Lenfest Kids: Big and Small
We all live in a world of big and small things, but never so much as when we’re children – small people getting bigger. And as we grow, the world around us changes, feeling smaller than it once did.
Movies are also a way of making small things big and big things small. Whether it be a scene through the eyes of a tiny insect or a colossal giant, new perspectives transform our view of the world through the art of cinema. This ability to change size and scale is true of basic devices like the close-up, as well as special effects involving animation, CGI, and multiple exposure.
This semester, the emphasis is very much on small. We’ll shrink down and journey inside the human body in Fantastic Voyage and Osmosis Jones. We’ll follow the adventures of mice (Stuart Little), frogs (The Princess and the Frog), miniature people (Secret World of Arrietty), and even shells (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On). And we’ll wrap up the season with a return performance by Ben Model, who’ll provide live piano accompaniment for Charlie Chaplin’s silent comedy classic The Kid.
But thinking about small perspectives isn’t just a way of understanding cinema. It’s a way of understanding the world. As they say, dream big, but it’s the little things that matter.
Lauren Weigel
Director, Lenfest Center for the Arts
Lenfest Kids is presented in collaboration with faculty in the Columbia University School of the Arts Film & Media Studies and Writing programs.
Seaman Lemuel Gulliver is shipwrecked on the shores of Lilliput, a kingdom of tiny people, whom he supports when their neighbors in Blefuscu declare war. The second-ever full-length American animated feature, following Disney’s Snow White, Gulliver’s Travels is a beautiful hand-drawn allegory of small societies in a big war.
A girl no bigger than a thumb yearns for someone small, like her, to love. Against her mother’s wishes, she ventures outdoors, and falls in love with a fairy prince. But when she is kidnapped, Thumbelina encounters all kinds of colorful small characters, some who want to possess her, and some who want to help her find her way home.
While on a boating trip, Scott Carey is exposed to a strange fog. At first, nothing happens; but soon he realizes that he is beginning to shrink, little by little, all the way down to the size of an insect.
While living with his cruel aunts, young orphan James is mysteriously given a bag of magical crystals. When he accidentally spills them in the garden, small things begin to grow to enormous proportions.
Following his success making things shrink, scientist Wayne Szalinski has invented a machine that makes things grow. But challenges arise when his two-year-old is exposed to the ray, causing him to gradually grow — to over 100 feet tall!
Chaplin's first full-length feature is a masterpiece about a tramp who takes-in an orphaned child. Chaplin directed, produced and starred in this film, and also composed the score. Ben Model returns to perform live musical accompaniment for this silent comedy classic.
Live-action and stop-motion animation tell the story of Marcel (Jenny Slate), a one-inch-tall shell who is discovered by a documentary filmmaker amid the clutter of an Airbnb. A survivor of a mysterious tragedy, Marcel sees a chance to find his long-lost family with the help of his new human friend.
Fantastic Voyage follows a team of medical scientists who are reduced to the size of microbes and injected into the bloodstream of a patient whom they must save before the miniaturization wears off.
Osmosis Jones blends live action and animation to tell a story about an unhealthy zookeeper, Frank (Bill Murray), and a white blood cell, Osmosis “Ozzy” Jones (Chris Rock), who helps battle the consequences of Frank’s not-so-hygenic habits.
Arrietty is a tiny teenager, living with her family in the walls and floors of a country house. As she ventures forth for sugarcubes and other supplies, she befriends a human boy, but will this friendship risk her family’s safety? From Japan’s famed Studio Ghibli, The Secret World of Arrietty invites us into a miniature world that might be hiding within our very homes.
In New Orleans, hard-working and independent Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) dreams of opening a restaurant. When an evil witch doctor casts a spell on a visiting prince, turning him into a frog, Tiana, mistaken for a princess, is also transformed. The two journey through the bayou searching for someone with the magic to change them back. One of Disney’s last hand-drawn animated feature films, The Princess and the Frog is an American fairy tale adventure.
The Little family gets bigger when they adopt a young mouse named Stuart (Michael J. Fox) into their home, much to the dismay of Snowbell, the family cat. But through love and courage, Stuart resolves to overcome their differences. Adapted from E.B. White’s first children’s novel, Stuart Little explores the importance of family and togetherness, and how big things can come in small packages.
Above: still from The Secret World of Arrietty. Courtesy of Studio Ghibli