Ranking : Ralph Bakshi (1938 -present)
August was progressing, and I found myself in a strange situation where I’d started diving into the catalogs of Andrei Tarkovsy, Mel Brooks and Kathryn Bigelow, but was unable to get any traction on a proper set of rankings. Fearing burnout, I was on the verge of settling for some off the cuff, space-holder of a ranking, like ranking several partial catalogs of directors I need to watch in total, or (God forbid) ranking the directors I’ve previously ranked.
Then, in proper YouTube junkie fashion, inspiration struck, this time in the form of the Folding Ideas channel. Dan, aka Foldable Human, has a wealth of wonderful content on his YouTube page, but when I saw his Ralph Bakshi and The Lord of the Rings video post, I immediately knew who was next in line for the ranking treatment : famed counterculture advocate and adult animation pioneer Ralph Bashki. After a glimpse at his catalog, I knew it was meant to be, as I either owned or had seen everything he directed, and in true DOOMonFILM fashion, had even errantly attributed a few films to him that he had absolutely no involvement in.
When it comes to Bakshi, many things immediately come to mind : rotoscoped animation, harsh race depictions, fantastic music, deeply compelling fantasy and sexually-charged images are all staples of the Bakshi aesthetic. Controversy followed Bakshi for much of the early portion of his career, and more than one of his films found cult success after being deemed box office failures. His interpretation of The Lord of the Rings stood for generations as the definitive visual reference, and his animated take on Fritz the Cat was mutually beneficial, as it made Fritz a more famous character while skyrocketing Bakshi’s career into high gear. His real life persona matches the fantastic nature of his content creation, and Bakshi has never been known as one to hold his opinion to himself or bite his tongue.
With that being said, it’s time to jump into the Ralph Bakshi catalog and rank the films in terms of my feelings on them. This is by no means meant to be a definitive or scholarly list, but rather, a personal share meant to spark conversations. Please enjoy, and don’t hesitate to share your opinions on the legend that is Ralph Bakshi as well.
9. Wizards (1977)
Spoiler alert : as adept as Ralph Bakshi is at science-fiction and fantasy, they really aren’t my cup of tea. In the case of Wizards, the premise is very interesting in terms of post-apocalyptic wizardry and warfare, with one side representing the “natural” while the other represents the industrial. In terms of aesthetic, the film is quite dark, pulling off of some of the same energy that would eventually find its way into the anthology film Heavy Metal, which draws clear inspiration in terms of style and tone from the rotoscope-based work of Bakshi. Perhaps for me, the breadth of the world presented dwarves (no pun intended) the actual presentation, which essentially plays out like a psychedelic storybook. All of Bakshi’s work is worth investigating, Wizards included, but for me, I will need more time with it in order for it to properly resonate.
8. The Lord of the Rings (1978)
Though Cool World and Fritz the Cat may give it a run for its money, it’d be an easy argument to state that The Lord of the Rings is the most universally well-known Ralph Bakshi film. Standing as the first on-screen adaptation of the famous Tolkein epic in the wake of a long legal battle to save the property from public domain, the film is a relatively faithful adaptation of its source material. That being said, it appears that Bakshi and the powers that be may have had different ideas about the production going into it, as the film feels like a series of shorter films (making it true to the three books) rather than a coherent single tale. This is speculation on my end, but it’s possible that this shortened scope may have created pressure on the production end, which is evident when it becomes apparent how many different options are used to tell the story that aren’t Bakshi’s traditional rotoscope. This theoretical rush on production also shows in the battle sequences, and with the scale and scope already having been shrunk due to budgetary purposes, having half-hearted swordsmanship makes sequences that are meant to pop fall flat. If you’re curious about this Tolkein epic but you don’t feel like reading three books or essentially watching a day’s worth of Peter Jackson films, then the Bakshi version will certainly suffice, but if you’re on a Bakshi hunt, there are better films out there in my opinion.
7. Fire and Ice (1983)
Of all the Bakshi fantasy offerings, Fire and Ice is far and away the style champion. The combination of Ralph Bakshi animation and Frank Frazetta illustration is stunning, and all of the main character designs are instantly iconic. The juxtaposition of opposite elements (fire and ice, in this case) works a bit better than the nature versus technology setup of Wizards, and the story is much more direct, with this streamlined nature providing the narrative with a natural momentum that pushes Lam’s hero’s journey forward. The symbolism of Darkwolf as a sort of warrior-cupid figure is an interesting insertion as well. As previously stated, my preferred Bakshi is the urban spectrum of his catalog, but if I had to choose one Bakshi fantasy film, it’s Fire and Ice, hands down.
6. Hey Good Lookin’ (1982)
By the 1980′s, Ralph Bakshi had slightly taken the gas off of his urban stereotypes, descending from the heights of true indifference to the opinions of others on his work down to a level where it seemed Bakshi may have found personal entertainment in ruffling feathers. For Hey Good Lookin’, Bakshi symbolically turns his urban mirror on himself, delving into the world of greasers and mafiosos rather than that of Black culture via gangsters, drug dealers and thieves, which may have been in reaction to his extreme portrayals of the Brer Rabbit mythos in Coonskin. I never put two and two together until recently, but Hey Good Lookin’ borrows heavily from Mean Streets, right down to the Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro dynamic mirroring many aspects of the Charlie and Johnny Boy dynamic. The music is pretty good in this film, as it heavily borrows from the Scorsese approach as well... in all honesty, this film is essentially the Bakshi take on the Scorsese 1970s classics. Even the least interesting Bakshi urban picture has more heart, controversy and raw energy of any live-action gangster film, which makes Hey Good Lookin’ respectable, but Bakshi has definitely done the genre more justice with his previous works.
5. Coonskin (1975)
Coonskin holds many distinctions in the Bakshi catalog... it’s easily the most divisive of all his movies, it may be the most clever adaptation he has presented to the masses, and it easily contains the most high profile cast of all the Bakshi films, with Philip Michael Thomas, Charles Gordone, Barry White and Scatman Crothers all playing major roles in the film. With the imagery connected to the film, it’s easy to see why many people have a visceral knee-jerk reaction to the movie, many before having every even seen it, up to and including the Congress of Racial Equality. When the shock of the deeply black skin tones and reckless violent abandon wears off, however, we are left with a story very similar to Ridley Scott’s American Gangster that perfectly connects to the Brer Rabbit tales, resulting in a narrative that takes a deep and hard look at systematic racism, oppression and economic disparity, particularly how they are interconnected in a manner that traps the unfortunate. The symbolism and style are heavy in this film, and the imagery is extremely bold, but don’t let all of that fool you : Bakshi is in tune with the African-American experience in a way that many choose not to be, and even if his methods of creativity are tough to swallow at face value, his root message is one of understanding and deep sympathy.
4. Fritz the Cat (1972)
For many people my age, one of the first truly eye-opening pieces of media that blurred the line between the innocent world of children’s programming and the seedy underbelly of adult programming was the salacious Robert Crumb character turned Ralph Bakshi debut film Fritz the Cat. Meant explicitly to help push the medium of animation into a more adult realm, Bakshi used the character of Fritz the Cat to spin tales centering around aspects of college and counterculture life such as sex, drugs, profanity and generally reckless behavior rather than the innocent tales that animation generally presented up to that time. Bakshi’s career prior to Fritz the Cat centered heavily on animation grunt work, but with the film making $90 million worldwide on a $700,000 budget, Bakshi immediately became the rising star of the animation world, especially in regard to the world of adult animation, which he helped bring to the popular culture forefront. Fritz the Cat is a little rough around the edges, and at times it leans on very basic stereotypes like a crutch, but when its all said and done, the charm of Fritz the Cat rises above all other aspects. Though the sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat, is a bit more my speed, it unfortunately had nothing to do with the Crumb or Bakshi camps, hence its exclusion from this list.
3. Heavy Traffic (1973)
With a coming out party like Fritz the Cat under your belt, it would be easy to fall victim to the sophomore jinx. This wasn’t the case for Ralph Bakshi, however, as he made a deceivingly ambitious follow-up film that mixes aspects which would later appear in my two favorite Bakshi films. First and foremost, the film is a bold mixture of live action and animation, with an almost equal balance of the two shifting back and forth during the viewing experience. The blends go both ways (animated characters in real settings and vice-versa), and most are done in enough of an artistic manner to make the blends aesthetically pleasing rather than distracting. Secondly, the deeply personal story of the Michael character feels like he could exist in one of the earlier sequences of American Pop, with Michael’s tug of war between the Mafia life and his burgeoning love for Carol mirroring many of the oppositional pulls that nearly every member of the Belinsky bloodline face. The overarching symbiology of the crime-laden streets as a gigantic pinball machine works extremely well, as it not only mirrors the hectic hell that Michael and Carole face, but it bookends the movie’s live-action start and stop. This wasn’t the first Bakshi film I saw, but it was the first one that I owned when I found a cheap copy used in a record store, which instantly gives it a special place in my heart.
2. Cool World (1992)
For many people, this stands as the crown jewel of the Ralph Bakshi catalog. When it comes to mixing live-action and animation, Bakshi is no stranger, and while Who Framed Roger Rabbit? put itself light years ahead of anyone in the live-action/animation realm, Cool World marked an interesting return to form and amplification of style for Bakshi. Kim Basinger and Gabriel Byrne were already stars in their own right, and they certainly brought their star power to the table, but Brad Pitt found Cool World to be one in a series of breakout films for him, moving him from featured extra roles to supporting roles, and within 5 years of Cool World, lead roles. In terms of the narrative, Cool World serves as perhaps the most meta of all Bakshi creations, with the entire story centering around a cartoonist trapped in a world of his own creation, all of which is wrapped inside of a grief-driven escapist reaction to a traumatic event. Cool World marked a return to directing after a 9 year absence, and unfortunately, it’s been the last feature film the world has received from Ralph Bakshi. If we’re lucky, we may get one more project before he’s gone, but if Cool World marks the endpoint of the Bakshi animated journey, so be it in all of its glory and dark beauty.
1. American Pop (1981)
I’ve been a film fan for most of my life, but I’ve been a music fan my entire life, which makes it crystal clear why the infinitely moving American Pop stands as my favorite Ralph Bakshi film. The film centers around four generations of the Belinsky family, spanning from 1850s Imperial Russia right up to the modern day (or at least the day that was modern as of the film’s release). This journey of a Russian Jewish immigrant family into the U.S. directly reflects the personal experience of Bakshi, which in turn makes the story pop with a sincerity and honesty that is usually sacrificed for exploitation or the fantastic in other Bakshi films. As we march through the ages, the Belinsky family (and their musical talents) allow us to take a parallel journey with the growth of American music from the Vaudeville era, through the Jazz and Psychedelic Rock eras, and directly into the world of Punk music and Stadium Rock. The multitude of animation styles used in tandem with the wide variety of musical stimulus creates a pleasant assault on the senses, with several sequences having permanent real estate in my head to this day. I’ve shared American Pop with many, many friends, and as far as my sphere goes, the vote is in : American Pop is a bonafide classic that is more than deserving of your time and attention.
