George Miller Has A Case of Foot-in-Mouth

HAPPY FEET director George Miller gives us a classic line, from a recent piece in the WASHINGTON POST:

“I knew even the greatest animators in the world would take a lifetime to pull off the nuances of dancing that a gifted dancer is able to pull off.”

Animation director Mark Mayerson comments on his blog about Miller’s ignorant and uninformed quote. And somebody remind me, if Miller feels this way about the potential of the lowly animation art and its artists, why the hell is he directing animated films? Just look at the prince’s final kissing scene in the COAL BLACK link directly below this post; Rod Scribner’s animation performance in that scene is genius. One could easily counter Miller’s statement by saying that it would take the greatest live-action actors in the world a lifetime to pull off the animated performance that Scribner offers in that film. But why these apples-and-oranges comparisons? Animation allows you to do things that can’t be accomplished in any piece of live-action film or dance. It amazes me that a guy who just directed an entire animated feature still doesn’t understand that most basic and fundamental of concepts.