Whenever conversation lulls on the production set or at parties or at pre or post shoot meals with clients, I am invariably asked the same question. “So, who’s your favorite director? I understand, after all, it’s what I do and I am the opinionated sort. (Still, I do not remember ever asking my clients about their favorite marketing director. Perhaps I should.) I really do not mind the question though, because I have an answer and I do not mind telling anyone foolish enough to feign interest. Now, I love Kubrick, David Lean, Akira Kurosawa, Coppola, Capra and Billy Wilder. The Coen brothers are gods. But none of them touch my heart like my favorite director, Chuck Jones.
If you don’t know, and you should, Jones was the genius director of many Warner Brothers Looney Tunes classic cartoons as well as the spectacular, “The Grinch who Stole Christmas”. Known for his deft comic timing and stylized backgrounds, Jones created the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote (super genius), Pepe Lepew, Marvin Martian and Michigan J. Frog. Perhaps more importantly he refined, perhaps defined the personalities of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd. The fact that Jones won three Oscars is remarkable only because it means that the Academy stiffed him at least half a dozen times. Nine of his works are included in the 50 greatest cartoons of all time (as selected by 1000 animation professionals and critics) including four of the top five and the overall number one selection, “What’s Opera, Doc?”
Think cartoons are just kids stuff? He made a cartoon skewing Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” and Disney’s “Fantasia”… at the same time! Check out the details in Jones’ work, the impressionistic backgrounds in Pepe Lepew, the timing, slapstick and dialog in “Duck Amok” and “Rabbit Seasoning” (“Pronoun trouble.”), the music and shadows in “What’s Opera, Doc?, the pantomime of “Feed the Kitty” the Road Runner series and “One Froggy Evening”. Directing is all about making choices and Chuck Jones made fantastic choices in angles, composition, expressions, timing, music and casting (can you imagine anyone but Boris Karloff as the Grinch?). I could go on and on but I’ll give the last word to Chuck, “These cartoons were never made for children. Nor were they made for adults. They were made for me.”