you may know windsor mckay (1867? ~1934) Gorgeous and surreal work little nemo Manga or his early animated shorts gertie the dinosaur (1914). But did you know that he also created some of the earliest examples of animated propaganda?
On May 7, 1915, the RMS Lusitania was off the coast of Ireland heading for her destination in Liverpool when a German U-boat attacked her without warning. Eighteen minutes after two torpedoes hit the ship, it sank into the water. 1,198 people died. The uproar over this incident ultimately led to the United States’ entry into World War I.
At the time of the sinking, McKay william randolph hearst As an editorial manga artist. McKay was furious at this attack, but Hearst, being an isolationist, demanded that he draw an anti-war cartoon. This irritated the artist more and more, and he finally decided to follow up his highly successful work. gertie the dinosaur by making Sinking of the Lusitania (1918), which can be viewed above.
The film was two years in the making and consists of over 25,000 drawings. All are hand-drawn, most of them drawn by McKay himself in his free time after work.
Compared to other animation produced during this period, the film has a gritty and serious feel, giving it a documentary-like feel. This article is not much shorter than the actual time it took for the Lusitania to sink, and is a step-by-step account of the attack. Although the incident is primarily depicted from a distance, as from the camera of another ship, McKay does not shy away from showing some truly heartbreaking moments of the tragedy up close. At one point there is a shot of a desperate mother trying to keep her baby on the waves. Elsewhere, dozens of people could be seen swaying like driftwood in the choppy sea.
And just in case you’re not fully aware of the film’s thrust, McKay includes some subtitles, which are pretty heavy-handed even by war propaganda standards.
A baby clinging to its mother’s breast cried out to the world to avenge the most violent atrocity ever committed against unsuspecting and innocent people.
and
The man who fired the shot was awarded a medal by the Kaiser! – And yet they tell us not to hate Huns.
What’s interesting about this movie is how beautiful it is considering its subject matter. Look at the stylized lines of the ocean, the baroque arabesques of smoke rising from a ship’s chimney, and the elegant use of negative space. Any cel from the movie is worth framing. How many war propaganda films can say that?
can be found Sinking of the Lusitania Animation section of our online free movie collection: great classics, indies, noir, westerns.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2014.
Related content:
Watch a real-time animation of the sinking of the Lusitania (1915)
watch windsor mckay little nemo and gertie the dinosaurand witnessed the birth of modern animation (1911–1914)
How Disney used propaganda cartoons to fight fascism and avoid financial ruin during World War II
Watch Dziga Vertov’s works soviet toys: The first Soviet animated film (1924)
Jonathan Crowe He is a writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared on Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
