Fra tutti i sistemi possibili per creare cinema, cioè per generare e riprodurre immagini percepite in movimento dall'occhio umano che le osserva, ve n'è uno che più di ogni altro ha offerto terreno alle avanguardie sperimentali, alla ricerca tecnologica e all'indagine estetica: si tratta del cinema d'animazione che crea il suo movimento ex nihilo. L'utilizzo della computer animation con le sue molteplici applicazioni ha fatto nascere un vero e proprio linguaggio digitale di estrema ricercatezza tecnologica, capace di raccontare storie dal grande impatto emotivo. In questo scenario la Pixar Animation Studios si colloca come una casa di produzione cinematografica, che, in pochi anni, ha saputo dare una spinta considerevole al cinema d'animazione in 3D, accogliendo con successo la sfida lanciata dalle nuove tecnologie, sempre considerate a servizio della storia e attirando l'attenzione di un colosso mondiale come la Disney. Nel solco tracciato da Disney, i creatori di casa Pixar, si mostrano attenti a mettere la tecnologia a servizio di storie che oltre a risultare divertenti e in grado di intrattenere grandi e piccini con meccanismi comici elementari e con raffinate citazioni cinematografiche, sono capaci di ribadire con efficacia verità semplici e profonde in sintonia con i valori autentici dell'essere umano. / There are a lot of systems to create cinema, to generate and reproduce images perceived in motion from the human eye, but there is one that more than every other offer something new to the experimental vanguards, to the technological and aesthetic research: the animation, the cinema that creates its movement ex nihilo. A digital language of extreme technological refinement, able to tell stories of great emotional impact, is borne from the use of computer animation with its multiple applications. In this situation, the Pixar Animation Studios is placed like a house of cinematographic production, that, in few years, has given a considerable pushed to 3D animation, using the new technologies, always considered story driven and attracting the attention of a world-wide colossus like the Disney. Behind the Disney tradition, the creators of Pixar are alert to put the technology in history service. The history results amusing and able to entertain adults and children with elementary comic mechanisms and with refined cinematographic citations. The Pixar histories are able to confirm in a simple and deep way the truth that is in agreement with the authentic values of the human being.

Parce qu’ils sont les premiers à avoir réalisé un long métrage en images de synthèse, Toy Story, dont le succès artistique et populaire – qui ne se dément pas - a été le déclencheur d’un nouveau cycle de films d’animation, les studios d’animation Pixar occupent une place importante dans le paysage culturel actuel, et représentent une bonne opportunité d’étudier la manière dont les objets des industries culturelles sont créés et consommés. Au travers d’une étude du dessin animé américain, abordé du point de vue historique et esthétique, il s’agit tout d’abord de déterminer l’évolution du système de production et des techniques, qui sont en lien avec les évolutions stylistiques, pour comprendre dans quel système émergent puis s’établissent les films d’animation Pixar. Alors que la manière dont les films sont faits et dont ils sont vus a changé à la fin du XXe siècle, la trilogie Toy Story sera l’objet privilégié d’une étude des mutations du cinéma, et des usages qui en sont faits. Par le statut culturel élevé spécifique à Pixar, par l’ambiguïté textuelle qui les caractérisent et qui sont l’occasion d’interprétation très variées, ou grâce aux nouveaux modèles de féminité et de masculinité qu’ils proposent, les films d’animation tendent à devenir des films "comme les autres", laissant aux spectateurs la possibilité de les appréhender comme ils le veulent. / As the first studio to have created a CGI animated feature film, Toy Story, whose success initiated a new era in animation production, Pixar Animation Studios occupy a significant position in the actual cultural landscape, and present a great opportunity to study the ways in which objects from cultural industries are produced and consumed. By examining the animated cartoon, from historic and aesthetic perspectives, I intend to determine the evolution of the production system and of the technics, which are related to stylistic changes as well. This study will help us understand the studio system in which Pixar’s movies have taken place. While the ways films are made and seen changed at the end of the last century, Toy Story’s films are the privileged object for an analysis of the transformations of cinema and its uses. By Pixar’s high cultural status, by the textual ambiguity that characterized them or the new representations of masculinity and femininity that they share, animated feature films tend to become "ordinary films", letting viewers grasp them as they want.

DE LA TESI:Aquesta tesi doctoral estudia les relacions entre la narrativa audiovisual i el cinema d'animació per ordinador i fa una anàlisi al respecte dels llargmetratges de Pixar Animation Studios compresos entre 1995 i 2006. / This doctoral thesis studies the relations between the audio-visual narrative and the computer animation and makes an analysis of the full-lenght films of Pixar Animation Studios since 1995 to 2006.