Your Face
Your Face is a 1987 animated short film by Bill Plympton.[1] It involves a man seated in a chair crooning about the face of his lover, and as he sings, his own face starts to distort in various ways. His song ends abruptly when a mouth opens in the floor and swallows him and the chair whole; after the closing credits, the mouth reappears and licks its lips.
Your Face | |
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Directed by | Bill Plympton |
Music by | Maureen McElheron |
Production company | Plymptoons Studio |
Release date |
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Running time | 3 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Music
The vocals were that of Maureen McElheron, known for composing the songs in The Tune, also by Bill Plympton.[2] After the song was recorded,[3] it was slowed by one-third, giving the desired and unusual effect, also making the voice more masculine.[4] His face is distorted into many different shapes, such as a balloon, a cube and an ice cream cone.
Lyrics
The song is all original,[5] made specifically for this short film, and the lyrics depict a metaphorical description of someone's face by using musical vocabulary to describe the beauty of their features.[6]
Legacy
The short received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 60th Academy Awards.[7][8][9]
A variation of this short was used as the couch gag on The Simpsons's 29th season episode "3 Scenes Plus a Tag from a Marriage", with Homer Simpson's face replacing the original man, and Dan Castellaneta singing the vocals. This version ends with the Simpson family sitting on their living room couch.[10]
Your Face was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.[11]
References
- Films by Bill Plympton - The Criterion Channel
- Robinson, Tasha (September 14, 2012). "In 1992, Bill Plympton made history by drawing an entire film on his own". The A.V. Club. Retrieved April 18, 2018.
- Maureen McElheron - Your Face (speed version)-YouTube
- Your Face by Maureen McElheron- Topic on YouTube
- Your Face - Films by Bill Plympton - The Criterion Channel
- Oddball Films: Metamorphic Cinema: Meditations on Transformation - Thur. May 12th - 8PM
- The Man Who Planted Trees Wins Animated Short: 1988 Oscars
- Pond, Steve (November 30, 2010). "Shortlist for Oscar Animated Shorts Includes Pixar, Bill Plympton". TheWrap. Retrieved April 18, 2018.
- "The 60th Academy Awards (1988) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 16 October 2011.
- Perkins, Dennis (March 25, 2018). "Another retcon of Marge and Homer's marriage leaves us wondering who these impostor Simpsons are". The A.V. Club. Retrieved April 18, 2018.
- "Preserved Projects". Academy Film Archive.