Annecy Classics: The Soldier's Tale

As the soldier ventures into these alternate realities, Blechman's simple pen-and-ink drawings explode into colorful fantasies. ''It is the nature of live action to deal with literal things and of animation to deal with the things of the imagination,'' Blechman told The New York Times in 1984 ''The Soldier's Tale, for example, is full of transformations as the devil goes from disguise to disguise.''

What began as a $20,000 project for PBS expanded over three years into a $1.5 million undertaking, with the filmmaker providing half the production funds himself. But the resulting film was a milestone in the marriage of animation and music (Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" would score one of the most memorable sequences of Walt Disney's Fantasia). While Blechman's work is known for being steeped in nostalgia, there is always an underlying tone of sadness, as the heart of the artist is repeatedly disappointed by the modernized world. "My ending is more apocalyptic than Stravinsky's,'' Blechman said, ''I have the whole world being lost to the devil. I mean, hell, we're living in nuclear times and who of us isn't worried about a nuclear apocalypse?''