The Dot and the Line
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| The Dot and the Line A Romance in Lower Mathematics |
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 Screenshots from the award-winning short |
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| Directed by | Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble |
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| Produced by | Chuck Jones and Les Goldman |
| Story by | Norton Juster (book and screenplay) |
| Narrated by | Robert Morley |
| Music by | Eugene Poddany |
| Animation by | Don Townsley (supervising animator) Ken Harris Ben Washam Dick Thompson Tom Ray Philip Roman |
| Backgrounds by | Philip DeGuard and Don Morgan |
| Studio | MGM Animation/Visual Arts |
| Distributed by | Metro Goldwyn Mayer |
| Release date(s) | December 31, 1965 |
| Color process | Metrocolor |
| Running time | 10:00 (one reel) |
| Country |  |
| Language | English |
The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (ISBN 1-58717-066-3) is a book written and illustrated by Norton Juster, first published by Random House in 1963. The title is a reference to Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott.
In 1965, famed animator Chuck Jones and the MGM Animation/Visual Arts studio adapted The Dot and the Line into a 10-minute animated short film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, narrated by Robert Morley. The Dot and the Line won the 1965 Academy Award for Animated Short Film. It was entered into the Short Film Palme d'Or competition at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. [1] Five years later, Jones turned another Juster book into an animated feature film, The Phantom Tollbooth. A musical treatment followed in 2005 by Robert Xavier Rodriguez.
The cartoon was released as a special feature on the The Glass Bottom Boat DVD in 2005. The cartoon is also featured on the 2008 release of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection
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[edit] Story
The story details a straight line who falls in love with a dot. The dot, finding the line to be stiff, dull, and conventional, turns her affections toward a wild and unkempt squiggle. The line, unable to fall out of love and willing to do whatever it takes to win the dot's affection, manages to bend himself, giving rise to shapes so complex he has to letter his sides and angles to keep his place. The dot realizes that she has made a mistake: what she had seen in the squiggle to be freedom and joy was nothing more than chaos and sloth. The line, on the other hand, has much more to offer her. In the end she decides to accompany the line, instead.
[edit] Notes
- This was the final non-Tom and Jerry animated short subject to be released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and the only one post-1958.
- This was also the final award for an animated short for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Chuck Jones' only one as a producer.
[edit] References
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: The Dot and the Line". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/2820/year/1966.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-08.
[edit] External links
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