Music in Their Bones

Abstract

Dancing skeletons figure prominently in a number of animated films produced by Disney, starting with The Skeleton Dance (1929). As integral characters in animated film, dancing skeletons are like actors yet are also both playing musicians and playable toys. Due to their acoustic and visual qualities, they are particularly well suited to highlighting cinematic innovations as well as the advantages, potentials and possibilities of film. By animating the dead, skeleton films demonstrate the wonders of animation. Early Disney films show skeletons in undifferentiated groups. They make use of the sound of bones and stress their overall importance for the making of music, highlighting several (pop)musical practices. Later films such as The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Coco (2017) individualise the skeletons and make meta-cinematic comments on previous films. Skeleton films can thus be read as filmic palimpsests and as animated films about animation, but they also show the integration of different folkloristic backgrounds and festivities as well as subcultural elements into pop culture.Keywords The Nightmare before Christmas Coco SkeletonAnimated filmsMateriality "pop culture"