Looking back on the 2003 Best Animated Feature nominees
Monday, November 11, 2013 at 5:00PM 
Andrew Stanton with the first of his Animated Feature OscarsTim here. This November, we’ve been reflecting on the films of 2003, in preparation for the newest edition of the Supporting Actress Smackdown, and I’d like to use this as the opportunity to return us all to a simpler time. An easier time. A saner time. A time when the Best Animated Feature category at the Academy Awards wasn’t routinely filled up with five nominees because some much-too-small arbitrary threshold had been reached.
There were three nominees in the category that year, out of a field of eleven. And even that was not quite a small enough number to keep away from something a bit like a filler nomination (looking at the list, the fact that Satoshi Kon could have two eligible titles in Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers, and swing a nomination for neither of them, depresses me something fierce). But it’s not a bad mix of films at all, anchored by two films that have survived the intervening decade as bona-fide classics of the medium, and one film that… hasn’t, though it’s clung to an appreciative cult.
Fish, Bear and Other after the jump
Far and away, the most apparently disposable of the three is Walt Disney Feature Animation’s Brother Bear, a movie that had the deeply unfortunate distinction of being the first movie released after the company announced that they’d be gutting their traditional animation program to focus on computer-animated films. This gave it, at the time, an unenviable and probably fatal status as the studio’s great farewell to the artform it had done so much to develop over the preceding 75 years.
And when that’s the baggage that you bring to the movie, boy, does it ever fail to live up to your expectations. Compared to a lot of what Disney was up to in the 2000s, Brother Bear really isn’t all that bad (hi, Chicken Little), and from a design standpoint, it’s among their best films of the decade. Using an aspect ratio shift and a suddenly brightened color palette to visually dramatize the hero’s transformation from human to bear is one of the most concise and efficient gestures in any Disney film of that generation. And the animals are all pretty fantastic examples of adding just enough human detail to a character design to make them relatable, without tipping into anthropomorphism.
That being said, the script, with its frequent, clumsy attempts to mimic The Lion King, is dispiriting and somewhat aimless, and the characters are bland Disney clichés. It’s thin filmmaking even if it’s better than you remember (or more likely, do not remember), but it’s everybody’s third favorite of the nominees for a reason.
Personally, I love Sylvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville best of the 2003 vintage, and indeed of all animated features from the 2000s. The deadpan pantomime, grotesque caricatures, and random tangents in the plot are different from just about anything else out there, but it’s not just different for the sake of it. It’s too aesthetically unified for that to be the case.
I have absolutely no room to talk about the film aging well, given that I watch it almost every year, but time and familiarity have not dulled the charming weirdness of it. The film plays by a very unique rulebook, telling a story whose dramatic stakes are always a little bit fuzzy and exploring a world that doesn’t make any sense, but Chomet makes it all work. What should be oppressively strange has instead a warm, handmade quality, and there’s too much personality to write it off as random weirdness. It’s one of the undeniable treasures of contemporary animation, and “Belleville Rendez-vous” was out-and-out robbed for the Best Song Oscar that year.
But, of course, the big dog in that year’s race was the ultimate winner, Finding Nemo. I assume I don’t need to say more – the most financially successful film Pixar released prior to Toy Story 3, and plenty of folks’ pick for the studio’s best movie ever. It’s not mine, but I can readily understand how it would engender that kind of enthusiasm. There’s the scope of the film, for one thing: a movie that takes place in an apparently boundless ocean (beautifully realized by the animators) wins plenty of points for sheer ambition. It’s also one of the best early example of Pixar’s skill for casting unexpected but terrifically well-chosen actors for its vocal cast: Ellen DeGeneres is rightly beloved for playing the addled blue tang Dory, but Albert Brooks’s neurotic clownfish Marlin is an even weirder choice for a kids’ film, and every bit as successful.
And that, in fact, is one of the secrets about Finding Nemo: it’s not necessarily as much of a “kids’ film” as it seems. This was the first movie where Pixar started making films of significantly more maturity and thematic complexity than anyone expected from American cartoons: themes about the difficulties of being a single parent, even now, seems like they should be completely off-limits for a movie about talking fish. And that, more than anything, I think is what made the film seem like such a watershed moment: it changed the rules about what animation could talk about, at least for a while (I’m not holding my breath for Finding Dory to reach quite the same level of sophistication). That’s on top of being one of the most gorgeous movies, animated or otherwise, of the 2000s.
It was Pixar’s first Animated Feature Oscar, and one of the most well-deserved they ever won. But let me open it up to all of you: what’s everyone else’s favorite movie of the 2003 Animated Film race? Any other worthy titles that you wish had managed a nomination?
Reader Comments (20)
Sorry to nitpick, but technically, "Monsters Inc" was Pixar's first Oscar (Best Original Song), unless you consider "Toy Story's" Special Achievement Award or any of its short films.
Triplets of Belleville was also my favorite of that crop -- such a weird movie and "weird" in the best possible way in that its strangeness felt so inherently in tune with itself, practically normative in context!
but over the years I've come to understand why people love Nemo so much. It's not close to my favorite Pixar but I get it now.
p.s. i have never seen Brother Bear but now i want to
all very good, with "finding nemo" still the best I think.
on the topic of pixar: I don't get the hype for recent pictures like "wall-e" and "up", which IMO would be 'brilliant' only if they were short movies - everyone knows which sequences should survive - ... "finding nemo", "ratatouille" and the toy stories are much better films as a whole).
Nat: I've seen it. It's...there's a bizarre kick of seeing Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas reprise the McKenzie brothers as a pair of talking moose, but that's the best thing I can say about it overall. However, I can't see The Lion King as it's main point of inspiration. With it's loose plotting, the general concept of "human trying to understand the animal world with child rearing involved" and the specific dual happening of the parental figure being some sort of bear in both cases (in Brother Bear's case a bear who used to be a human), it reads more like an attempt to comment on aspects of their earlier production of The Jungle Book.
Tim-considering these three films were such frontrunners that year, what is your guess of which title came in fourth?
This is my worst year for this category (I have only seen the one we all have seen), but the other two are on the Netflix list.
(I wish disney would return to traditional animation... I'm sort of tired of the post-shrek trend, I need 'earnest' back -- don't know if that's the word I meant)
marcelo: The last half of WALL-E isn't brilliant, sure, but it also doesn't committ an absolutely insane twist pulled straight out of nowhere of having the 100+ year old Charles Muntz turn out to be the villain of the piece and at least it manages to be brilliant for 45-60 minutes and they don't pull Up's crazy final act twist of having Charles Muntz actually be alive and not just having the Dogs be the villains. Because when we're trying to have a serious meditation on death and aging, someone managing to live isolated and alone in the treacherous areas of the jungle past the 100 year mark of his life is EXACTLY what we need for a villain. Do you see how insane the ending of Up is when you think about how much time has passed since Carl watched that scene of Muntz heading off to pursue vindication as a child?
i love Finding Nemo, but srsly this oscar belonged to Belleville... as the post say it's one of the most original animated movies of 2000's (and possibly ever IMO)
Volvagia, I think the weirder plot point of Up is that Muntz is the villain for wanting to take back the bird *alive,* this after the "hero" whacked a man with his cane and left the country to evade the law!
Both Belleville and Nemo are great and deserved nominations, but I do like Nemo better. I have a very soft spot for animated (or real) sea creatures since The Little Mermaid.
As for Belleville, it shares wonderful weird imagination but I did like The Illusionist a lot more. Found it deeply moving.
John T- That's a fantastic question. Brother Bear and Nemo suck up so much of the oxygen out of that list as far as being mainstream and recognizable, I can only guess at what might have been on the bubble, but I feel like Tokyo Godfathers would have been the next foreign film with the right buzz and exposure, and Rugrats Go Wild was surely the American film with the most prestige after the big two.
Evan: I'd have been willing to be fair with the "flees the country to evade the law thing", due to it tying in to Ellie and an aspect of Carl's arc being how he grows as a person, even in the end phases of his life. Actually solid concept work there. I agree Muntz's motivation is bizarre too (Clayton (the most easily comparable villain), was at least A HUNTER), it's just...not as bizarre, to me, as him being alive at all.
Tim: Agreed on Rugrats Go Wild, but that's mostly due to the fact that, most likely, The Wild Thornberry's holds up better to adults more than Rugrats.
correction: 'a kiss at the end of the rainbow' was the out-and-out robbed song of that year
Triplets of Belleville definitely has a special place in my heart, but Finding Nemo is just so eye-poppingly gorgeous and well-constructed that I would have to give it the win. I love that both films are totally impressive for completely different reasons, though.
And par3182 is right. Kiss at the End of the Rainbow is perfect and was robbed. THE END.
Glad to see a post from my favourite category: animation. 2003 is indeed a mixed bag, due to the fact they managed to exclude both Satoshi Kon films (but for Oscar, unless you are Hayao Miyazaki, your anime would not be nominated). The Triplets of Beleville was my pick of thhis year too, it's one of the finest animated film on the last decade. Finding Nemo is a crowd-pleaser, but ny heart would go for Tokyo Godfather, such a warm and uplifting movie (that's the film that I became a hard fan of Satoshi Kon, as different as other films from his career, it's still unmistakably a Satoshi Kon film. Other film I would add is Intestella 5555 - it's good for what it is, an animated visual of a soundtrack, and what a wonderful soundtrack (for people who don't know, Daft Punk changed the way dance music progress on the last 15 years.
How about Sinbad Legend of Seven Seas, i know it falls under the same leaguewith Brother Bear (aka it's better than you remember) but I didn't see it on the submission list.
FINDING NEMO was my favourite of that year (BELLEVILLE close behind). I'd have given Chomet the Oscar for THE ILLUSIONIST, however.
I hate Finding Nemo. I think the whole thing is just dire. I would have walked out if Ellen DeGeneres were not so amazing as Dory. I mean, I know killing off a parent is standard for children's films, but the whole thing opens with a massacre. I was supposed to care for Nemo and his father by default? There are moments I like--the seagulls are cute, I like the turtle sequence, and that big Dory scene with the jellyfish is fantastic--but the rest just left me asking why.
Now Triplets de Belleville. That's an animated film you can sink your teeth into. One of my favorites. Fantastic music, great humor, and a really strong build of tension going into that final chase scene.
As for Brother Bear, there really weren't a lot of options that year for the category. Millenium Actress got its US theatrical debut but wasn't eligible because it was so removed from the original release date in Japan. There was some really cool foreign animation, but it had no buzz (and might not have even been eligible). The Annies went big on Brother Bear because of the visual quality and the category was still selected by animation members of the Academy.
I stand corrected on Millennium Actress. Now I'm even more confused.
I was gonna say, I thought Millennium Actress was clearly the 4th place finisher since it got key nods at the Annies that year and had some small buzz based on critical reaction. I think what killed it from actually getting nominated was its release date and the fact that it wasn't a Ghibli movie unfortunately.
If it had, I think we would've been looking at the strongest lineup this category would've ever made, even over the years now.