Grasshoppers (Cavallette)
| Grasshoppers (Cavallette) | |
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| Directed by | Bruno Bozzetto |
| Produced by | Bruno Bozzetto |
| Written by | Bruno Bozzetto |
| Music by | Roberto Frattini |
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Running time
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9 min. |
| Language | Italian |
Grasshoppers (Cavallette) is an animated short by Bruno Bozzetto which condenses the whole of human civilization into 9 minutes, focusing primarily on the human race's predilection for warfare and the vanity of war. It was an Oscar Nominee for Best Animated Short in 1991.
Each piece of history is presented as a simple vignette, usually depicting a few simply-drawn characters arguing and making war, over and over again. Generally, a single figure is meant to stand in for an entire group (i.e., a single Caesar-like caricature for the entire line of Roman Emperors).
There is very little spoken dialogue; instead, most of the cartoon is accompanied by a bouncy piano-driven score, which frequently changes style to suit the particular historical era. However, the score rests on a single simple theme, to which it frequently returns in between vignettes.
In the course of 9 minutes, Grasshoppers takes us through the following parts of history:
As the centuries (and later decades) pass, the pace of the animation grows gradually faster and more frantic.
At the beginning and end of the cartoon, and occasionally in between vignettes, the cartoon abandons the struggles of humanity to focus briefly on a shot of grass growing and insects buzzing over the ruins of previous battles. In the final shot, the camera finally zooms in tighter on the grass to allow us to glimpse two grasshoppers happily mating.
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