Your Face | |
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Directed by | Bill Plympton |
Music by | Maureen McElheron |
Production company | Plymptoons Studio |
Distributed by | Media, Inc. |
Release date |
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Running time | 3 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Your Face is a 1987 animated short film by Bill Plympton. [1] It involves a man seated in a chair crooning about the face of his lover, and as he sings, his own face starts to distort in various ways. His song ends abruptly when a mouth opens in the floor and swallows him and the chair whole; after the closing credits, the mouth reappears and licks its lips.
The vocals are by Maureen McElheron, known for composing the songs in The Tune, also by Bill Plympton. [2] After the song was recorded, [3] it was slowed by one-third, giving the desired and unusual effect, also making the voice more masculine. [4] His face is distorted into many different shapes, such as a balloon, a cube and an ice cream cone.
The song is original, [5] made specifically for this short film, and the lyrics depict a metaphorical description of someone's face by using musical vocabulary to describe the beauty of their features. [6]
The short received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film [7] at the 60th Academy Awards. [8] [9] [10]
A variation of this short was used as the couch gag on The Simpsons's 29th season episode " 3 Scenes Plus a Tag from a Marriage", with Homer Simpson's face replacing the original man, and Dan Castellaneta singing the vocals. This version ends with the Simpson family sitting on their living room couch. [11]
Your Face was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015. [12]