The Sinking of the Lusitania (Winsor McCay, 1918)
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- Опубликовано: 25 авг 2018
- The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) is a silent animated short film by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. It is a work of propaganda re-creating the never-photographed 1915 sinking of the British liner RMS Lusitania. At twelve minutes it has been called the longest work of animation at the time of its release. The film is the earliest surviving animated documentary and serious, dramatic work of animation.
In 1915 a German submarine torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania; 128 Americans were among the 1,198 dead. The event outraged McCay, but the newspapers of his employer William Randolph Hearst downplayed the event, as Hearst was opposed to the US joining World War I. McCay was required to illustrate anti-war and anti-British editorial cartoons for Hearst's papers. In 1916, McCay rebelled against his employer's stance and began work on the patriotic Sinking of the Lusitania on his own time with his own money.
The film followed McCay's earlier successes in animation: Little Nemo (1911), How a Mosquito Operates (1912), and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). McCay drew these earlier films on rice paper, onto which backgrounds had to be laboriously traced; The Sinking of the Lusitania was the first film McCay made using the new, more efficient cel technology. McCay and his assistants spent twenty-two months making the film. His subsequent animation output suffered setbacks, as the film was not as commercially successful as his earlier efforts, and Hearst put increased pressure on McCay to devote his time to editorial drawings.
‒Wikipedia
Music:
Johannes Brahms ‒ Tragic Overture (Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Musopen) 
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Can I just say how good this animation is for the time? Unless you were Max Fleischer, realistic human character animation just wasn't possible, Yet somehow Winsor McCay his team pulled it off! Not to mention, realistic animation in general, Of which no-one was doing (or at least, doing well) at that time? Bravo, Mr. McCay!
Fun fact about the Lusitania:
An incredibly well respected art dealer was onboard the vessel when she went down. He had one of the forward cabins... (i want to say a forward port side first class cabin near the first class dining room).
He was transporting several priceless European Masterworks that went down with the ship.
It is understood that he absolutely had these paintings securely sealed into airtight lead tubes that, in all likelihood may still exist buried in the depths of the hulk of the wreck herself.
We are talking over a billion dollars worth of art. She rests in about ~450ft of depth around the limits of professional diving.
Assuming the pressure wasnt enough to breach the tubes its possible these paintings may one day be recovered.
It would be hideously dangerous, beyond suicidal, to attempt to recover them as an independent dive team even if you are deep wreck unstable overhead enviroment jesus.
Why not use small ROVs?
@GrumpyIan rovs require tethers typically, which are less than ideal in a more than century old decayed ocean liner wreck hulk.
Realistically, the two ways if they somehow still survive would be:
1) wait for the rest of the steel to finish decaying over the next 50 years and just scoop it up off the iron silt pile on the bottom.
2) actually work your way in from the outside by cannibalizing the wreck with extremely specialized naval equiptment for recovery which would desecrate a maritime grave site.
In all honesty- the likelihood airtight lead made it to over 10 atmospheres of pressure without becoming compromised seems very low.
Even if it's airtight, I don't think they would survive over 100 years under all this pressue. Even if the opening just erodes enough to let through half a drop of water per day, the whole thing would've been already filled multiple times by now.
@LucyKosaki
Not exactly. If they were compromised, they were compromised on the way to the bottom. Lead doesn't errode, and they sealant was likely some form of watertight epoxy that would be equally resistant to deterioration.
They would crush they wouldn't slow leak.
I'm absolutely pulling this logic out of thin air but I was curious so I looked into what:
> the tensile strength of lead is, (12 - 17)
> the tensile strength of HY80 submarine steel is, (just over 551)
> the exact crush depth for the USS Scorpion, (470m)
If we put this into a simple ratio it would suggest that airtight lead containers of equivalent construction to the USS Scorpion would fail by about 15 m or 45 feet of depth.
Ofc a small tube of rolled canvas will behave differently to a large vessel like Scorpion. Likely able to withstand a much great metric before collapse... I also am fairly certain the pressure increases logrithmatically on a curve so theoretically lower depths get some fungibility lower depths don't. I'm basically just using what little expertise I have to try to guess at this. Perhaps someone who actually understands how tensile strength works in physics could enlighten us.
At best the tubes came to rest at around 300 ft of depth, though in the last century the wood furnishings of the ships interior long deteriorated, so they would be found in the pile of remaining debris on the bottom on the opposite side of the ship (the side on the bottom). If I recall that is likely somewhat in excess of 400 ft deep.
It unlikely they survived but it's a kinda neat marine Archeology/wreck dive thought exercise. 🫠🙃
If anyone cares I was able to use ChatGPT to run the calculations and confirmed lead hit crush depth almost immediately
This version adds to the earlier posts of McCay's animation film. Still beautiful. Still tragic. An under appreciated work of art..
For more detail see Erik Larson's excellent book on the sinking: Dead
Wake. The story is a little more complicated; for example, there was
only 1 torpedo fired but it did unexpectedly severe damage, including
killing a lot of the crew who were in the hold moving baggage.
There may have been a second explosion. That may have been caused by the ignition of suspected armaments the ship was said to be carrying
I like your choice of musical accompaniment to this. I hadn't listened to this music before.
One of the most historically significant propaganda pieces in American history. An incredible work. McKay effectively captured what the sinking of a large ship would look like purely through his art and imagination.
thank you for the effort and the sharing. still quite powerful. thumbs up.
Absolutely stunning!
What a artistic style !
An*
Despite all the pooh - poohing in the comment - as crude as this is - it's still powerful and I imagine it had a tremendous impact in it's time.
Yeah, no shit 😀
You've got to be kidding me -- modern people haven't got enough historical perspective to appreciate this? It's an astonishing work of art for its time, created when animation was in its infancy, and "serious" animation was almost unheard of.
Why couldn’t the animated version of the titanic be more like this?
Well done,tragic piece of our history!!!!
It was legal, the ship was caring Canadian soldiers, and cannon parts. Not a lot was made of it for over a year, until the US was looking to enter the war.
I believe England eventually came out and said she was carrying ammunition too. You know... Some 100 years after so they know everyone involved is dead and far far far too late to take accountability.
They were civilians not soldiers you ignorant fool, the munitions were the ships only war cargo but even that was secret. Those on that ship were victims of that useless war. No need to swallow old Kaiser propaganda anymore, they lost didn't you hear?
I like stuff like this so I can put my own music to it
Whatever do you mean? Do you add your favorite songs on top of it, Or do you compose your own soundtrack? That sound really interesting!
the lusitania ganna sinking omg😶
no its winsor mccay
The animation part is as good as the propaganda part is appalling. The art of propaganda has much evolved since then.
It really isn't propaganda. Winsor McKay was deeply affected by the sinking of the Lisitania, so it was mostly out of passion.
@@wantedwario2621 I'm okay with his emotional investment, I just don' t think its incompatible with "propaganda".
Correct me if I am wrong, but you might be thinking something like "he is not paid by someone to do so", but I don't think it is a relevant criterium to disqualify the artistic genre of propaganda.
If it were the case, it means that if the same film was anonymous, we would suddenly not recognize it as propaganda ever, even with all the appropriate characteristics that are obvious here, because the anonymous artist may be deeply invested.
Also the goal of propaganda is to promote a political opinion (not primarily to win money or something else), being emotionally invested is the best motivation possible.
What's there to be appalled about? The last time I check, killing a ship full of innocent people is a bad thing. The filmmakers had every right to say these things. Also, how is modern-day propaganda any better?
And a lot of it is exactly the same. Because it works.
@@monkeyfun1803 "Don't sail on the munitions cargo ship Lusitania." "Will too." "Not our problem."
Some modern day propaganda is just the same. "The soldiers came into the hospital where I work and threw the babies from the incubators onto the floor."
Other modern day propaganda is better by being more pervasive and less blatant.
Thanks for giving me nightmares you ******* *** **** ***** ***** *****!
Soooooo... the reason this doesn't work is pretty much like the first Star Trek movie: you have a big ship (given) but what makes a story interesting is at the human level. Not endless shots of a big ship. So you would have needed one character that the audience can become invested in (mom and babe: develop that first) and then you need to personify evil (the sub captain). Then you need a story arc. The ship is not a character and so much time was wasted animating that at the expense of story. Directors: if you have a budget don't waste it on a story-less story. "A big ship sinks" is not a story- it's a postcard. As for the animation, cool for it's day, but we didn't need to see it again in the Beatles' Yellow Submarine. Also a flop. Anyway, best dramatic moment in this film: the two scared fishies. I believe they later got a cameo in that Don Knott's flick. And later one was technical advisor to the Charlie the Tuna ads.
It got the USA into the war and destroyed the 20th Century. I wouldn't say it "doesn't work." It worked all to well.
Right. And when the climax comes somebody should say "Don't use your brain. Follow your heart." Then the ammo should run and there be a fistfight.
@@petermgruhn You somehow found a way to properly scold this person for idiocy without being angry. Kudos and thanks to you
Did u just graduate from film school you poor simple person
People died, man. This is actual history, Inocent people's lives were lost, & You mock Them. For Shame, Wm Edmins, For Shame.
A significant film in the history of animation, though it lacks imagination and is technically primitive. The images look like hand-drawn copies of archival footage. There are no close-ups and the movement is too slow. The shot of the mother drowning with baby in her arms is propaganda of the most obvious kind, but also shows that drawing realistic human characters was clearly a bridge too far.