What's Opera, Doc?
1957 · 7m · USA
Directed by Chuck Jones
Genres: animation, comedy, musical
Tones: darkly comic, theatrical, whimsical
Elmer Fudd, cast as a Wagnerian warrior, hunts Bugs Bunny through a lavish operatic parody of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, culminating in a tragic romance set to the "Ride of the Valkyries" and other iconic themes.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Wagner condensed into seven minutes of expressionist backdrop and operatic violence ending in actual tragedy — animation pretending to be high art and succeeding. Defying my own contrarianism on this one.
Jones compresses the Ring Cycle into seven minutes of expressionist painted skies and genuine tragic feeling, and 'Kill the Wabbit' is among the great cinematic punchlines. An incontestable summit.
Maurice Noble's expressionist sets — the elongated Wagnerian shadows, the tinted skies — make this feel like a stage production compressed to 7 minutes. The tragic ending is played straight, which is the joke and also genuinely affecting.
Reviews
One of Chuck Jones' masterpieces and a lot of animation buffs' choice for the greatest one-reel cartoon ever made.
For an animation fan, What's Opera, Doc? may be the best seven minutes you're liable to spend.
Festivals
- National Film Registry 1992, Inducted