# animate! › Films › An Anatomy of Melancholy by Jo Ann Kaplan › synopses

Canonical: https://animate.org.uk/films/anatomyofmelancholy/synopses

Discovery terms: 2000s animation, hand-drawn animation, the body, mortality, melancholy, poetry film, filmmaker, film editor

The following is the archived page text; discovery terms above are separately sourced metadata.

Archive status: restored in 2026; historical calls, deadlines and services are closed.

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**An Anatomy of Melancholy** a film by Jo Ann Kaplan

2000, 13 min 03 sec

### animate! synopsis

Drawing on despair, sketching the skeleton. Mortality marks. From Keats to Robert Burton, a major body of woe is made. Light is not the only thing that is passing.

### long synopsis

**An Anatomy of Melancholy** is a cinematic meditation on mortality which takes the form of a special anatomy book – one in the process of being made.

As hand-drawn illustrations appear slowly and painfully on the pages of the book, showing us parts of a dissected human body, we witness both the act of creation and a testament to our own passing.

Accompanying the simple but powerful images of the human body, we hear the words of Keats’ *Ode on Melancholy*:

“Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine…”

**An Anatomy of Melancholy** film, stills and other materials © Jo Ann Kaplan 2000