Ah L'amour
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''Ah, L'Amour'' (1995, ) is
Don Hertzfeldt Don Hertzfeldt (born August 1, 1976) is an American animator, writer, and independent filmmaker. He is a two-time Academy Award nominee who is best known for the animated films ''It's Such a Beautiful Day (film), It's Such a Beautiful Day'', the ...
's first 16mm student animated short film, completed at the age of 18 at
UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UCSB joined ...
. 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
HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.


Summary

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''.


Music

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 Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation 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

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ah, L'amour Short films directed by Don Hertzfeldt American student films American animated short films Animated films without speech 1995 American animated short films 1995 films 1990s American animated films