On Sunday, February 26, at 2:00 PM, Oregon Movies, A to Z talks Oscars at the Oregon Historical Society.

This talk serves as a great crash course in Oregon film history.

For those impatient to get started, I include here a short list of Oregon artists who have received recognition from the Academy. I leave off the curious case of David Fincher, who was nominated for SOCIAL NETWORK and for THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, because although Fincher graduated from high school in Ashland, he never identifies himself as being from Ashland in the way that Brad Bird, for example, identifies himself as coming to Disney/Cal Arts straight from Corvallis.

When I identify the filmmaker with the name of a city or town, it is the city or town which the filmmaker originally came from, not where he/she currently lives. Where I give the city as “Portland” for Joan Gratz and Bob Gardiner and Irene Taylor Brodsky, it is because I am not sure where those filmmakers grew up, or lived, before becoming Portlanders.

See you there!

Brad Bird (Corvallis)
Winner for THE INCREDIBLES (2004) and RATATOUILLE (2007)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Will Vinton (McMinnville)
Winner, with Bob Gardiner, for CLOSED MONDAYS (1974)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Joan Gratz (Portland)
Winner, MONA LISA DESCENDING A STAIRCASE (1992)

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Bill Plympton (Oregon City)
Nominated for YOUR FACE (1987) and GUARD DOG (2004)

Gus Van Sant (Portland)
Nominated for GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997) and MILK (2008)

James Ivory (Klamath Falls)
Nominated for ROOM WITH A VIEW (1985), HOWARD’S END (1992), REMAINS OF THE DAY (1993)

George Bruns (Sandy)
Nominated for composing the scores of SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959), BABES IN TOYLAND (1961), THE SWORD IN THE STONE (1963) and the song “Love” in ROBIN HOOD (1973)

Irene Taylor Brodsky (Portland)
Nominated for THE FINAL INCH (2009)

James Longley (Eugene)
Nominated for IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS (2006) and SARI’S MOTHER (2006)

Oregon’s most distinguished filmmaker, three time Oscar nominee James Ivory, speaks here about the future of his profession:

Click here to view the embedded video.

6. A Date With Judy (1948) Jane Powell

Elizabeth Taylor tries to steal all her scenes by wearing a slight mustache, but Jane Powell, Taylor’s best friend and fellow MGM starlet, is the star of this peek into America before Elvis. Powell (born Suzanne Burce) arrived in Hollywood at age 14. She would have preferred to stay in Portland, because she was looking forward to going to Grant High School, but it was not to be. Portland radio made a star out of Suzanne Burce. Joe Pasternak made a star out of Jane Powell. She made 14 features at MGM, and was the lead in all of them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

7. What’s Opera, Doc? (1957) Mel Blanc

“This afternoon Melvin Blank, a boy with a good voice, will sing a number of solos, accompanied on the piano by his brother.” Mel Blanc’s first write up in The Oregonian gives little indication of what was to come. Portland is where Mel Blanc learned to play the violin, the ukulele, the sousaphone and the stand up bass. Portland is where he became, at age 23, the youngest bandleader on the West Coast. Mel Blanc soaked up everything the Rose City had to offer him except a high school diploma. “I loathed school” he wrote in his autobiography. He  left in 1935 for Hollywood, where he would become the Man Of 1,000 Voices.

Click here to view the embedded video.

6. Sleeping Beauty (1959) George Bruns

Here’s a music history scavenger hunt for you. Go to the Oregon Historical Society’s  Oregon Rocks exhibit and find George Bruns. He sits holding a trombone in a group photo of a 1940’s Portland jazz band. You’ll have to ID him by his signature because you have never seen his face. You have heard his music. Bruns was Oscar nominated for three of his many film scores: Sleeping Beauty 1959 (his first), Babes In Toyland (1961), and The Sword In The Stone (1963). The Ballad Of Davy Crockett , his first gig for Mr. Disney, sold more that 10 million records. That’s only a small fraction of the take generated by Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate’s Life For Me, another Bruns composition you might possibly recognize. George Bruns was born and raised in Sandy, Oregon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

9. Don’t Look Back (1967) Derroll Adams

Born and raised in Portland, Derroll Adams dropped out of Reed to follow his banjo. A senior statesman of the 1960’s folk scene, he famously provided Bob Dylan’s introduction to his British counterpart, Donovan. Well, someone had to do it! D. A. Pennebaker was there to catch it on film. Adams remained in Europe the rest of his life, playing folk music and teaching banjo. That’s him in the foreground at the beginning of the clip.

Click here to view the embedded video.

10. Good Will Hunting (1997), Elliott Smith

Did Gus Van Sant cut Good Will Hunting in Portland? Or was he in LA, playing Elliott Smith in the editing room because he was homesick, when it slowly dawned on him  ”Hey I think we’ve got something here…..” ? The soundtrack for this odd little blockbuster about a neurotic orphan with a Robin Williams sized hole in his heart includes Angeles and Miss Misery, which was Oscar nominated.  The Dandy Warhols also show up on the soundtrack. Van Sant is himself a musician. Like Smith, he arrived in Portland during his high school years. Unlike Smith, he basically never left.

Bonus film:

Click here to view the embedded video.

11. Wildwood (2014), The Decemberists

I’m just guessing here. Laika is planning a stop motion adaptation of Colin Meloy’s and Carson Ellis’ book. They may need some music, and Colin might have some ideas about where it should come from.

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Miss the first installment? The first Top Five Movies To See After Visiting Oregon Rocks can be found here.

Oregon has a track record with horse movies.

Thunderhead, Son of Flicka (1944) contains scenes shot on a Gresham race track. Tonka, or A Horse Named Commanche (1958) was shot in Central Oregon, plus it featured a score by Oregonian George Bruns. The Black Stallion galloped along the Oregon Coast in 1979. Now Secretariat, written by Oregonian Mike Rich, joins this illustrious group.

Roger Ebert gives both thumbs up to Secretariat, and explains why:

This whole movie feels authentic. Diane Lane, who is so good in so many kinds of roles, makes Penny a smart woman with great faith in her own judgment and the courage to bet the farm on it. Every hair in place, always smartly turned out, she labors in the trenches with Lucien and Eddie, negotiates unflinchingly with the Old Boys, eats the stomach-churning meals at the diners where the track crowd hangs out. She looked at the greatest racehorse in the world and knew she was right, when all about her were losing their heads and blaming it on her.

Of the actors, I especially enjoyed John Malkovich. He has a way of conveying his reasoning by shorthand and implication. He creates a portrait of horse trainer who’s slow to tip his hand, which is correct. No role in Mike Rich’s screenplay is overwritten, or tries to explains too much. Like “The Social Network,” another contender for year-end awards, it has supreme confidence in its story and faith that we will find it fascinating. This is one of the year’s best films.

Aaron Mesh gives it two thumbs down, and explains why:

Rich’s last screenplay was 2006’s The Nativity Story, and I do not mean to be blasphemous when I note that, in Secretariat, the role of Jesus is played by a large red horse. The equine is born in a stable, with visitors gazing in awe, then its coat is washed (again to the strains of “Oh Happy Day”) in a scene that symbolizes an anointing. But why all this Christological imagery? The movie doesn’t require it: It’s a perfectly serviceable if unusually sugar-dipped racetrack victory tale, in the tradition of Disney’s 1960s animal pictures.

Up or down, Secretariat is Mike Rich’s fifth produced screenplay, and his second outing as executive producer.

I have not seen Secretariat, which does nothing to deter me from claiming it as an Oregon film.

Basil Wolverton displays his pioneering “spaghetti and meatballs” approach to human anatomy.

As Oregon Cartoon Institute heads into its fourth year, I sat down to retrace the steps that led to its creation.

This timeline of development was originally written for Jill Hartz, at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Thank you, Jill, for providing me with the impetus to pull this together!

1990’s in New York

As I fly back and forth between Portland and New York, I begin noticing the way Oregon press underplays the fame of Oregon’s most well received artists (Chuck Palahniuk a great example ) while at the same time New York press omits the Oregon citizenship of an artist all together. I begin to understand the way this has created a misperception that Oregon does not produce artists.

At about this same time Columbia sportswear begins showing up on the subways. The Simpsons are becoming a cultural mainstay. Elliott Smith, the Dandy Warhols, Courtney Love, Gus Van Sant — I start to feel  surrounded by Portland even when I am 3,000 miles away.

1999 visiting Portland

David Chelsea tells me about Basil Wolverton.

I knew about Homer Davenport, the Hearst newspaper cartoonist from Silverton.

I’d heard about Mel Blanc, Portland’s most reknowned voice artist.

But I am stupefied by Wolverton. How could a guy from Central Point (pop: 12,000)  influence an entire generation of  Americans? And do it via Mad Magazine ?

A seed starts to sprout in my mind.

2001, in Portland

Dennis Nyback and I teach an avant garde film survey course at Northwest Film Center. Preparing for it, I discover avant garde animator Harry Smith was born in Portland.

Smith was both the disciplined, insightful, completely original collector behind Folkways’ enormously influential Anthology of American Folk Music and a self taught, extravagantly experimental, completely original filmmaker. I never dreamt he had anything to do with Oregon.

In my previous understanding, Oregon rarely produced nationally known artists.

Now with Harry “High Brow” Smith and Basil “Low Brow” Wolverton in the picture, I am completely confused.

2003 in New York

Standing in Kim’s Video, I stumble across a footnote in a book about Robert Crumb which identifies Carl Barks, creator of the comic books which were a huge influence on Crumb, as being from Merrill, Oregon.

I turn the book over to see who wrote it — D. K. Holm, from Portland.

At this point I compile a list of living and dead Oregon cartoonists and animators and send it to John Canemaker, asking what he thinks. He calls me, excited and impressed.

He adds two new names.

He tells me Marc Davis, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, graduated from high school in Klamath Falls

and that Pinto Colvig, an early animator turned voice artist, is from Jacksonville.

2006 in Portland

Dennis and I interview Portland cartoonist  John Callahan for The Portland That Was.

Callahan is surprised to learn that Mel Blanc, a life long hero, is from his own home town. Our intern, a graduate of Lincoln High School, the school Blanc attended, tells us she never heard of him.

About this time, graphic journalist  Joe Sacco returns home to live in Portland, bringing with him his 1996 American Book Award.

Dennis and I return home too.

2007 in Portland

We hold the first Oregon Cartoon Institute public event, a three week screening series at Disjecta of 16mm animation from Dennis’ collection. Jim Blashfield and Rose Bond come and speak. Both have conducted far ranging film careers from Portland.

Blashfield made his acclaimed music videos here, and Bond her monumentally scaled installations. Both use animation.

Our model for engaging audiences emerges  — we will use living artists as interpreters as we raise awareness about the dead ones. Chel White, Bill Plympton, Joan Gratz, Joanna Priestly, Marilyn Zornado and Will Vinton loan us 35mm prints for the final night of the Disjecta series, which takes place at the Hollywood Theater.

Second Oregon Cartoon Institute event: Dennis conducts video interviews with visiting and local artists at the Platform International Animation Festival. We put these online.

At this point, I thought we had found all the historic Oregon animation and cartooning figures there were to find.

I was wrong.

In the course of researching Oregon film history for the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival, I stumble across George Bruns, a four time Oscar nominee for animated film scores, from Sandy

and Dennis stumbles across Ralph Wright, who won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 1957. He’s from Grants Pass.

2009 in Portland

Third Oregon Cartoon Institute event: we co-sponsored Bill Plympton Day at the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival at Marylhurst.

Bill is as fascinated with this history as we are.

Not all our research comes from history books. Some comes from the news. Just when we weren’t looking,  Brad Bird received first one, then two Oscars.

Looking ahead:

An interview about Oregon Cartoon Institute’s next public event, which will take place in 2011, can be found online at  KBOO.fm. Conducted by S. W. Conser as part of his Words & Pictures series, this interview introduces our first artist in residence, Heather Perkins.

Oregon Cartoon Institute is all about partnerships. As soon as the details get finalized, we will announce our upcoming partnerships with others who share our goal of raising public awareness of  this state’s rich animation and cartooning history.

I read my growing list of historic Oregon animators and cartoonists to  John Canemaker in New York. There was a long silence. Then he said “You’ve left off two” and gave me more names. Canemaker, an animator and a historian, had no explanation for why Oregon has consistently produced such greatness in these fields. He did affirm that we had a disproportionate number of artists to claim.

Dennis Nyback and I started the Oregon Cartoon Institute to explore that mystery. On Feb. 25, 2010, the Institute had its first public meeting, hosted by Dan Ackerman of Ackerman Films. Dennis Nyback and I served tea, brownies, and rare cartoons to the scholarly group who arrived eager to be divested of their ignorance.

The small but highly wonderful crowd received a brief orientation speech from me, and then a presentation from our artist in residence, composer-musician-sound designer Heather Perkins. Heather described the focus of her work for the institute, and the form her labors will be taking.

The project will be, basically, a musical tribute to Mel Blanc – and since Mel always said that Bugs Bunny is basically him, it will also (really) be a celebration of Bugs Bunny. The attitude, the character, the jazzy inflections of his voice, the casual “What’s Up Doc?” insouciance, the classically American sense of sassy independence. All that. It will be primarily musical in nature, including samples of Mel’s voice as musical elements, but no spoken word per se.

She also took questions.

We then gave a multimedia introduction to the nine animation and cartooning figures who inspired the founding of Oregon Cartoon Institute, and Dennis showed films featuring the work of two: Pinto Colvig and Mel Blanc.

The nine artists are:

Homer Davenport, newspaper cartoonist (Silverton)

Vance DeBar “Pinto” Colvig, animator turned voice artist  (Jacksonville)

Carl Barks, animator turned comic book artist/author (Merrill)

Mel Blanc, voice artist  (Portland)

Ralph Wright, story board artist and writer (Grants Pass)

Basil Wolverton, comic book cartoonist (Central Point)

Marc Davis, animator (Klamath Falls)

George Bruns, composer (Sandy)

Harry Smith, animator (Portland)

Stunned and humbled by the size of their newly discovered inheritance, most of the new members of the Institute were unable to move for a period of time after the presentations, which condition we took advantage of by asking for some marketing advice. Very useful for us!

The only things that went wrong with the evening were that a) we didn’t have t-shirts to sell, and b) we forgot to ask for email addresses, so now we don’t know who our new friends and members are.

Nevertheless, we consider the event very successful. Among the crowd we spotted S. W. Conser (KBOO’s Words & Pictures), Marc Moscato (Ye New Dill Pickle Club), filmmaker Larry Johnson, and Richard Herzkowitz (Pacific Rim Film Festival ). Very gratifying in the afterglow: Paul Bingman tweeted about us the next day. Thanks, Paul!

Thank you to Dan Ackerman of Ackerman Films for hosting the meeting. A big shout out  to Tom Fitzgerald and V for their help.

For more information about the Oregon Cartoon Institute, contact me, Anne Richardson, at mrs.nyback -at – gmail -dot – com.

A Wild Hare (1940) Mel Blanc voicing Bugs Bunny, nominated for Best Short Picture, Animated

Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt (1941) Mel Blanc voicing Bugs Bunny, nominated for Best Short Picture, Animated

Pigs In A Polka (1943) Mel Blanc voicing the Big Bad Wolf, nominated for Best Short Picture, Animated

Greetings Bait (1943) Mel Blanc voicing Wacky Worm, nominated for Best Short Picture, Animated

Swooner Crooner (1944) Mel Blanc voicing Porky Pig, nominated for Best Short Picture, Animated

Life With Feathers (1945) Mel Blanc voicing Sylvester, nominated for Best Short Picture, Animated

Rhapsody Rabbit (1947) Mel Blanc voicing Bugs Bunny, nominated for Best Short Picture, Animated

Tweetie Pie ( 1947) Mel Blanc voicing Tweetie and Sylvester, WON Best Short Picture, Animated

For Scent-imental Reasons (1950) Mel Blanc voicing Pepe LePew, WON Best Short Picture, Animated

Speedy Gonzales (1956) Mel Blanc voicing Speedy Gonzales, WON Best Short Picture, Animated

Birds Anonymous (1957) Mel Blanc voicing Tweetie and Sylvester, WON Best Short Picture, Animated

Knighty Knght Bugs (1959) Mel Blanc voicing Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, WON Best Short Picture, Animated

Sleeping Beauty (1959), composer George Bruns nominated for Best Music

Babes In Toyland (1961), composer George Bruns nominated for Best Music

Sword In The Stone (1963) composer George Bruns nominated for Best Music

Robin Hood (1973) composer George Bruns nominated for Best Music

Closed Mondays (1974) c0-directors Will Vinton & Bob Gardiner WON for Best Short Film, Animated

Rip Van Winkle (1978) director Will Vinton, nominated for Best Short Film, Animated

The Creation (1981), director Will Vinton, nominated for Best Short Film, Animated

The Great Cogito (1982), director Will Vinton, nominated for Best Short Film, Animated

Return to Oz (1985), claymation director Will Vinton nominated for Best Special Effects

Your Face (1987), director Bill Plympton nominated for Best Short Film, Animated

Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase (1992), director Joan Gratz WON for Best Short Film, Animated

Guard Dog (2004), director Bill Plympton nominated for Best Short Film, Animated

The Incredibles (2004), director Brad Bird WON Best Animated Feature

Ratatouille (2007), director Brad Bird WON Best Animated Feature

Coraline (2009), director Henry Selick/lead animator Travis Knight, nominated for Best Animated Feature Film

This installment in the Handy Guide Series brought to you by the Oregon Cartoon Institute.

The coonskin hat Mikal Gilmore is wearing above is probably not the same one he wore as a child in Milwaukie, Oregon. But it was the one he grabbed as he headed out the door to fly to Portland receive his official induction last weekend into the Oregon Music Hall Of Fame.

As a pop music historian he knows, of course, that the song “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier” was composed by George Bruns, a fellow Oregon Music Hall of Famer. And now you do too.

When Walt Disney adapted Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book to the big screen, he assigned the script to his usual group of writers, one which included Ralph Wright. Wright was born in Grants Pass in 1908.

George Bruns wrote the score, composing everything except the magnificently catchy songs, which were written by Richard and Robert Sherman. George Bruns was born in Sandy in 1914.

I hereby claim Jungle Book as an Oregon film on the basis of the creative contribution of these two Oregonians.

George Bruns was nominated for his third Best Music Oscar for his work on this Disney film.

Mel Leven wrote the songs in this film, including the immortal “Cruella DeVille”, but it was Oregonian George Bruns who wrote all the rest of the jazzy soundtrack. Music plays a large role in 101 Dalmations – Roger, Pongo’s human pet, is a song writer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Second Oregon connection: Marc Davis, building on his experience designing Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, was the directing animator for the terrifying pup stealing villainess, Cruella DeVil.

Matt Groening has cited 101 Dalmations as a crucial influence, singling it out in one interview as the film which inspired him to become an animator. In a way, it makes sense. One of the jobs Matt Groening held before his breakthrough with The Simpsons was music critic for the Los Angeles Reader.

I hereby claim 101 Dalmations as an Oregon film, on the basis of the contributions made by Marc Davis and George Bruns.