Looking at Pixar’s Soul
Soul (Pete Docter, 2020) - Teaser Trailer.
Pixar’s much-delayed computer-animated fantasy film, Soul (Pete Docter, 2020), was originally scheduled for theatrical release in the U.S. on June 19, 2020, yet was finally released on the Disney+ platform almost a year ago in December 2020. The story follows the life of a middle school music teacher named Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) who falls down a manhole on the streets of New York City into another world, a world in which his soul is separated from his body. As part of its striking visual style, Soul animates and visualises the ‘soul’, a concept that is otherwise not seen by and intangible to the human eye. The soul exists in the film as a behind-the-scenes realm which is created in ways that serve to represent our subconscious and non-physical mind. Souls are prepared in this version of reality to join their human (physical) body in the real world.
Soul is a rich case study to explore digital animation’s potential as a creative medium and technology; Pixar’s film certainly demonstrates the capacity of digital animation to recreate both real and more surreal entities and environments. A look back at the very first teaser trailer for Soul (originally released in March 2020 - see right), for example, immediately anticipated how the film would appear to exploit two juxtaposed forms of graphic representation: firstly, animation’s “orthodox” (Wells 1998, 36) and realistic depictions of characters and settings, and secondly, the medium’s more rhetorical function that renders the invisible and the unknown altogether more tangible. This post will examine Soul’s broader representation of contrasted yet co-existing realities in varying aesthetic styles, which fully exploits animation’s ability as a versatile and innovative creative medium. One aesthetic style used in the film caters to creating imagery that is familiar to the audience in its authenticity and compliance with the rigid laws of reality, while the other warps these laws through experimentation with gravity, volume and texture. Although writing in relation to animated documentary, Anabelle Honess Roe’s proposed categorisation of mimetic and non-mimetic substitutions, with mimetic substitution portraying the already known while non-mimetic substitution following premises of suggestion, plasmaticness and abstraction (Honess Roe 2011, 228), can thus be extended to mainstream and non-documentary feature film production, and provide a useful way of distinguishing between the variant aesthetic styles that appear within the film.
From its very start, Soul immediately shows animation’s potential for replicating the real, the known and the tangible with its photo realist visual style, presenting the architecture and skyline of New York city filled with busy commuters rushing to work. Photorealistic animation strives to achieve computer simulations that are totally indistinguishable from photographs or films (Darley 1997, 22). Soul is evidently based on the premise of such visual familiarity alongside the familiarity of the workings and aesthetics of the city, the behaviour and appearance of humans, and the voices and sounds of contemporary culture. Common and recognisable elements flow naturally from pre-established social understandings. This seems not a suggested or fantastical version of reality, but a designated photo- or “hyper-realist” animated representation subject to the conventional physical laws of the real world. Hyper-realist animation, as defined by Paul Wells, encompasses animation that corresponds to the design, context and action within the live-action film’s representation of reality (1998, 26). As a result, the viewer is entirely aware of the realism of the scene taking place due to the identifiable configuration and representational simulation of the natural world. This can be likened to Honess Roe’s category of “mimetic substitution” (2011, 227-228) as Soul seems to offer us knowledge about the pre-known and the pre-established, as opposed to a “non-mimetic substitution” which ‘suggests’ rather than ‘dictates’ meaning.
Fig. 1 - Soul’s stylistic animation.
Despite animation’s relationship to realism remaining somewhat provocative, with scholars as far back as Al Hirschfield (1938, 4) describing the medium as “purely caricature” and “a virus of literalness,” Soul celebrates the technical ability of modern-day animation and digital computer techniques to achieve ever increasing levels of verisimilitude. The film even demonstrates how hyperrealist animation strengthens the relationship between the spectator and the creator. Lisa Purse argues that photorealist impressions occur in the space directly in front of the camera, what she refers to as the illusion of photographic indexicality (2013, 7). Both the physical and the psychological distance is reduced, not only as Soul corresponds to the design, context and action within our everyday representations of reality, but pictorial realism creates the illusion of scenes happening in a ‘real-world’ right in front of the camera. Although we understand that the setting of Soul is not actually the streets of New York City, we are ready to accept it as a fictional representation of this true environment. This use of digital imaging for Soul’s representations of reality create a clear and ‘dictated’ relationship between the spectator and the creator, a connection which will begin to destabilise as Soul’s stylistic animation shifts to more “plasmatic” (to use Sergei Eisenstein’s term) and abstract forms of representation (Fig. 1).
Soul operates and interacts between both the realms of realistic and abstract animation by portraying a faithful representation of the real world alongside a more interpretive reality. This dichotomy includes the film’s depiction of race and the authenticity given to its representation of black culture. Joe Gardner, Soul’s main protagonist, is voiced by Jamie Foxx, and is the first black lead to feature in a Pixar film. Honess Roe posits that animation as a medium “invites us to imagine […] to put something of ourselves into what we see on screen […] to make connections between non-realist images and reality” (Honess Roe 2011, 217). The hyper realistic effect of digital animation in Soul can, however, create an accurate, but more importantly positive, depiction of black culture. Mihaela Mihailova argues that animation’s photorealist representations of the physical world, which Honess Roe likens to mimetic substitutions, is involved in “transcending the goal of capturing reality”, instead “focuses on recreating it” (Mihailova 2018, 51). Soul recreates the vibrancy and reality of black culture in a positive light: when Joe looks proudly at himself in the mirror before going on stage, the audience’s response of a standing ovation as the spotlight illuminates the jazz musicians as they perform. When this same scene appears in the trailer, the quick succession of snapshots incites a sense of excitement both surrounding and procured by blackness and jazz. Pixar’s choice of computer-generated realism, a form of digital animation that Mihailova described as “imitating representational strategies of live-action cinema and photographic imagery” (Mihailova 2018, 51) is imperative to this approach. Black culture is accurately represented in this moment, and while not sidestepping them entirely throughout the film, reflects how Soul intends to move past and highly problematic depictions of blackness as non-human, stereotyped characters.
Soul’s more abstract visual style later in the film fits with what Suzanne Buchan discusses as animation’s unlimited potential to “visually represent events and forms that have little or no relation to our experience of the real world” (2013, 2). Pixar’s film portrays purposefully unrealistic, plasmatic and distorted characters which represent the unreal, the unknown and the unestablished elements of reality. The different displays of both 3D and 2D character artistic styles too create a fantastic animation mode that enables a “comment on realism by rejecting realism entirely as an ideologically charged coercion of commonly” (Wells 1998, 44). Juvenile souls and mature souls are distinguished through animation’s ability to manipulate several stylistic features simultaneously: the child represented through fluid and funny lines with bright colours, while the wiser and older soul remains within stricter straight and white flat lines. Soul’s experimental frame presents reality through a lens of surrealism that bears little resemblance to the physical world. This can further be understood in relation to Honess Roe’s argument about “non-mimetic substitution” and evocative function attached strictly to animated documentary by surpassing the simple abstract representation of the real world, and instead representing the metaphysics of the unknown world: it is based not upon pre-established and pre-known versions of experience (mimetic substitutions), but in fact suggestions and expressions of unknown realities (non-mimetic). The animation medium allows for an expression that is beyond any action lived. By using non-figurative elements to talk about realistic subject matter, animation here reveals its rhetorical function via metamorphosis, and within Soul, this transformative effect enables the smooth transition and interaction between humans and souls. Soul characters are subject to different distortions, showing how Pixar explore the use of the body as a site of play, liberated from reality constraints and ultimately opening up a path to explore this metaphysical topic.
Fig. 2 - Pixar’s Soul.
By balancing unrealistic, plasmatic and abstract ideas (non-mimetic substitutions) with realistic and orthodox representations (mimetic-substitutions), Soul’s style of animation portrays a paradox of realities. Digital animation enables the physical representation of higher powers or beings in a way that has not been done before in animated film (in The Prince of Egypt (Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner & Simon Wells, 1998), for example, the presence of God as a higher power is only made known through a voiceover). In Soul, however, the presence of a higher being is implied through the abstract landscapes both physically and symbolically far away from the streets of New York City: the idea of the ‘above’ is depicted as a hole in the universe hovering above the Earth, which can be seen far below, demonstrating physical distance between both realms. The physical depiction suggests a symbolic superiority of one realm over the other, implying the idea that our Earth remains a playing field for the higher power. This abstract imagery afforded by animation contains strong links to practiced religious ideas concerning the existence of our spiritual and immortal soul and its physicality being judged by a higher power.
Soul similarly represents the symbolic idea of a ‘higher force’ through the figures composed by white lines. The “plasmaticness” of these figures and the abstract landscape they inhabit further emphasizes their extraordinary or other-worldly nature. By rendering visible what we cannot see in the world we live in, that which is photo realistically recreated in both landscape (New York) and body, animation allows our imagination to believe in what we see. Dudley Andrew states that animation should be assessed by its efforts of response to the imagination which is liberated from mundane constraints (2010, 30). When one is faced with representations of primarily abstract ideas, such as God, souls and spirits, we agree with the nature of their representation as unrealistic and plasmatic. This includes Soul’s abstract and plasmatic depiction of ‘the above,’ the omnipotent white-lined characters and symbolic white light (Fig. 2), and the metaphorical concept of the souls ‘falling’ from the sky to join their human counterparts. The audience accepts the plasmatic and abstract visualization of a landscape inhabited by equally plasmatic and abstract beings of a higher power as potentially true. Soul therefore demonstrates how as a medium of fantasy, the building of worlds in animation can create a place for the unseen, the unknown and the unreal aspects of society to exist, rendering our overall belief and imagination of them easier.
Soul fully considers the potential of animation as a creative medium. The film presents both a faithful representation of the physical world and a more interpretive imaginary and version of reality, which despite their underlying differences of rendition, co-exist as part of the film’s narrative structure. In Soul’s depiction of a photo-realist world, animation’s use of CGI is celebrated as a conceivable logic for rendering these images as distinct and recognisable. Yet its more abstract and plasmatic forms of digital animation also place importance upon the representation of the unconscious, the intangible and the metaphysical, primarily the soul and the setting of the ‘above’. Although underlying abstract concepts, Soul represents the intangible and the fantasy of the unknown through malleable shapes, fluid movements and aspects of light to demonstrate animation’s suggestive and rhetorical function. Soul therefore makes explicit computer animation’s ability and potential as a creative medium by the representation of two juxtaposed registers, who do not overrule or compete with another, but in fact, work in harmony to uphold each other.
**Article published: October 15, 2021**
(The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of Emma Neveux and Hannah Sapira to the development of this blog post).
References
Andrew, Dudley. 2010. What Cinema Is! Bazin’s Quest and its Charge. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
Breaux, Richard M. 2010. “After 75 Years of Magic: Disney Answers Its Critics, Rewrites African American History, and Cashes In on Its Racist Past.” Journal of African American Studies 14, no. 4: 398–416.
Buchan, Suzanne. 2013. “Introduction: Pervasive Animation.” In Pervasive Animation, edited by Suzanne Buchan, 1-22. New York: Routledge
Bolton, Robert. 1978. “Aristotle’s definitions of the soul: De A nima II, 1-3.” Phronesis, 23, no. 3: 258-278.
Cohen, Karl F. 1997. Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America. North Carolina: McFarland & Company.
Darley, A. 1997. “Second Order Realism and Post-modern Aesthetics in Computer Animation.” In A Reader in Animation Studies, edited by Jayne Pilling, 16-24. Sydney: John Libbey Publishing.
Hirschfeld, Al. 1938. “An Artist Contests Mr. Disney.” The New York Times (January 30), available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1938/01/30/archives/an-artist-contests-mr-disney.html.
Honess Roe, Annabelle. 2011. “Absence, Excess and Epistemological Expansion: Towards a Framework for the Study of Animated Documentary.” animation: an interdisciplinary journal 6, no. 3: 215–230.
Lorenz, Hendrik, 2009. “Ancient Theories of Soul,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition), available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2009/entries/ancient-soul/.
Mihailova, Mihaela. 2018. “Realism and Animation.” In The Animation Studies Reader, edited by Nichola Dobson, Annabelle Honess Roe, Amy Ratelle and Caroline Ruddell, 47-58. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Purse, Lisa. 2013. Digital Imaging In Popular Cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Wells, Paul. 1998. Understanding Animation. London: Routledge.
Biographies
Francesca Lowney recently graduated with a BA Liberal Arts (Majoring in Digital Culture) from King’s College London, and is currently studying a foundation year in animation at the Atelier des Sèvres in Paris. Charlotte Stones also graduated from the Liberal Arts programme at King’s, specialising in History.