A pair of Hollywood exiles—she was a former script clerk at Columbia, he was an ex–Disney cartoonist and union activist blacklisted for refusing to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee—Faith and John Hubley left behind the mainstream to forge a thrillingly experimental animation style all their own. Channeling the influences of jazz and abstract expressionism, the husband-and-wife duo created strikingly hand-drawn and -painted works that pulse with the improvisational spirit of bebop (DATE WITH DIZZY, a sly anticapitalist critique featuring Dizzy Gillespie) and childhood imagination (MOONBIRD, which sets a recording of their own children at play to free-flowing animation). Applying their effortlessly light touch to weighty themes like atomic-age anxiety (the Academy Award–wining THE HOLE) and the place of humankind in the universe (the wondrous animated documentary OF STARS AND MEN), the Hubleys helped usher in a new era of independent animation in which Disneyfied gloss gave way to gloriously unrestrained personal expression.
This conversation between John and Faith Hubley’s children Mark, Emily, Georgia, and Ray and filmmaker Leah Shore was recorded in 2020.
Directed by John Hubley • 1955 • United States
Starring Dizzy Gillespie
Jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie is hired to record the soundtrack for a television commercial—but the music has a mind of its own in this irreverent blend of live-action and animation.
Directed by John Hubley • 1958 • United States
A charming, inventively animated love story unfolds to the music of the Oscar Peterson Trio and Ella Fitzgerald.
Directed by John Hubley • 1959 • United States
John and Faith Hubley recorded a conversation between their young sons and set it to animated visuals to create this charming, Academy Award–winning adventure in which two boys set out on a late-night quest to capture a bird.
Directed by John Hubley • 1961 • United States
Filmmakers John and Faith Hubley embark on a wondrous cosmic voyage in this unique animated documentary. Based on the book by astronomer Harlow Shapley (who also narrates), OF STARS AND MEN sets a kaleidoscope of painterly, often abstract visuals to...
Directed by John Hubley • 1962 • United States
Starring Dizzy Gillespie, George Mathews
Dizzy Gillespie and George Mathews improvise a dialogue between two New York City construction workers, illuminating the anxieties of everyday life in the age of nuclear war in this Academy Award winner for b...
Directed by John Hubley • 1976 • United States
Inspired by psychologist Erik Erikson’s theories of human social development, this singular animated journey takes viewers through the eight stages of life, from birth to death. The freewheeling watercolor visuals of animators John and Faith Hubley,...
