Yesterday, CineVerse members got to indulge their inner child and partake in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," which produced a pretty lively discussion on the film's merits and influences. A summary follows:
HOW
WOULD THIS FILM HAVE BEEN INNOVATIVE UPON ITS RELEASE IN 1937?
· This is the first
feature-length animated film in history. Previously, animated movies were
shorts that typically ran prior to the main attraction.
o This project was
dubbed “Disney’s folly” because it wasn’t believed that audiences would watch a
cartoon for more than a few minutes, or that adults would find them interesting
at feature length.
· Cartoons were
considered kiddy fare with cruder animation and less story and character
development prior to this. Snow White created a whole new world of characters,
color, motion and emotion—consider how terrifying the lost in the woods
sequence is, or how somber and sad Snow White’s death scene is.
o In fact, many horror
filmmakers have named Snow White as a major inspiration in their movies.
o Orson Welles’ Citizen
Kane, for example, opens with a foreboding dark castle with a single lighted
window, similar to the Wicked Queen’s castle.
· It was one of the few
movies made in color at a time when black and white dominated—so it would have
been doubly impressive in its lively, multi-dimensional animation and its
chromatic Technicolor brilliance.
· It’s regarded as the
first official movie “soundtrack”: before, soundtracks were comprised of
renditions of songs featured in a movie; this one is the first to include
original recordings as they actually appeared in the film. It was also the
first commercially issued film soundtrack album.
· It employed Disney’s
innovative multi-plane camera, which creates the illusion of depth and three
dimensions by placing several animated cells and drawings on different planes
that are shot at the same time by an overhead camera.
· It featured realistic
human movements and rotoscope-drawn figures like Snow White hat are modeled on
actual live actors.
HOW
DOES THIS FILM ESTABLISH THE TEMPLATE FOR NUMEROUS DISNEY FEATURE-LENGTH
ANIMATED MOVIES TO FOLLOW?
· Like many stories
adapted into later Disney films, it’s a storybook, fairy tale yarn involving an
orphan who is threatened by some villain (who’s often a female), befriended by
wild animals, and whose wishes come true at the end by being rescued by a
prince or knight.
o Later films would
include child protagonists who are traumatically separated from their parent
(e.g., Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast)
· The lead protagonist
is a young, pretty, virginal girl (typically lacking any sexual or titillating characteristics)
who must suffer trials and tribulations and some kind of
life-threatening/life-changing transformation before she can get her Prince
Charming: the same formula applies to Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast,
Cinderella, the Little Mermaid, and the Princess and the Frog.
· She is often
accompanied by forest animals, scene-stealing comic relief characters (e.g.,
Dopey, the Genie in Aladdin), and a feisty foil who becomes a hero (e.g.,
Tinkerbell, Grumpy, Meriwether in Sleeping Beauty).
· The villain in these
films is usually somehow threatened by this young female protagonist, who has
the ability to take away the villain’s power/prestige (a scenario which plays
out in The Lion King, Aladdin, Hercules, The Jungle Book, the Little Mermaid,
and Snow White).
· As Roger Ebert put
it:
o “Walt Disney's
shorter cartoons all centered on one or a few central characters with
strongly-defined personalities, starting with Mickey Mouse himself. They lived
in simplified landscapes, and occupied stories in which clear objectives were
boldly outlined. But when Disney decided in 1934 to make a full-length feature,
he instinctively knew that the film would have to grow not only in length but
in depth. The story of Snow White as told in his source, the Brothers Grimm,
would scarcely occupy his running time, even at a brisk 83 minutes.
o The most important
continuing element is the use of satellite and sidekick characters, minor and
major, serious and comic. A frame is not allowed for long to contain only a
single character, long speeches are rare, musical and dance numbers are
frequent, and the central action is underlined by the bit characters, who
mirror it or react to it. Disney's other insight was to make the characters
physically express their personalities. He did that not by giving them funny
faces or distinctive clothes (although that was part of it) but studying styles
of body language and then exaggerating them.
o Disney's inspiration (was
in) providing his heroes and supporting characters with different centers of
gravity. A heroine like Snow White will stand upright and tall. But all of the
comic characters will make movements centered on and emanating from their
posteriors. Rump-butting is commonplace in Disney films, and characters often
fall on their behinds and spin around…I think Disney did it because it works:
It makes the comic characters rounder, lower, softer, bouncier and funnier, and
the personalities of all seven Dwarfs are built from the seat up.”
WALT
DISNEY IS CREDITED FOR BEING A CONCEPTUAL INNOVATOR RESPONSIBLE FOR SEVERAL KEY
FILM AND ENTERTAINMENT FIRSTS, INCLUDING:
· The first successful
synchronized sound and picture cartoon (Steamboat Willie, in 1928).
· The first
feature-length animated movie.
· The first film to use
multi-channel surround sound systems (Fantasia).
· The Circle Vision
filming technique, which enabled the shooting and projection of movies in 360
degrees.
· The development of an
optical printer that allowed animation and live action to be combined (The
Three Caballeros, 1945).
· His invention of the
multi-plane camera (previously mentioned).
· Disney’s Studio was
the first ever to provide regular color programming for TV (Walt Disney’s
Wonderful World of Color).
· Family theme parks
(Disneyland, Disneyworld) and the first switch-back/interactive crowd lines
(instead of straight lines) as well as the first dark rides and fully enclosed
attractions.
· The first indoor
shopping mall (Main Street, USA at Disneyland).
· Audio-animatronic
figures, featured at Disneyland.
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