The Little Island
| The Little Island | |
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| Directed by | Richard Williams |
| Produced by | Richard Williams |
| Written by | Richard Williams |
| Music by | Tristram Cary |
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Release date
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Running time
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33 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Little Island is a 1958 British animated short film directed by Richard Williams. It was Williams' first film. Williams wrote, produced, directed and animated the short film. Self-financed, it was a half-hour philosophical argument without words. It won the 1958 BAFTA award for Animated Film.
The film features three men, who each only believe in one thing, one in Good, one in Truth, and one in Beauty. They will be referred to by these titles in the article. They cast themselves onto a small island where they sit next to each other. Many days pass on the island, and they soon choose to express themselves. It starts in small ways, simply making noise. The three quickly start to annoy each other, and they soon stop. As more time passes, however, they begin to express their idea.
Truth is first. He sits in various strange yoga positions and begins to project different shapes, such as suns, lotus flowers and four almond-shaped eyes. These eyes move around in strange patterns before becoming part of a strange four-eyed demon who dances for a moment then explodes. A pinball bounces between many pairs of eyes, building up speed before landing on Truth's head, which causes him to visualize a gradually expanding shape, and eventually reveals itself to be a huge, beautiful flower. The shape, though, collapses, which stuns Truth out of his trance, much to his embarrassment.
Beauty then begins to express himself, performing ballet and transforming into a Nubian figure. He continues to dance, and morph into calligraphy-like shapes before changing to his normal shape, but in a white robe. He begins to play a flute, flowers growing around him as he plays faster and faster before he becomes one himself. A Greek statue is then seen, of a female. The William Tell Overture begins to play, and a tall man and a short man carrying a frame walk up to the statue and "capture" her inside it, removing its head and base. They walk on as the Overture plays, but the picture soon splits in half, since the men walk at different speeds. Confused, they put it back together after several odd attempts, and soon climb a long staircase with it. They climb high up into the sky into an art gallery, where it's placed with hundreds of identical pictures, except for one.
This picture shows a scene where a small head, in profile, sees an object and begins to talk happily about it, his speaking expressed by a cello playing. Another man comes next to him, facing him, and sees the object as well. He discusses it with him, but the two heads soon begin arguing harshly. A pillar grows out from under the left head, making him sit above the other. He responds by growing another column underneath him, and the two heads quickly try to one-up each other, their columns growing and their arguing becoming worse. Soon, they can't go any higher, and push themselves into each other, forming a babbling head in front-view. The scene zooms out to show dozens of these heads on high columns, chattering away. Beauty's vision ends here, and he bows to the other two.
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