Reviewing - Disney's Golden Age (1937-1942)
Walt Disney made cinematic history with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", the first full-length cel animated feature film. Beyond being a technological achievement, it was an artistic masterpiece that kicked off the beginning of a new era of family storytelling. These first five films are commonly referred to as Disney's "Golden Age" - and though Disney is known for family friendly entertainment, these films push the boundaries of animation, children's storytelling, and cinema itself.
The Best: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The Worst: Fantasia
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (*****)
In which a guy takes the lid off a coffin and plants one on a girl that for all he knows has been dead for weeks
This is a masterpiece that still fires on all cylinders over eight decades later.
Walt Disney’s first full-length animated feature was not the first animated film in history, but it was the first one that anyone cared about. More than that, it was the first animated film to be praised as one of the greatest films of all time. Everything about this movie is beautiful. The backgrounds are exquisite, from the scary forest to the dwarf house to the Queen’s secret lair. The character design is wonderfully diverse, giving us seven cartoonish dwarfs and the more lifelike Snow White, Huntsman, and the evil Queen (prior to her transformation). Each character has their own way of movement, tone of expression, and on-screen presence that differentiates them. When I think back to Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, I can’t remember much about what makes the individual dwarves different (although I know how much work he put into giving each one their own personality). Disney has seven dwarfs instead of thirteen, but within seconds each one is clearly identified – and you never mix two of them up. Sleepy always looks sleepy. Sneezy doesn’t have the same vibrance that Bashful does. Sure, having a name that sums up an important aspect of your character certainly helps the audience differentiate, but it’s clear that each of these dwarfs has several identifying features that makes them their own person. And man, the evil Queen post-transformation is iconic. She is the living embodiment of the wicked witches we read about in fairy tale. Nothing looks out of place or like it doesn’t belong. When you see this film, it’s hard to picture any of these characters looking like anything other than the way Walt envisioned them.
I’d like to take a moment and stick up for Snow White, if I may. I feel like she’s come under a lot of scrutiny in recent years with our society’s growing emphasis on gender equality and women’s rights. To some, Snow may look like the stereotypical damsel in distress who doesn’t do much apart from cooking and cleaning. I don’t think it’s that simple. For one thing, Snow White is a very young girl who’s likely never gone camping before. When she finds the dwarf’s house, she at first believes it to be inhabited by orphaned children. She reasons that if she cleans up their home, they might let her stay. Whether she had been a prince or a princess, this makes a lot of sense to me. She’s on her own, and she’s trying to figure out how to chart out a new life for herself. Further, she sees a need that she could fill. It’s not as if the dwarfs find her and demand for her to become their new maid. In fact, she becomes essentially a mother figure to the dwarfs. She’s the one telling them what to do and getting them to clean up their act. She is very feminine and very powerful all at once. We may mock her because she sweeps up the floor while singing along with a bunch of animals, but Snow White is not messing around.
Leaving Snow behind, I’d also like to add that this is a very funny movie. The dwarfs are hysterical – there’s a lot of moments where they bicker and interact together with their individual personalities colliding. The whole group must respond to Grumpy’s curmudgeon-ness, just as they must constantly try to prevent Sneezy’s sneezes. They argue and fight as a group, but they are also fiercely interdependent as they solve problems together. They’re an absolute delight in this already-charming film. This movie deserves the praise it’s received over the years, and it’s only the first chapter in what will become a long list of Disney classics.
Pinocchio (****)
In which people do not care whatsoever about a talking walking fox but will pay their hard-earned cash to look at a talking puppet
It’s interesting how heavy-handed Disney’s second feature film chose to be given the brightness and fun of its predecessor.
There was a bit of scary stuff in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but it was all in good fun. By that, I mean that it was scary simply to be scary. The witch became ugly basically because she’s evil, and the woods became haunted just because Snow White was spooked by being all alone. In Pinocchio, there’s quite a bit of frightening content, but it’s all there to make a poignant point.
I think the heart of this film is all about sin. You’ve got a kid who’s trying to walk the straight-and-narrow, but continually gets led astray by others who want to take advantage of him. It’s literally a fox who pulls him away from his path to school, and leads him instead to become an actor. After being rescued from a life of servitude, he ends up on ‘Pleasure Island’, where kids can smoke, gamble, drink, fight, and smash stuff to their heart’s content. It all sounds too good to be true, just as ‘the easy path’ always does. It’s positively haunting when you see all the young boys squealing with naïve glee at this wonderland, and then the screen cuts to show a troupe of black faceless shadow-beings heaving shut a great wooden door, sealing the fate of all within. It’s a visual metaphor for how ‘the easy path’ can trap you, and it’s honestly very sobering watching that scene. It’s a fantasy that feels all too real. And when all the young boys are transformed into donkeys before being carted off for sale, their cries for mercy are truly unsettling. It makes you wonder what on earth Walt was thinking when he decided to make this his second film.
But as heavy as this film is, it’s told so incredibly well. The animation is charming and expressive just as it was last time, and each character has their own distinct flavour that either makes them the kind you love or the kind you love to hate. Monstro is a terrifying final villain – he’s the stuff of kid’s nightmares for sure. The sound of him being about to sneeze (as funny as that is) was so deeply menacing that I found myself in that exact moment deciding that I would not show this film to my own kids right away. But for all that, it’s the level of seriousness with which this film treats the idea of sin that makes this worth the watch.
Fantasia (**)
In which a bunch of demons gather round to worship Satan while he squishes them in his hands - also Mickey Mouse is in this
For a man who made his fortune on family entertainment, Walt Disney was not afraid to take huge risks.
Fantasia is unlike any other film I have ever seen, and though it’s too unconventional for my taste, there’s something fascinating about its design. From the opening seconds, it becomes clear that Walt is experimenting with the very idea of what cinema is and what it can be. Instead of watching a single narrative unfold where the audience is simply expected to understand that narrative at face-value, a sort of narrator walks onscreen and tells you what is going to happen. He tells you that an orchestra is going to play some music, and that artists are going to show you animated interpretations of that music. The way the musicians walk on and off throughout the film, it’s almost as if you’re meant to imagine yourself inside a live symphony hall. There’s even a fifteen minute intermission where the musicians all get up, leave their instruments behind, and walk away, leaving you in an ‘empty’ room.
I think Walt was trying to engage the viewer in a new way, but I also think this is in some sense a failed experiment. The musicians may behave as though this is all happening live, but we all know (especially in the 21st century with the advent of rewinding) that the performance is completely under our own control. This music is “canned” music - performed a long time ago and preserved so that we could enjoy it at a later date. There’s nothing wrong with canned music - all movie music is canned. There’s just not much point in pretending otherwise.
It’s not that Walt’s idea of combining animation with music is bad - it’s actually been the secret to his success up to this point. “Steamboat Willie” was a landmark achievement in animation, and “Snow White” began a long line of critically praised princess films where our animated heroines sing out wonderful tunes. I think the issue is that the episodic and disjointed segments would probably do better on their own than they did together. No one really minds watching a 7 minute short film right before a main feature - Pixar has created some incredible shorts this way. But watching two hours of them straight can be a bit daunting - especially when there’s not an ounce of dialogue or an overarching narrative or theme. Consider the “Sparkshorts” that Pixar has been releasing through Disney+ recently. They’re bite-sized nuggets of magic that you can watch any time. If it had been released as a feature film, I’m doubtful that many people would turn out to sit through the whole thing.
None of this should draw you to the conclusion that this is sub-par work for the king of animated storytelling. The individual segments range from the bizarre to the breathtaking, like the iconic “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” sequence or the horrifying final segment where a bunch of demons frenetically worship a much bigger demon ‘Chernabog’ (although I could’ve sworn the narrator said it was actually Satan). The animation is imaginative and brilliantly coloured.
All in all, there are many who will likely disagree with my two-star rating. My problem is not with the content as much as the packaging. These short films are great, but watching them all together as one cinematic experience does not work for me. I think these would be better appreciated separately in their bite-size chunks.
Dumbo (***)
In which a drunk infant elephant hallucinates a giant anthropomorphic elephant made out of eyeless disembodied elephant heads
This film may find itself more than a bit on the problematic side for today's audiences, but there's just enough charm and wonder to make sure it still feels like Disney.
"We work all day, we work all night. We never learned to read or write," sing the circus workers who are setting up the tents for Dumbo's inevitable performance. "When other folks have gone to bed, we slave until we're almost dead." The word slave is of particular importance here, because all of the workers are black. You'll have to read the rest of the lyrics to "Happy-Hearted Roustabouts" yourself, because every line is enough to draw outrage from a modern crowd. This scene was a reminder for me of how times change and how what may have been acceptable children's entertainment in the 40s is now nothing short of shocking. It's a gruesome example of how normal racism was back then. That said, I think it's crucial that they haven't edited any of this out, particularly with the release of Disney+. This is a problematic scene that paints black workers out as unintelligent, shortsighted 'hairy apes', but it's not one we can afford to forget. You know the saying - those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And you can't study what you can't access.
There's plenty of other questionable moments in Dumbo, like the bit where Dumbo gets drunk and starts hallucinating that a giant anthropomorphic elephant made out of eyeless elephant heads is marching towards him - no, seriously. Just take my word for it that there's a lot in this film to make you scratch your head at the very least. Leaving that behind, I think the heart of this story is still one worth telling. The elephants who pick on Dumbo for his ears are positively wicked creatures, and it's the true-to-life nature of their dialogue that makes them so detestable. The way they talk about Dumbo is the way that many people speak of those they don't understand, and it should serve as a solemn reminder to watch what we say. They speak with holier-than-thou voices, their pride and inhospitality showing through with every word. It's a really sad movie - everyone remembers the song where Dumbo's mom cradles him through her prison cell with her trunk. It's still a tearjerking bit eighty years later.
The mouse is fun and the story is cute, but there's nothing about this film that knocks it out of the park for me. It's fun, but not much more than that.
Bambi (****)
In which a deer gets shot and walks it off
Walt Disney does not play games with animation.
The Disney company has a reputation for sugary-sweet stories that children will love, and along with that has come an assumption that - to some extent - the morals Disney is selling are paper-thin at best. People ridicule Disney Princesses for being damsels in distress, label Disney's films as "for kids" and nothing more, and paint the whole Disney brand as a bit too 'traditional'.
I'm only five movies deep into Walt Disney's legacy, and I think time has muddled many of our memories. Bambi may be about a cute little deer who has fun with his friend the rabbit and skunk, but this is not simply kid's stuff by any stretch of the imagination. Bambi's mom dies. We all remember that. Bambi is cold and alone, standing in the snow calling out for his mom when we as the audience know that she will not answer. Later on in the film, Man returns to the forest in greater numbers, accidentally igniting a forest fire while loosing a pack of ravenous dogs on Bambi and his leading lady Feline. 'Man' is an absolute villain in this film, a faceless evil that threatens the tranquility and balance of the forest. We remember Bambi romping through the flowers and think "Oh, this is for kids!" But for some reason, we forget the moment where Feline is scrambling up a cliffside to avoid being mauled to death by dogs. This stuff is no joke!
I'll stop ranting against the Disney-haters so that I can focus on the great parts of this movie. The animation and artwork is stunning. The forest is beautifully crafted, and their use of the multi-plane camera to give the forest its three-dimensional feel is really amazing. The animals aren't anthropomorphic like Bugs Bunny or Donald Duck. They're still cartoons, for sure, but they're very lifelike cartoons. Bambi always moves like a deer actually does, which makes sense given that Disney brought actual deer into his studio for his artists to study. There are several shots that just slowly glide us through the woods – sometimes following a character or two, sometimes just showing us the beauty of the forest. But for all this, I never got bored. I think that a big part of that is because the artists have captured the peace and stillness of a quiet forest. It’s really a work of art.
I did find myself asking what Bambi’s father does in his spare time. He’s a very absent father – watching Bambi’s birth from afar, letting Bambi’s mother do the child-rearing for much of the film. Even when Bambi’s mom dies, we only see the father step in for a few seconds. It’s unclear how present he is for the rest of Bambi’s childhood (although Bambi II gets into this – yes - they made Bambi II in 2006. It actually doesn’t suck). In terms of what today’s society expects from its fathers, this guy isn’t that great of a dad. But what’s very interesting is the very emotion-filled relationship Bambi still has with his dad. Bambi looks to his dad as almost a mythical figure – a symbol of strength and dignity that he tries to model himself after. Though Bambi’s father is hard to find, he commands every second of screen time he’s found in. I think this speaks a lot to how important fathers are to their children – no matter what. Whether you are the best father in the world or the worst dad on the planet, the role you play in your child’s life is always astronomically significant. Bambi’s dad may not show up much, but he’s one of the most important characters in the film.
One more thing and then I’ll let you go. Bambi gets shot in this movie. Like, with a bullet. You remember the bit where Bambi’s dad is like, “Get up, Bambi”? That’s because Bambi got shot. How on earth does Bambi walk off a bullet wound? Wouldn’t that get infected and kill him if he didn’t bleed out first? Or is it just a situation where he just got grazed – in which case, come on Bambi, get on your feet and stop whining.
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