How a Mosquito Operates
| How a Mosquito Operates | |
|---|---|
_How_a_Mosquito_Operates_still.jpg) |
|
| Directed by | Winsor McCay |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
6 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent |
How a Mosquito Operates (1912) is a silent animated film by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. The six-minute short depicts a giant mosquito tormenting a sleeping man. The film is one of the earliest works of animation, and its technical quality is considered far ahead of its contemporaries. It is also known under the titles The Story of a Mosquito and Winsor McCay and his Jersey Skeeters.
McCay had a reputation for his proficient drawing skills, best remembered in the elaborate cartooning of the children's comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland he began in 1905. He delved into the emerging art of animation with the film Little Nemo (1911), and followed its success by adapting an episode of his comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend into How a Mosquito Operates. McCay gave the film a more coherent story and more developed characterization than in the Nemo film, with naturalistic timing, motion, and weight in the animation.
How a Mosquito Operates had an enthusiastic reception when McCay first showed it as part of his vaudeville act. He further developed the character animation he introduced in Mosquito with his best-known animated work, Gertie the Dinosaur (1914).
A man looks around apprehensively before entering his room. A giant mosquito with a top hat and briefcase flies in after him through a transom. It repeatedly feeds on the sleeping man, who tries in vain to shoo it away. The mosquito eventually drinks itself so full that it explodes.
How a Mosquito Operates is one of the earliest examples of line-drawn animation. McCay used minimal backgrounds and capitalized on strengths of the film medium, then in its infancy, by focusing on the physical, visual action of the characters. No intertitles interrupt the silent visuals.
Rather than merely expanding like a balloon, as the mosquito drinks its abdomen fills consistent with its bodily structure in a naturalistic way. The heavier it becomes, the more difficulty it has keeping its balance. In its excitement as it feeds, it does push-ups on the man's nose and flips its hat in the air. The mosquito has a personality: egotistical, persistent, and calculating (as when it whets its proboscis on a stone wheel). It makes eye contact with the viewers and waves at them. McCay balances horror with humor, as when the mosquito finds itself so engorged with blood that it must lie down.
...
Wikipedia