Life After Death: How Animated Films Can Bring Life to the Character of Death

Abstract

This thesis examines the personification of death within a selection of animated films. Furthermore, it proposes a spectrum on which these varying personifications can be placed, ranging from death personified with a familiar body to its depiction with an unfamiliar shape. Familiarity, in this case, refers to the extent to which the physicality of the character can be recognised from reality. This is further explained through a comparative visual analysis of the personifications of death in three different animated films, all of which represent different points on the spectrum. The chosen case studies are Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022), The Prince of Egypt (1998) and Watership Down (1978). As death is an inherently uncanny topic (Freud 13), all three films are looked at through the lens of Freud’s theory on the uncanny to determine to what extent they convey these feelings. The Last Wish personifies death as the familiar end of the spectrum through an anthropomorphised animal character. This familiarity offers death in a more comprehensible and less uncanny manner to the audience. Death in The Prince of Egypt resembles the physically unfamiliar end of the spectrum, as it takes the shape of a mist-like spirit that cannot be found in reality. This is possible through animation’s ability to envision the invisible and incorporeal, which is utilised to instil complex emotions and metaphorical qualities within the character’s unfamiliar body. This confrontation with the complexity and inexplicability of death forefronts the uncanny on a stronger level. Watership Down functions within this thesis to illustrate the fluidity of the spectrum, as it personifies death as both familiar and unfamiliar. Within this film, the semi-familiar shape expresses the complex emotions and power dynamics that the unfamiliar shape of death can convey, as well as the accessibility that the familiar physicality can offer. The personification’s uncanniness, therefore, also differs at times. In conclusion, the three case studies reflect on the different ways in which death can be personified and the range of familiarity and uncanniness that this can represent.