Closed Mondays
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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 an 11-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 opens with the words "Closed Mondays" in white on a black background filling the screen, then the camera pulls out to show that the words are part of a sign that reads:
| Aug 15-Oct 3 - One Woman Show - Celia Crazelsnuk Oct 3 - March 19 Closed Mondays |
It is night. A small art gallery stands with its door slightly ajar and the lights on. 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 his 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 looks again. The music begins to play and a miniature man resembling the drunk skips down the stairs, stands on one of the circling musical notes, rides it for a while, then continues 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 ("What was that guy thinking of?!") 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 its creators and carries out its "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 into a shapeless mass of clay.
The drunk walks away after making another comment ("Blabbermouth computer!") 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 woman kneeling on a castle floor. She holds a brush in her hand and a bucket is beside 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. He is a piece of statuary, and returns to his inanimate state before reaching the door.
The credits read:
- Voices by Todd Oleson & Molly Johnson
- Music by Bill Scream
- Created by Will Vinton & Bob Gardiner
