The Sinking of the Lusitania is an American silent animated short film by cartoonist Winsor McCay. It is a work of propaganda re-creating the 1915 sinking of the British liner RMS Lus itania. At twelve minutes it has been called the longest work of animation at the time of its release.
About The Sinking of the Lusitania in brief
The Sinking of the Lusitania is an American silent animated short film by cartoonist Winsor McCay. It is a work of propaganda re-creating the never-photographed 1915 sinking of the British liner RMS Lus itania. 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 ofAnimation. The National Film Registry selected it for preservation in 2017. It follows McCay’s earlier successes in animation: Little Nemo, How a Mosquito Operates, and Gertie the Dinosaur. McCay drew these earlier films on rice paper, onto which backgrounds had to be laboriously traced. It was the first film McCay made using the new, more efficient cel technology. The liner vanishes from sight, and the film closes with a mother struggling to keep her baby above the waves. The Germans employed submarines in the North Atlantic during World War I, and in April 1915 the British government issued a warning that it would target British civilian ships. The German submarine smashed the record for the largest passenger ship upon its completion in 1906, and briefly held the record in 1908, 1907, and again in November 10, 1908, where A Pilgrim’s Progress by Mister Bunion, where Bunion declares it has smashed the monster boat that has destroyed the Bunion.
The LusItania was sunk by a German submarine in 1915; 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 U.S. joining World War II. In 1916, McCay rebelled against his employer’s stance and began work on the patriotic film on his own time with his own money. 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. McCay is shown working with a group of anonymous assistants on “the first record of the sinking of the LUSitania”. The liner tilts from one side to the other and passengers are tossed into the ocean. A second blast rocks the Lusesitania, which sinks slowly into the deep as more passengers fall off its edges,. The ship submerges amid scenes of drowning bodies. An intertitle declares: “The man who fired the shot was decorated for it by the Kaiser! And yet they tell us not to hate the Hun”.
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