OLD KNIGHT directed by Gabe Hordos
A short video:
OLD KNIGHT directed by Gabe Hordos
There is much one can learn, if one has eyes to see, about the basics of storytelling from this elegant, concise, perfect short cartoon.
All tales properly so called have 1) plot, 2) character, 3) setting, 4) style, and 5) theme.
Plot consists of a sympathetic character who has a worthy goal frustrated by an earnest obstacle. The plot is the step by step display of the conflict between goal and obstacle.
Here, in a single sentence, the conflict is established that the old knight is old, but is a knight, or was. His purpose in life is cut from him as the story opens.
This is made more poignant by the sad stoicism of the knight, sharply in contrast with the lilting boredom hence ingratitude of the young king dismissing him from service. He plods away through leafless wood. The simple draftsmanship and composition of the shots, the color palate, the background music all lends weight to the emotion being presented. As the weary knight is wandering, a sudden attack requires him once more to do his knightly duty, and his doubts are shown in the trembling of his hand. Whether and how he faces a danger clearly too great for him is the climax and resolution of the plot.
The character can be simple or complex, depending on how much of his personality needs to come on stage, but he must be solid-seeming.
To be ‘solid’ means he must seem real no matter how unrealistic he is, in order for him to come to life in the imaginations. Here, one would need a heart of stone not to sympathize with the war weary veteran being turned away from court once he is too old to be of use. By the unspoken empathy displayed by his comedically human steed, the pain and dignity of the old warrior is made to seem solid.
The art of using almost-human animals to express emotion and set mood is a art perfected by old school Disney in ages past, here used to good effect.
Horse and rider are real people.
“Real” does not here mean “realistic” — few men these days know knights, or meet talking horses.
But the audience of a story willingly enters a type of autohypnosis, where the imagination is allowed, in part, to usurp the reason, so that in one’s heart the thing seems real, even if one’s brain knows all is make believe. This is why grown men can cry at the death of Snow White in her glass coffin, despite that all is a colored cartoon. Here, the horse and rider are not real, but the camaraderie is akin to what call comrades know.
The setting here is from the fairy storybook we all seem to remember, even if we cannot remember first meeting it. The land where knights still fight dragons is beyond the fields we know, or just outside the grip of memory or history, yet somehow familiar. Here we are in the more perilous part of the Wood Perilous. No fair elfs are in sight, but the fiery dragon whose breath is death.
When dealing with characters or monsters who come from so deep a level in the racial consciousness, archetypal characters, the art consists of incarnating the monster in sufficient detail to remind one of the universal archetype, while making it concrete. This dragon need not speak like Smaug nor the Serpent of Eden to seem wily and malicious: such things can be shown by gesture, expression, action.
The style here is not as polished as what a team of animators working in Hollywood would do, but neither is it anything to scoff at. Every picture, every stroke, is placed to serve the purpose of the story, and the story is simple, so the backgrounds and characters need no complex shading and detailing. The tale is stark and dark, and so is the drawing. But note how well nuances of emotion are conveyed, just by a glance at a trembling hand turning into a scowl of courage.
The theme is a cheery one, despite the grim opening: that every man has one more fight in him, and friendship (even for a horse) can stir the hero from retirement when needed.
The old knight does not defeat the dragon, who, after all, was not the main opponent in the short tale. The opposition was in the heart of an old man who was told he was no longer of use. This same man jumped into the jaws of a dragon to save another.
And that is how one tells a story.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
