Closed Mondays (film)
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| Closed Mondays | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Bob Gardiner Will Vinton |
| Release date(s) | 1974 |
| Running time | 11 mins |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Closed Mondays is a 9-minute animated film, using animated 3-dimensional clay figures, co-created by Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner in 1974. It was produced by Lighthouse Productions, released by Pyramid Films in the USA, and won an Academy Award for Animated Short Film.
[edit] Plot Summary
The film starts with the words Closed Mondays in white on a black background, then the scene moves out to show a sign that reads:
Aug 15-Oct 3
- One Woman Show -
Celia Crazelsnuk
Oct 3 - March 19
-Usual Crap-
Closed Mondays
It's night and there is a small art gallery with the lights on and the door is slightly open. A bulbous-nosed man with thinning grey hair, holding a brown bottle and apparently drunk, wanders in.
As he shuffles through the gallery a small abstract sculpture transforms and imitates the man behind his back and returns to its original shape without him noticing.
The drunk sees a picture of colorful musical notes that form a circle around a jagged shape like a red staircase in the middle of the picture. The picture moves to upbeat music for a moment and then returns to normal. Doubting his own eyes the man look again. The music begins to play and a small man that looks like the drunk skips down the stairs, stands on one of the circling musical notes, rides it for a while, then continuing down the stairs to the bottom. The entire picture becomes two abstract color/clay blobs that pulsate to the music.
Suddenly the music stops and the drunk is back in the gallery where he makes a critical comment and staggers away.
The man sees a sculpture of a computer-like device with large lips and gages for eyes. He laughs at the sculpture and flips a lever that starts it. The sculpture begins speaking rapidly and says it's a replica of the model 505 type "P" electro brain, claims to be far superior it's creators and carries out it's infinite mutation program. The computer begins to stutter as it tries to say it has a short circuit and an error before changing into a talking globe, a talking apple, a colorful bust of Albert Einstein, a television and finally a hand with smaller hands at the end of each of the fingers before entirely melting down.
The drunk walks away after making another comment and is frightened by some jungle animals reaching through a glassless window pane that turns out to being a harmless painting.
Feeling distressed the drunk walks on where he sees a painting of a medieval looking woman kneeling on a castle floor with a brush in her hand and a bucket behind her. The drunk asks her, "Hey...wassa matter?" she weeps and tells him, "Oh if my master could have seen more of the beauty in life... Here I am on my knees doomed to wear this sorrowful face, scrubbing this cold stone floor forever and forever and forever..." Then the painting returns to normal.
The drunk sees the still open door and runs to get out of the gallery but is stopped just before he gets there.
The credits read:
Voices by Todd Oleson & Molly Johnson
Music by Bill Scream
Created by Will Vinton & Bob Gardiner
