Film: The Thief and the Cobbler – A Moment in Time

Legendary animator Richard Williams (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) spent three decades developing his animated feature The Thief and the Cobbler, only to ultimately have it taken from his control, recut, and released by others without his approval. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences first presented this “Moment in Time” restoration of Williams’s 1992 work print of the film, painstakingly reconstructed by the filmmaker and the Academy Film Archive. This version is the closest audiences have been to witnessing Williams’s original, dazzlingly imaginative and eclectic vision. Animation drawings and cels by Williams for The Thief and the Cobbler are currently on view in the museum’s Animation gallery, part of the Stories of Cinema exhibition. In conjunction with the works on view, the museum presents a screening of this work followed by a conversation with Senior Exhibitions Curator Jenny He and Assistant Curator Nicholas Barlow.

DIRECTED BY: Richard Williams. WRITTEN BY: Richard Williams, Margaret French. WITH: Vincent Price, Felix Aylmer, Sara Crowe, Anthony Quayle. 1992/2013. 92 min. USA/UK. Color. Scope. English. DCP. Restored by the Academy Film Archive.