Lautrec is a 1974 animated short film (six minutes) by Geoff Dunbar.
It's essentially an animated tribute to the life and work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The film starts with rotoscoped women dancing the can-can. A crude sketch of Toulouse-Lautrec with a cartoonishly small body and large head (famously, Lautrec had weirdly small legs and was only 4'8'') leads to a montage of pictures of Lautrec. That's followed by more can-can dancers, and animation of some of Lautrec's later work, like nature studies and drawings of circus performers.
Tropes:
- Art Shift: There's rotoscoping of can-can dancers, Lautrec's paintings of can-can dancers brought to life, a montage of black and white photos of Lautrec, animations of Lautrec's charcoal drawings of wildlife, and more.
- Biopic: A sort of biopic in ultra-concentrated form, hitting many of the highlights of Lautrec's life.
- The Cancan Song: Opens with Offenbach's "Infernal Gallop"...well, what else would one use for the music score in a montage demonstrating Toulouse-Lautrec's famous drawings of can-can dancers?
- The Chanteuse: There's an animation of Yvette Guilbert, a Real Life chanteuse and one of Lautrec's favorite subjects. She sings a song.
- Contortionist: Near the end there's a simple animation of a contortionist walking around bent over, with his head between his knees.
- Mononymous Biopic Title: It's as close to a biopic as one can get in six minutes. There's the opening section that shows Lautrec's iconic drawings of can-can dancers. A series of still photos flip by, showing Lautrec as a child, then a full-figure photo showing his odd physical appearance (very short legs due to fractures as a child, with rickets as a possible contributing cause), then photos of the hookers he liked to draw. The bit near the end with the contortionist is a nod to the drawings of circus performers Lautrec did later in life, when he was institutionalized due to severe alcoholism.
- Rotoscoping: The short opens with rotoscoped animation of Real Life can-can dancers.
- Silence Is Golden: There's music, and a song, but no dialogue.
- Splash of Color: In the scene where Yvette Guilbert sings a song, most of the animation is in black and white, but Guilbert's red lipstick stands out.
- The Stinger: After the credits roll there's a scene with a can-can dancer riding a horse.
