Of course I've been keeping up with my Disney watching New Year's Resolution (look at that! It's April and I'm still going strong with my resolution! That must make me above average. Hurray!) and I'd like to take a moment to talk about 6 movies with you. It's ok, I'll keep it short.
Let's start with a double feature: Saludos Amigos and The Three Cabelleros. These movies are basically animated brochures for South America. There's also some weird hybrid live-action/animation that is nifty but just doesn't feel like it belongs. Also, Saludos Amigos only technically counts as a full length animated feature since it's only 42 minutes long. Although I don't think I'll ever count either one of these films as one of my favorites I will say they mark a stark transition in animation style for the Disney studio. Considering the movie before Amgios is Bambi, which is basically an animated landscape painting, these two movies are exploding with crazy colors and truly cartoony characters. It feels like they're intentionally exploiting the nature of animation as a two dimensional configuration with boundless possibilities by manipulating the characters into doing things that would be virtually impossible in reality. The cartooniness (yes, I did just make that word up) of these features is further highlighted by the interaction the animated characters have with the real life actors who dance around on screen.
It also feels like a few animators had gone crazy trying to animate in a realism manner and these movies were like a giant stress reliever. Kind of like when I'm painting something for class and my brain feels like it's going to melt so I go scribble on a piece of scratch paper until I can think sanely again.
Up next is Make Mine Music, Fun and Fancy Free, and Melody Time.
Make Mine Music is like Fantasia but with popular songs of the time and much lamer. I feel asleep half way through it. From this movie I discovered why it's a bad idea to over explain a story. This comes from the short "Peter and the Wolf." I remember watching this in elementary school when we were talking about how music can be used to tell a story, what I don't remember is that this short is narrated. Why?! The picture along with the music tells the story so well you don't need a third party pointing out everything that's happening. The fact that the show also has a narrator explaining events shows very little trust in the audience's ability to understand what's happening in the picture. It's bad story telling.
After that comes Fun and Fancy Free which has Jiminy Cricket in it for some reason. It tells the story of a circus bear who escapes the circus and falls in love and then jumps over to the famous Edgar Bergen telling the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" with Mickey playing Jack. Something that had happened in the Disney studio like 3 times before this movie was released ("The Brave Little Tailor" was a much better version of this one).
Finally there's Melody Time which is like Make Mine Music but not as lame. It's mostly unremarkable. I learned that Johnny Appleseed was really religious and that Pecos Bill explains why everything in the west is the way it is. Also that an apple blossom sky is possibly the pretties thing in the world.
The final stop in our quick tour through Disney of the 1940's is Ichabod and Mr. Toad. First off, how is it that I had never seen Mr. Toad before? That show is monstrously entertaining. Although the ride they have for it in Disneyland lied to me because in that ride they go to Hell and there was a sever lack of Hell in that movie. In fact, I think the movie would have been better if Mr. Toad had died at the end. Then the title could have been The Adventures of Mr. Toad: A Cautionary Tale.
Ichabod is also an awesome little flick. A school teacher who looks like a featherless turkey is wanted by every lady in the village, possibly because he sings like Bing Crosby. He's also crazy superstitious, as well he should be because it turns out the Headless Horseman is a real dude. I'm also pretty dead sure this is where the inspiration for Gaston in Beauty and the Beast came from.
Well, that's it for this week. I'd like to take a moment to welcome Marie Blair to the Wonderful World of Disney. She did the concept art for all of the above films and a few more that will be mentioned later. She basically introduced the idea of using color to portray emotion in the Disney studio and had a big hand in creating the distinctive Disney style of the 40's and 50's. Also (and please don't hold this against her), she created the concept art and design for the ride "It's a Small World."
P.S. My last post was mostly about Dumbo and I believe I spent a considerable amount of time talking about how "Pink Elephants on Parade" is psychotic (and it is). Recently a friend of mine sent me an article about Dumbo and I discovered that there actually is a reason for that sequence in the movie. It's actually a very good one too...albeit one that no one will understand unless they're studying up on animation history. The only copy I could find of it was on JSTOR. You have to register in order to read the whole article but it's free to do so and I would highly recommend it as it really is a fascinating read!
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Did you know in Melody Time they originally had a scene where Pecos Bill lights up a cigarette with a bolt of lightning? For shame...
ReplyDeleteAnd bits of Make Mine Music were rejects that didn't make the original cut for Fantasia
I'm not sure if I'm upset the Pecos Bill scene was cut or happy that they didn't promote smoking.
DeleteAnd I'm glad those rejects didn't make it into Fantasia because they're lame!
From what I understand, most of these movies were made as a way to recover costs that were lost during WWII. I see them as cheap stand-ins until they had enough cash to really make something worth while...like Cinderella.