National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

DreamWorks Animation released Shrek in May 2001, marking a turning point for computer-generated feature filmmaking and signaling a confident challenge to Disney's long dominance of the animated genre. Directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, the film became a cultural phenomenon and the inaugural winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, cementing its place in cinema history.

This cell captures Shrek in tight close-up against a dark, reddish atmospheric background, his expression intense and downward-cast. The three frames represent the same sustained moment, with subtle shifts in framing across the strip, preserving a rare and quietly dramatic glimpse of the character in an unusually somber register.