Review: Bambi, or, The Circle of Life pt. 1

After the relative success of Dumbo, Disney decided to stick with cute animals with 1943's Bambi and, in the process, broke the hearts of several generations of children.

Based on the novel Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian Felix Salten, Disney began work on this project after the completion of Snow White. The project was postponed for several reasons; at first, Walt's insistence that the animation be more realistic pushed production back, and then he pulled animators off the project to work on Fantasia. But the project remained in progress from 1938 onward. When Dumbo was completed the studio turned their attention back to Bambi with earnest. Character animators spent days studying live forest animals so they could accurately capture their movements (which slowed the animation process down considerably) while background artists traveled to the forests of Maine and Vermont to help fully realize the setting.

The film was released at a terrible time, though. The European markets were all but closed due to the war, and many viewers were put off by the realistic animation and the depiction of man within the film. This, of course, meant that as far as financially successful films go, only two of the first five Disney Animated Features qualified after their original release. In 1947, Bambi was re-released, and turned a tidy profit. Critics have shown general praise for it, as well. And children everywhere cry about it all the time.

The original book, of course, as more to it than we get in the film, but the differences are actually fairly minor so I won't go into them. Let's just jump right on into the rest of the review.

The visuals in this film are stunning; the multiplane camera work on the backgrounds is astounding while the animals look amazingly realistic when compared to what had been seen in the past. And the story has its cute moments for sure; Bambi learning to walk, to talk, to slide around on ice, exploring the world around him, it's all fun. I can remember as a child watching the "Hey ma! What's all of that white stuff?" scene over and over.

OH GOD NO!!!

I'm o.k., I'm all write: Charlie Sheen Free Since About Two Seconds Ago

But let me get down to my real gut feeling of this film; there is a sleeper villain nobody ever talks about and it bothers me.

The villain is "Man," I totally get it. Man is in the forest, which makes it dangerous for Bambi and his mother to be on the meadow. Man even (spoiler alert) kills Bambi's mother in the middle of winter, leaving poor Bambi frightened and alone. Man employs these really evil looking dogs to go after the forest animals and then burns the entire forest down. Man is evil.

Actually, let's talk about how effective this villain is. You never see any men. They are represented by the cawing of crows, gunshots, smoke, fire, and a pack of dogs. The dogs are probably the scariest of all; we've spent the entire movie feeling an emotional connection to these incredibly realistic animals and then they're being attacked by dogs, which is an animal we as a species have a generally pleasant feeling about. This is how this film gets you: the forest animals are very accurately detailed with the exception of their eyes. Their eyes are very human looking, all of them. The dogs, on the other hand (which we are used to seeing in animated films as friendly characters with anthropomorphic traits and human-like eyes) have scary, black and white beady animal eyes. It only would have been worse if the eyes had been blood red. The effect you get is that here is graphic animal-on-animal violence, and these dogs have clearly been brainwashed by evil man to do their evil bidding in an evil manner.

There is a great disturbance in the Forest

So we can all agree man creepy, dogs creepier. Good.

The sleeper villain of which I speak is none other than the good Prince of the Forest, AKA Bambi's absentee father. Look, I get that authentically, White Tail Deer bucks do not stick around and help raise the kids. I get it. But he could have at least shown some interest, yeah? He basically watched from on high while Bambi came into the world, then disappeared until one day Bambi saw him on the meadow. He doesn't even know it's his father, he just sees him and everybody else gets silent and reverent. His own mother doesn't even tell him, presumably on the orders of the Prince himself I guess. He didn't want it to be known. And then, when mom gets capped, Dad's all of a sudden got to take charge. And talk about a lack of tact. "Your mother can't be with you anymore," he says. "Come with me." Really? No further explanation. That bodes real well for your parenting skills, buddy. Your child definitely won't turn out to be conflicted or a drug addict or anything.

...good, Charlie Sheen didn't pop up again.

Especially now that I am a father, I have a hard time getting over this whole father-son relationship that happens in this movie. From what we see, they have four interactions; once on the meadow, once when Mom dies, at the very end when the two of them overlook the birth of Bambi's two children, and then once before this when Bambi has been shot. Again, no sympathy, his father just says, "Get up, Bambi." Like, come on dad, I've kind of been shot here? Also, why weren't you there, huh? When I was born? You could have stopped mom from naming me Bambi. Seriously, I feel like the Boy Named Sue here.

I understand that this all has to do with realism; Bucks don't take part in child rearing, that's fine, but you have some creative license here; it's an animated film in which animals speak English. And I mean, across species lines. That's pretty intense stepping outside the reality box. Why can't we have a little more fatherly involvement, hmm?

Also, Disney writers seemed to have forgotten this film existed for a time. What do I mean, you may ask? I'll tell you: this film opens with all the animals in a "kingdom" rushing to see the newborn prince. They get there and pay their respects. The prince then begins having childhood adventures, but before he can grow up and lead a normal royal animal life, he endures the loss of a parent and has to deal with those emotions. He then, in the course of growing up and finding himself, falls in love with a childhood friend, confronts a danger that threatens the very existence of his Kingdom, and then at the end, he takes his rightful place and watches over all the Kingdom's animals pay their respects to his newborn child.

It's the Circle of Life, and it Moves us All.

But that's a review for another day.

===

Once again, I visited the Wikipedia Entry for this film. And, once again, their reputation isn't always solid as a rock.

Review: Dumbo

Dumbo, the fourth film on my Disney Animated Film Adventure, which at one time vied with Robin Hood and Aladdin as my favorite of the Disney animated films, is a dramatically different kind of film than its three predecessors. Where Snow White, Pinocchio and Fantasia are visually complex, Dumbo is simple. Simple, too, is the storyline. Like Fantasia, this film is not based on a fairy tale as the first two films were, but of course Fantasia had rich source material from which to work, namely the pieces of music which were used. Dumbo is based on a rather simplistic prototype for a new toy called a "Roll-A-Book." The toy was developed using eight drawings and a few short lines of text describing what was happening in the book, when Disney writers took it and fleshed the story out. It's simple, basic and charming, without the heavily terrifying elements we've seen in the previous films.

The film starts with a lightning bolt and thunder and a voice crying "Through the snow, and sleet, and hail / Through the blizzard, through the gale / Through the wind and through the rain / Over mountain, over plain / Through the blinding lightning flash / And the mighty thunder crash / Ever faithful, ever true / Nothing stops him, he'll get through!" And then we find out he's talking about a Stork. Many storks, in fact, deliver a bunch of baby animals to a circus in Florida in what is one of the most cutest ever animated segments ever ever. Really.

The action starts when an elephant does not get a baby, and she's sad. She doesn't say she's sad, you just see it. In fact, there's very little dialog through the first part of this film. Finally, while the circus is packed onto the train, a stork shows up with a baby elephant. This baby elephant is our hero, though we don't know that until he gets dropped into his mother's trunk and his ears flap out in an explosive sneeze. Yup, those ears.

The poor guy is ridiculed something fierce for these big floppy ears, so much so that his protective mother (who loves him completely and unconditionally, something I totally understand) kind of freaks out on some boys and gets locked up, leaving Dumbo an outcast.

Enter Timothy Q. Mouse, Dumbo's only friend in the world. He tries to build up Dumbo's self-confidence by tricking the ringmaster into making Dumbo the climax of the "Pyramid of Pachyderms" circus attraction. But, as with all things, Dumbo's ears get in the way, creating havoc. The other circus elephants, already shunning Dumbo for his big ears and his crazy mother, completely disavow any knowledge of Dumbo, and he gets turned into a clown and has to jump off a burning tower into a vat of cream pie filling. Which, actually, is something I would totally enjoy, minus the burning part.

Timothy, always the good friend, tries to cheer Dumbo up by taking him to see his mother. This is one of the most beautiful moments in the film, with Mrs. Jumbo cradling Dumbo in her trunk through the bars of the elephant prison trailer (which, I guess, is a thing?) while the film's most beautiful song "Baby Mine" plays. Side note: my wife sings this song to my daughter every day, and it never fails to bring a smile to either of their faces.

After this, I guess the Fantasia animators wanted to get a little more bizzaro out of their systems, or maybe somebody was trying to point out how drinking is a bad thing, because Dumbo and Timothy accidentally drink some champagne, get totally wasted, and Dumbo blows a bubble out of his trunk. The bubble turns into a shared hallucination between the two; it turns into a pink elephant and we get a Technicolor Elephant Nightmare.

They let it into Disney Land at night to eat stragglers.

Actually, let me say at this point that although many of my friends would get creeped out by this part of the film, when I was a child this was my favorite part. I would often rewind and watch this part again and again while my friends waited nervously around the corner, behind the couch, or in the kitchen. Yeah, I was a little...different. But the colors! The song! The bizarre creatures created out of elephants! Elephant cars and trains! A Camel-Elephant hybrid which I call a Camelphant! What imaginations these animators had! What exquisite drugs they must have been taking!

So when Dumbo and Timothy wake up all hungover, they're in a tree. And a murder of crows sees them and wonders how they got up there while they smoke cigars, talk jive and get interpreted as a racial stereotype. Since you brought up the stereotype thing, let me just say this: these crows are incredibly smart. They're tough, sure, and they look rag-tag based on their clothes, but, um...they're crows. How did they even get clothes? I guess this is a universe of anthropomorphic animals but they still live in zoos and are attractions at circuses...but still. And when I say they're smart, I mean it. Listen to their song, which is full of clever wordplay and is meant not to mock Dumbo as EVERY OTHER CHARACTER BESIDES TIMOTHY AND MRS. JUMBO HAVE DONE but they do it to mock Timothy's insistence that Dumbo flew. But they help, and Dumbo gets off the ground. He returns to the circus and jumps off his burning tower. On the way down, he loses the feather. Timothy, who was riding in his hat, explains that the feather wasn't really magic, and that Dumbo can fly without it. Which, of course, he does, exacting revenge on the clowns, the ringmaster, and the elephants who shunned him. And then, I guess, he does the classic meteoric rise to fame thing, in which he gets super famous and makes a lot of money and yet somehow ends up right where he started? Well, not entirely. He uses his celebrity to get his mother released and to procure a fancy modern private car for the two of them (plus Timothy I would guess) on the train. But still...he's still in the circus? I guess if that's where the money is...

Because of the financial failures of the previous two films, Disney wanted a simple story that was easy to animate, and that's exactly what they got. At just over one hour, it's one of the shortest of the Disney animated features. In fact, RKO Pictures, the distributor of Disney's films, refused to release Dumbo at first, stating that it was too short and would either have to be lengthened, billed as a short subject or listed as B-movie (which, at the time, just meant the second/lesser known film of a double feature). But Disney held fast, and RKO finally agreed to distribute the film as a feature. Despite the war in Europe and the attack on Pearl Harbor just two months after this film's release, it still turned a profit and received critical success. Many saw it as a return to the roots of Disney with a simple, character driven animated story. Compared to Pinocchio and Fantasia, which many critics said were too ambitious or complex for the medium, Dumbo was easy to watch and joyful with great music. With this film, many of the Disney themes were established. While both Snow White and Pinocchio had original songs composed for the films, the Dumbo soundtrack contained seven original songs (Snow White had three and while Pinocchio had six, remember that this film is a full twenty minutes shorter). This is also the first Disney feature to have anthropomorphic animals as the main characters, something which became almost requisite thereafter.

One of the things I missed in my youth, and which I took special notice of upon this watching, is that the crows are incredibly smart and helpful. I already mentioned the word play, but when they help Dumbo fly, they give him a "magic feather." When I was a kid, I always thought that the feather really did have some magic in it, and that Dumbo needed it to fly at first but that the magic somehow passed into him so he didn't need it anymore after he dropped it. Of course now I know that's bogus; the crows used the feather as a mind-trick. And Timothy is in on it. When I realized that in my young-adulthood (when I was watching old Disney movies "ironically" except not ironically, more in an attempt to recapture my simpler youth because I was all angsty over some girl or something else that teenagers needlessly worry about OH GOD WHY DIDN'T SHE WANT TO GO TO THE DANCE WITH ME AND WHY CAN'T I BE POPULAR LIKE THE POPULAR KIDS WHY whoa...that was weird) it changed my whole perception of the crows. At first I was like, "Oh, so Dumbo didn't even need to meet the crows" and then later I realized, "Wait, yes he did." See, Timothy was a good friend, and a big dreamer, but he needed to know how to help Dumbo out. The crows saw an opportunity, and when they realized that Dumbo was too downtrodden to believe in himself, they gave Timothy the gift of the "magic" feather. It's just a feather, but to tell Dumbo it's magic, it gave him hope that it would make him fly. So, basically, the crows are doctors and they just prescribe Dumbo a placebo. And it works! It's all mind over matter. The whole film, for being only an hour long and such a simple story, is chock full of great story. And sure, stories with a moral are often times annoying. Moral stories can be really heavy-handed and over the top and so eye-rolling, head banging, groaningly sigh-inducing at times, but this one's better because the story is so simple. Be yourself, and believe in yourself, and you will accomplish something. It may not be what you set out to do, but take stock of your assets, your liabilities, and play to your strengths. And above all, listen to those who are trying to help, and ignore those who don't help. Chances are, you'll be able to dive bomb them and spit peanuts out of your trunk when you prevail, those bastards.

Once again, Wikipedia helped out. Revisions were most recently made by me so that what I tell you here matches what you read there.

Review: Fantasia

If there is one Disney Animated Film that has seen more and different versions than any other, it would be Fantasia. Originally released in 1940 as a Roadshow Theatrical Release, which is kind of like a modern limited release except you had to reserve your seats way ahead of time. The film grew out of one of its more popular segments "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" which was to be a stand-alone short for the "Silly Symphonies" series. Oddly enough, because Mickey Mouse had been losing popularity to the likes of Donald Duck and Goofy, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was made as an attempt to rejuvenate Mickey. And I have to ask, does this strike anybody else as odd? Mickey Mouse was in trouble of vanishing into obscurity? The Mickey Mouse? I guess it worked, because he's one of the most recognizable characters of all time...

After adapting two fairy tales, Disney decided to do something entirely different with Fantasia. Instead of a single narrative, we're treated to a concert-on-film with visuals provided by Disney animators and their interpretations of the music. In that sense, it's hard to really review this film the way you would any other, so instead, I'm going to talk about the 1969 theatrical release.

Seriously, is anybody at all surprised at how popular this film was thirty years after its release? It was released in theaters in 1940, 1942, 1946, 1956, 1969, 1982 and 1985 and has since seen multiple home video releases. This film didn't turn a profit until 1969 when it turned a HUGE profit. I think the Disney marketing machine knew what it was doing then. Look at the poster:

"Let's go check out this 13th Floor Elevators Show! Oh, wait...Disney? Oh well, looks trippy enough. Get the bong."

But back to the actual film: this was one gutsy move on Walt Disney's part. He defined an art form with Snow White and then had pretty good critical (if not financial) success with Pinocchio so why, then, did he go all Radiohead's Kid A on his third film? Didn't he know he needed an OK Computer to bridge the gap? And as I put the Radiohead metaphor to bed, I want to say that he actually did have that middle piece, he just released it after Fantasia. It's called Dumbo and I'm reviewing it next.

So Disney makes the first experimental art-house concert animated film, broken up into eight segments:

1) Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

Here we get live-action silhouettes of the orchestra against colored background (kind of cutting edge for 1940) which melds into colorful visual impressions. The idea was that since the music didn't come with a ready-made narrative (like many of the others), the animators would just kind of doodle. I'll bet in 1969 this was one of the more popular segments. In 1940, I'll bet it was kind of...odd.

2) Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite

Of course today, we know this as Christmas music. But back then, it was apparently not very popular and was associated with dancing plants/fungi.

3) Paul Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice

This is the most popular and well-known segment of this film, which probably has a lot to do with the fact that every piece of promotional art ever made for this film besides the 1969 poster includes a picture of Mickey Mouse wearing the Sorcerer's Hat. This was the image Disney wanted associated with this film and it is the enduring image. And it's one of the best parts of the film as well, which I think can be attributed to the familiarity we have with Mickey as viewers. We're automatically invested in whatever happens to him, and what happens is that he meddles in things he shouldn't and gets in over his head. I'll bet you've got the tune in your head, right now. Don't you? You're humming it and imagining Mickey putting the broom to work and you're still humming it.

4) Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring

It's funny to watch this one, because ideas of evolution and what caused the extinction of the Dinosaurs has changed since 1940, not to mention our understanding of Dinosaurs in general. Here we get the early stages of life on earth with single-celled organisms developing into more complex forms of life until we get the pinnacle of evolution, the T-Rex.

You Won't Fool The Children of the Revolution

Only the Dinosaurs look ridiculous in comparison to the way we depict them now; they move so goofy, and the Tyrannosaurus looks suspiciously like an overgrown malformed crocodile. And then instead of a meteor striking Earth, apparently just a bunch of volcanoes erupted simultaneously and killed off the Dinosaurs. Also...what does this have to do with The Rite of Spring, which was about Pagan rituals? Ah, whatever...

5) Meet the Soundtrack

We get a line on the screen which changes whenever we hear a new sound. They go through the entire orchestra but never once mention a Contrabass Sarrusophone. Lame.

6) Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony

This was probably also a favorite of audiences who were tripping, because it has Unicorns and Centaurs and more than one Pegasus (what is the plural of Pegasus?) and also has Bacchus throwing a huge party which gets interrupted by a lightning bolt trigger-happy Zeus. So, you know...exactly what the Dinosaur segment should have been about. Only then there wouldn't have been any Dinosaurs, so...

This portion of the film is something modern audiences have NEVER seen in its original form. Why, do you ask? Because in the original there was one black female Centaur who worked as a servant for the white, blonde female Centaurs, doing menial tasks for them while they all got ready to frolic with the hot male centaurs. This character has not appeared in the film since before 1969, when she was cut out by an editor who cited it as an "appalling...racial stereotype." I can see why they would do that.

7) Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours

This is the one where Ostriches, Hippos, Elephants and Alligators all dance together with the end result of toppling the palace in which they are dancing. Years later, Disney would get a little more mileage out of this "Hippos are fat" joke by using it again in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

8) Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain and Schubert's Ave Maria

The demon Chernabog spends the night summoning evil spirits and restless souls to do his bidding, which apparently is just a whole lot of flying around a mountain top. And, before he can start his real evil plan, the Church bells ring and he calls off plans while he settles in for the day. We can only assume he does this every night and, until he learns how to get better organized, won't ever enact any actual evil. Or maybe he's counting on the church bells not ringing some morning. But imagine you're one of the tripped-out 1969 viewers. You've seen cool colors, dancing mushrooms, brooms put into slavery, Dinosaurs, half naked centaurs and hilariously mismatched cartoon animals ballet dancing, and now, probably just as you start coming down from your high "HOLY CRAP THE DEMON CHERNABOG!"

"Guys...tell me I'm not the only one seeing this..."

Scary, Disney. Real terrifying.

This film works because it's so different. It was a risk but it was worth it. Only, not at the time. It took years for people to appreciate this film the way Disney wanted it to be appreciated (and I'm not talking about hippies, but professional film critics and film historians, you know, people who used to be hippies). The original vision was for this film to be re-released every year, each time with some of the original segments but also with new ones. If it had immediately achieved the level of success it did thirty years later, Disney's vision might have come to fruition. But instead, we are left with this single dazzling wall of sight and sound.

There are a few problems, of course. The first section feels like it's running slow. To borrow a phrase I heard on the NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, I kept waiting for the word "Buffering" to appear on the screen (to all of my older readers, that's an online video joke). And the arrangements were done by Leopold Stokowski, the conductor, and they are somewhat paired down from the original orchestrations of the pieces. Which probably doesn't matter to most people, but when you grew up in the house I grew up in, and played in an orchestra yourself, and in that orchestra while growing up in that house played some of the pieces of music found in Fantasia you actually do notice these things. I understand why it was done: first off, it's easier to record a smaller group than a larger one, especially at the time. But also, this had never been done before, and it was a massive financial gamble. Disney was probably looking for cost-cutting measures wherever he could find them. "Do we need thirty violinists? Can we get by with fifteen? Good." That sort of thing.

What's strange about this film, and about Pinocchio is that although neither was a great success at first, both of these films have weathered well through time and have become classics not only of animated film, but of film in general. Fantasia especially added another dimension to a medium still yet in its infancy. Without Fantasia we probably wouldn't have any of the Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes "Kill the Wabbit'" sung to the tune of Ride of the Valkyries style cartoons. And that, my friends, would be a terrible, horrible loss.

Also, the real T-Rex wanted to say something.

"Get it on/Bang a Gong/Get it On!"

Disclaimer about the Wikipedia article on Fantasia. Joke about Wikipedia's accuracy.

Review: Pinocchio, or Let's Ignore Unpleasantries

After the success of Snow White, Disney set to adapt another fairy tale as an animated feature. This time, instead of choosing a traditional Grimm fairy tale, he chose The Adventures of Pinocchio by Italian children's author Carlo Collodi. What we get is a fairly compressed and, actually, slightly less terrifying version of the original story. Just remember...it's less terrifying than the original. Let me give you just a small taste:

In the original version, Pinocchio has Geppetto arrested for child abuse, kills the talking cricket which lived in Geppetto's house, accidentally burns his feet off, narrowly escapes becoming firewood for a puppeteer, bites a cat's hand off, and gets strung up and hung from a branch.

He. bites. off. a. cat's. hand.

He's Right; they totally are.

Also, he kills the talking cricket.

That would have made for a very different, much darker film. Like, so dark, David Fincher would be all like, "Whoa, that's twisted and dark."

So, my original review about how terribly dark this film is can now be thrown out the window.

Basically, the main difference between the source material and the film is Pinocchio himself. Originally, he is kind of a half-crazed wooden Dennis the Menace, but in the Disney film he is given a kind of innocent naivety. Also, he doesn't bite off anybody's hand or kill Jiminy Cricket.

But we can't ignore the darkness in this film; when he is led astray by Honest John and Gideon, the puppeteer who takes him on basically enslaves him. It's only with the help of Jiminy and the Blue Fairy that he's able to escape. And then we get Pleasure Island.

Wow, Pleasure Island. Let me tell you something about that part of the film. First off, the Coachman tells Honest John and Gideon to convince boys to go to Pleasure Island, and they shudder. Think of that; Honest John and Gideon, who are con men willing to sell Pinocchio into slavery, shudder at the thought of this place called Pleasure Island. The conversation goes like this:

The Coachman: I'm collecting stupid little boys.

Honest John: Stupid little boys?

The Coachman: You know, the disobedient ones who play hooky from school.

Honest John: Ohh!

The Coachman: And you see...
[Whispers in Honest John's ear; Gideon puts his ear to Honest John's other ear so he can listen as well]

The Coachman: And I takes 'em to Pleasure Island.

Honest John: [nods in agreement] Ah, Pleasure Island.
[suddenly shocked]

Honest John: Pleasure Island? But the law! Suppose they...

The Coachman: No, no. There is no risk. They never come back... as BOYS!
[leans in close to camera and smiles wickedly]

I'm sorry, but...a creepy old man taking a bunch of boys to "Pleasure Island" and they "never come back...as boys!" is really really terrifying. I was watching it and, keeping a fresh perspective in mind, I thought, "Ew, this guy is a real creeper." It feels like Pleasure Island is one whole metaphor for something else entirely.

So after all the boys get turned into donkeys (except for Pinocchio, who escapes with only ears and a tail), he and Jiminy wander back to Geppetto's house. Now, it seems like it's only been a day, at most, since Pinocchio went missing, but the house is shuttered and abandoned and looks like it's been so for some time. I guess we're dealing with compression of the narrative, but it really does seem like it has been less than a day or so since the film even started. But Geppetto is all ready out looking for Pinocchio, and he took his cat and the fish that is madly in love with the cat, and they've all been swallowed by a giant whale named Monstro. Pinocchio and Jiminy head out to sea, get swallowed by Monstro, and rescue Geppetto. Pinocchio sort of dies in the process, but the Blue Fairy shows up to turn him for real into a real boy. And they all live happily ever after.

At the core, this is a quest story; it's basically about Pinocchio earning his conscience (or his soul, I guess). He faces hardships and obstacles and temptations and, through the ultimate sacrifice, comes out ahead. The only problem with this sacrifice I see comes from the fact that Pinocchio didn't really change that much. He's not mischievous, as Pinocchio is in the original story, he's just easily manipulated. Manipulated into slavery, manipulated into a trip to Pleasure Island. So when he goes out in search of Geppetto he's not doing it due to any change of heart. We never get the sense that he wouldn't do anything for Geppetto, so we're not surprised by his bravery. We're only surprised by his sacrifice because this is a children's movie and he is the titular character (though, in the last Disney film we saw, the titular character appeared dead for a while as well, which is another theme we'll see in many of these features). We know that Geppetto is searching for Pinocchio because Geppetto loves him, and we know Pinocchio feels the same way.

In the original, Pinocchio has to learn humility, sympathy, empathy, responsibility, friendship, and so on and so forth before becoming a real boy. The only lesson Disney's Pinocchio learns is that he shouldn't lie, otherwise his nose could poke somebody's eye out. The problem is that though he does prove he's unselfish, brave and truthful by the end of the movie, we never see him being selfish or cowardly. There's nothing at stake as far as his character goes.

I'm not saying it doesn't have its strong points. Like Snow White, Pinocchio is visually stunning and parts of it are laugh-out-loud funny. For instance, when Honest John and Gideon are tricking Pinocchio into the trip to Pleasure Island, Honest John gives him a thorough "examination" while whipping him around, with Gideon taking notes in the background. Gideon's notes are no more than scribbles, but Honest John consults them and convinces a very dizzy and disheveled Pinocchio that he has an allergy. It's a funny bit of writing with good visuals. And Monstro, the whale, is one of the more terrifying monsters of any animated film, ever. But the story is still lacking in good character development. It just falls flat when I apply my film-class-addled powers of examination.

And I can't leave off without saying how truly scary it is that though our main characters get to live happily ever after, all those boys on Pleasure Island got turned into donkeys and never got to go home. In fact, in the original story, Pinocchio ends up working on a farm and has to tend to a dying Donkey, who turns out to be his best friend from his days on Pleasure Island. Yikes. If they had kept that part in the film, guaranteed that it would have been even less of a financial success than it was. Though, to be fair, the reason this film's original box-office earnings did not match up to Snow White is because of the outbreak of WWII, which limited its international release by quite a few years. Don't worry, though; Disney has more than made up for this lack of income over the multiple home video releases in the last thirty years.

Well, that's it for now. Next time, I get to review Fantasia, which is going to be very challenging because I won't get to pad it out with a plot summary. Should be fun!

Once again, I consulted the Wikipedia Page for information on this film, and also about the original novel. Michael Scott says since anybody can edit Wikipedia, you know it's accurate. And I trust that man completely.

Review: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

In 1937, Walt Disney produced the world's first feature-length cel-animated motion picture in color, and the first animated feature in America. You've probably seen it and are currently having trouble remember the names of a few of the eight titular characters. Of course, I'm talking about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

This film was adapted from a fairy tale of the same name, by the Brothers Grimm. In it, we see the story of a beautiful young girl who is hated by her evil stepmother but who, in the end, rides with Prince Charming to live happily ever after. If this sounds super familiar, remember that it set the tone for some of Disney's most successful animated films with basically the same plot. But I digress.

The story is a simple one, which was perfect for a medium which was in its infancy. Many people, including Walt Disney's wife Lillian, were not convinced the general public would pay to see a full length animated film. Had the naysayers been right, this film would have gone down in the history books as "Disney's Folly" and we would all be deprived of a great many cinematic classics.

Sure, I've seen this movie several hundred times probably, but I tried to watch it with a critical eye this time around. And what struck me is just how scary it can be in places. Snow White's stepmother (the Queen) is a dangerous character, when you get right down to it. She orders one of her servants to kill Snow White. Creepier still is that she asks the servant to bring Snow White's heart back in a box as proof. When he brings back the box with what is believed by the queen to be Snow White's heart, she keeps it as some kind of trophy. Also, she has a room in the dungeons where she keeps evil magic potions and spell books. Here's the thing: aside from a propensity to talk to animals and clean other peoples' cottages after barging in uninvited, Snow White is pretty well-adjusted so you have to imagine that either her father or biological mother was as well. And the stepmother/Queen must not have been around too long, because she doesn't seem to have tainted Snow White much. So, for the sake of argument, let's say it was her father who was well-adjusted. Why would he marry such a freak? Unless she put a spell on him, I guess. But what if it was her mother who was well-adjusted? We're never told what happened to the mother, so given the evidence of a mentally unbalanced, jealous, actually bona fide evil stepmother, I don't think it's too much of a leap to guess that Snow White's bio-mother's heart is probably in a box somewhere in the Queen's private office. Just let that sink in.

But you also never see Snow White's father, so my new theory is this: both parents were well adjusted, and loved her dearly. Then, Witchy Woman comes along with a load of evil paraphernalia including a magic mirror which is the heaviest-handed symbol of vanity ever put to film and which probably tells her that the current queen is way better looking and probably also a lot nicer and, seeing the castle, she says, "I'll bet there's some dungeon room I could keep all this stuff in. Time for a power grab!" At which point she hires some down-trodden peasant unhappy with the political climate to whack Snow White's totally hot mother while she herself concocts Love Potion Number Nine to slip into the grieving King's wine at the funeral. Of course,she didn't count on little Snow White, so she's got to rethink the plans a bit. After the wedding, she puts away her love potion and promises the aforementioned peasant a cushy cabinet position if he also murders the king. Of course, he gladly does this and is summarily caught and beheaded without a trial to avoid any possible whisper of foul play against the royal family. So now she's queen, and she's got this magic mirror that tells her she's totally the hottest, but she's got this beautiful little stepdaughter who might some day become more beautiful. So, I guess because at that point she figured another murder might seem a bit suspicious, she makes Snow White a scullery maid in the hopes, I guess, that the life of a peasant girl might ravage her looks? Because now that she's in power, all she wants is to remain the hottest.

Of course it backfires and Snow White becomes more beautiful the very day she meets Prince Charming, at which point we get the thing with the heart in a box. Only, this guy who can't bring himself to kill Snow White put a pig's heart in the box. For some reason, the queen waits a whole day to ask the mirror if she's now back on the top of the heap. Of course the mirror says, "Nope, still your stepdaughter, duh, your minion brought you a pig's heart," and she's so angry she concocts a plan to kill Snow White once and for all. Nary a mention what happens to said minion, but I'll bet it wasn't pleasant.

At this point, yes, I will admit that I am not talking about ANY of the titular characters. That's because Snow White herself is one dimensional; she is a beautiful but naive girl who wants to marry Prince Charming (whom she has only met once, briefly while singing to some birds) while the Dwarfs are seven guys who live in one house together, and each of them has a name to describe their defining characteristic except for Doc, the bumbling leader. So, basically, Snow White wanders into a frat house and then plays den mother until the queen shows up with a poisoned apple. I'll get to that bit now.

So, this poisoned apple that the queen painstakingly makes is kind of a mistake. Here's the thing, you wouldn't buy a "build your own helicopter" kit and put it together without first making sure that what you bought was a working helicopter and not just a model, right? That's kind of what the queen does with the apple; she makes the apple thinking, "This is going to totally kill Snow White!" When she's done, she then says, "Let me just make sure that this will actually do what it's supposed to..." and reads the second page of the instructions. That's the page which says, "Oh, hey, instead of killing the person, it'll just look like the person is dead and said person will stay that way until experiencing love's first kiss." So she takes a real risk here; I guess she thought that a Scullery Maid would have already had love's first kiss and that therefore any kiss she got would be love's second kiss and not a problem? Or maybe, she thought, "Who's going to fall in love with somebody who's dead?" That actually is a pretty solid argument, now that I think of it. Yeah, that was probably what she was thinking. Still, I would have read all of the instructions and then tried to find another potion, maybe one labeled "Deadly Poison Which Will Cause Permanent Death." That probably wouldn't be an apple. That would probably be broccoli.

It tries to warn you with its terrible taste

So the queen gets the apple to Snow White while the dwarfs all go off to work in the mines. She's not posing as the queen, though, because Snow White would recognize her. No, instead she poses as an ugly old crumpled up woman with warts because, you know, everybody trusts people who look exactly like every witch ever depicted throughout history. The animals which Snow White can talk to try to stop the deal from going down, but she ignores them and thinks they're being rude. Never mind that these same animals have established a reputation of helping Snow White clean the dwarfs' house and, oh, that's right, led her to safety when she was first abandoned in the woods. So, rebuffed, the animals head to the mine and have to forcibly drag the dwarfs back to their cabin because, again, the animals are mistaken as just being crazy. See, people, you should always trust animals and do their bidding. Must take a break and get Amethyst her dinner. Also some catnip.

Back. So the dwarfs get back and of course Snow White appears to be dead, and the queen is all, "Mua HAHAHA!" all over the place, and she tries to crush the dwarfs under a boulder but instead falls to her death. Which is too bad, because then she never got to go back to her mirror and ask it who was the best looking and hear it say "Well, since technically your apple didn't kill her, it's Snow White..." Totally missed out on a really good straight-to-home-video sequel there, Disney. Anyway, the dwarfs are super sad, because they think Snow White is dead. But instead of burying her, they put her in a glass coffin. Months pass, and finally Prince Charming comes around and opens the glass coffin and kisses her and, hey presto! she wakes up. They ride to the castle and they live happily ever after. Sweet deal! Though, of course, there's the matter of all the heart boxes, black magic potions, spell books,and creepy talking mirror which have to be cleaned up. But that's a job for the scullery maid! Oh, wait...oh man...

All kidding aside, though, this is a triumph of animated film. Most of the panning camera shots (that's the lingo, I know the camera's not moving but the drawings are changing, but still, animated films use the same lingo as live-action films) were done using layered drawings, meaning that the relative positions of objects in the foreground move differently than from things in the background, which is pretty well advanced. There are animated films made recently without such attention to detail. And the backgrounds themselves are gorgeous watercolor paintings (a technique only used by Disney in Snow White, Dumbo and 2002's Lilo & Stitch, amazingly). And the film was a great success. The AFI has honored Snow White as one of its top 100 films (#49 on the 1998 list, #34 on the 2007 list) as well as ranking it first of all animated films. Its simple story and beautiful animation are its two strongest points, and in an animated film, what more do you need?

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Aside from watching the film, before reviewing I also consulted the film's Wikipedia article. And we all know that they are never wrong.