy enough as the hands are sewing the doll. I can imagine that in RealD cinema how it was pictured and when we are sucking into the other world the effect must be really convincing. The visual is splendid in the film, it is a movie about world building and the other mother is like the director. In Kristin Thompson and Davd Bordwell’s blog Observations on Film art, “I began speculating on how the film image represented space, and I adopted the then-current terminology of perceptual psychology. Researchers spoke of depth cues, those features of the real world that prompt our visual system to make fast inferences about a three-dimensional layout…These features can also be invoked in two-dimensional images, as I tried to show in Narration in the Fiction Film. Nowadays, deeper explanations of these effects are available using geometrical or computational approaches to perception. But depth cues remain a useful informal way of studying how artists manipulate images. ” http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2009/02/23/coraline-cornered/ In a fascinating article in American Cinematographer, Pete Kozachik, Director of Photography on Coraline, explains that the filmmakers were very conscious of perceptual factors throughout, and not just in creating the stereoscopic effect. For example, they designed and filmed our heroine’s alternative world in normal perspective, but her boring normal world was designed to seem off-kilter and flat by means of inconsistent depth cues within the shots. “The compositions match in 2-D, but the 3-D depth cues evoke a different feel for each room.” To follow this story, one must understand two 3-D parameters: interocular distance and convergence. Interocular distance (IO) is the distance between left and right eyes; it affords us the separate views we interpret as 3-D roundness. By adjusting IO, we can expand or contract the 3-D volume of a shot. Convergence is the amount our eyes toe-in to align both images of an object; it gives us a sense of our distance from an object. Kozachik also explains how he spent a lot of time trying to vary the two images’ interocular distance, the distance between our two eyes, in order to give a greater sense of volume. “We all agreed 3-D had to be used to enhance story and mood, like any other photo technique. Along with the story arc, lighting arc and color script, the cinematic team of Coraline decided to impose a complementary “stereo arc” on the show. Henry wanted 3-D depth to differentiate the Real World from the Other World, specifically in sync with what Coraline is feeling. To do that, we kept the Real World at a reduced stereo depth, suggesting Coraline’s flat outlook, and used full 3-D in the Other World. At first, full 3-D opens up a better world for Coraline, but when things go bad, we carefully exaggerate stereo depth to match her distress. A particularly involved use of 3-D included a big effort from the art department. Henry wanted to create a sense of confinement to suggest Coraline’s feelings of loneliness and boredom in her new home. His idea had interiors built with a strong forced perspective and shot in 3-D to give conflicting cues on how deep the rooms really were. Later, we see establishing shots of the more appealing Other World rooms shot from the same position but built with normal perspective. The compositions match in 2-D, but the 3-D depth cues evoke a different feel for each room. These “master twin” shots depended on building the forced-perspective sets to an exact camera position. New angles usually required a new build.” https://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/February2009/Coraline/page2.php From the detailed article of the cinematographer we can see how is Coraline’s world be built brick by brick and how do they conquer and solve the problems in shooting the most ambitious and technically challenging film in the stop-motion genre. Stop-motion’s best future is most likely in the niche it’s forming into now, which is stylized imagery that has something different going on than CG animation. In addition, Cinema is at least partly an affair of perception. Filmmakers are practical psychologists, artists who have mastered the skill of playing with our senses. We can open up their secrets a little by using tools borrowed from the sciences of mind. The dreamy and realness effect of Coraline captured our eyes, so does the beautiful and catchy soundtrack that all sounded like lullabies. The world of Coraline is like a candy house , beautiful in and out also full of danger. There will be more adventures when analyzing/interpreting a film. I wish for more courage and good companies in study and work. Wait, should I be careful what I wish for? References: Benson-Allott, Caetlin: The Chora Line: RealD Incorporated. South Atlantic Quarterly, 2011, 110.3: 621-644. The Secret TRUTH About Coraline! [Theory] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwd3qsH2ZMg The Hidden Meaning of the Movie “Coraline” http://vigilantcitizen.com/moviesandtv/hidden-meaning-movie-coraline/ Observations on Film art http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2009/02/23/coraline-cornered/ 2 Worlds in 3 Dimensions https://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/February2009/Coraline/page2.php 'The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation': An Interview with Pete Kozachik, ASC http://www.awn.com/animationworld/advanced-art-stop-motion-animation-interview-pete-kozachik-asc http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327597/quotes Dai Lu