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.
Above: still from The Secret World of Arrietty. Courtesy of Studio Ghibli