Short Vision, A
Entry updated 11 August 2025. Tagged: Film.
UK animated short film (1956). Written and created by Joan and Peter Foldes, the latter a Hungarian emigre who also wrote the poem the film was based on. Narrated by James McKechnie. Produced at the Foldes' house, with financial support from the British Film Institute's Experimental Film Fund. Six minutes. Colour.
A very British voice tells us: "One night I looked out through the window and saw it approaching from the deep blind sky ..." Flying over the countryside, it scares both predators and their prey, until it reaches a City, unseen by those asleep: "But their leaders looked up and their wise men looked up, but it was too late." "It" explodes: the leaders, the wise men, those asleep, the predators and their prey, all life on Earth, perish (see End of the World). A small flame and "it" briefly survive, the latter now a moth circling the other until consumed, the flame then expiring.
Though this is never stated, "it" is clearly a nuclear Weapon (see Nuclear Energy), or a craft carrying one; the film reflects the era's Cold War concerns. A Short Vision consists mainly of stills, with brief simple animation: the artwork for the first couple of minutes is unremarkable but steps up once the city is reached. The sleeping populace, the explosion and the heads reduced to skulls impress, with the first melting face being particularly graphic (see Horror in SF). The film was broadcast on The Ed Sullivan Show on 27 May 1956, causing some stir including the headline "Shock Wave From A-Bomb Film Rocks Nation's TV Audience" (28 May 1956 New York World-Telegram and Sun); it was shown again on 10 June. [SP]
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