''Ah, L'Amour'' (1995) is Don Hertzfeldt's first 16mm student

animated short Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...

film, completed at the age of 18 at

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. Though produced for a beginning film class and never meant to be exhibited, the short had a long life at animation festivals, launching Hertzfeldt into cult status at a young age. In 1998, the short won the Grand Prize Award for "World's Funniest Cartoon" from the

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. The cartoon is a satire of toxic men. In it, a pickup artist is violently torn apart by the women he targets, viewed only through his own one-sided, ridiculously misogynistic point of view. Hertzfeldt plays the part of a mentally unwell animator who's losing his grip on his sanity while animating, an idea he'd later revisit in other early "meta" shorts ''Genre'' and ''Rejected''. The soundtrack is acoustic guitar music, performed by Hertzfeldt on a boom box in his dorm room.

Release

In the 1990s, the cartoon screened nationwide in theaters as part of the

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tour. In 2005, the original 16mm negative was digitally restored and remastered for release on the extensive "Bitter Films Volume 1" DVD compilation of Hertzfeldt's 1995-2005 films. For the DVD, Hertzfeldt performed an alternate guitar soundtrack as a special feature, approximately 10 years after recording the original. Other special features for ''Ah L'Amour'' include Don's original production sketches and notes, as well as a very rare 1993 video short that Don created in high school that is a precursor to the film.

References

External links

* Short films directed by Don Hertzfeldt American student films American animated short films Animated films without speech 1995 animated films 1995 films 1990s animated short films 1990s American animated films {{1990s-short-animation-film-stub