Fantasia
US, 1940
By Walt Disney, et al.
By Walt Disney, et al.
I really like this movie. It’s all over the place, but bravely so. I know they used to read those audience response
cards like crazy, but for all that Fantasia feels like a gamble, and a statement of conviction
and affection. The opening, where the
orchestra comes into this carefully and crazily lit space, is a nice, doubtless
unconscious entry in the cinema direct category. It’s utterly contrived documentation, but it's also a contrivance with real documentary value. They
are, after all, musicians. It’s like Carlos Saura's dance films—shoot real stuff, as beautifully as you can.
Great idea. That’s not Deems
Taylor’s voice anymore, is it? Looped or
not, he’s an hilariously square, dull presence, and will continue to be such
for the duration. Stokowski is
ridiculous. Stokowski is fabulous. That silhouette!
The Bach piece is cool. Oskar Fischinger might well have gotten upset, and it’s hard
to explain that thing that looks like a marching green pepper of death.
But there is too abstraction here, or maybe an effective Mickey Mousing
(musically speaking) that dispenses with actual objects. As fine art it might just be kind of gauche,
but in the field of animation it is an undeniable advance. The
Tchaikovsky stuff is exquisite, and it demonstrates another really valuable kind of abstraction. These are recognizable objects, and they’re
even given personalities. But they’re
not really given narratives, or motivations. It's just colour and movement and space—terrific.
The Sorceror bit is pretty familiar by now. Still, look at that animation! Also really exquisite. And Mickey Mouse is an ax-murderer! The source poem is by Goethe, of course, and this really is a kid-sized version of Faust. One of the stated motivations behind this movie was that it was going to Educate Audiences about Classical Music. This episode makes a quieter, maybe more effective contribution to that literacy effort. "The Sorceror's Apprentice" is an exemplary entry in the vaunting ambition/mad scientist category of myths that we should all learn and know. It’s lovely how they accomplish that, then pull it back for a piquant, have-it-both-ways didactic ending. A spanking, and an affectionate gleam in the eye.
The Stravinsky sequence is really cool. Instruct and delight!
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| (Not the Stravinksy sequence...) |
Next comes that soundtrack
bit. Awful! These classicals don’t do jazz very
convincingly. The Beethoven is also awful,
partly because all of their female mythical creatures resemble the Black Dahlia. (You might not want to look that one up.) That thunderstorm is great, though, and
Hespera’s passage through the twilit sky is utterly exquisite. The marriage of picture and music at this moment is just
perfect. In fact, for all I just said, the Beethoven sequence is also beautiful—the 6th!—and remains pretty well untouched by all the tackiness surrounding
it.
Additionally, this is an hilarious send-up of balletic excess and self-regard, except that eventually send-up morphs into sincere admiration, even devotion. The self-regard is justified; the ballerinas deserve, carry any air they may put on. The felicities in this sequence are nearly endless, but can you beat that hippopotamal prima ballerina's last great, cataclysmically, apocalyptically graceful dive? (Do I protest too much? I'm trying to find words that are as big and high and wide as what actually happens.) The alligator loves her! And how right he is! The subsequent escalation/climax/destruction is perfect. (Tristan und Isolde? After Union, it's on to the götterdämmerung [excuse the mixed Wagnerian metaphor!].) This is as good as movies can possibly be.
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| The Disney lawyer who comes after you if you fair-use images for innocuous blogging purposes... |
"Night on Bald Mountain" probably should have been tacky too. It’s pretty great. All stops pulled with those infernal characters, who really register. The Schubert is kind of po-faced, or, if you prefer, it’s kind of sweet and moving. In fact, I so prefer. Actually, I really love this movie.
Babe, Pig in the City
US, 1998
Directed by George Miller
Directed by George Miller
Yet more evidence that
box-office returns and actual merit have no necessary correspondence, this
franchise-killing mega-flop may be the definitive children’s movie. This means
first of all that it is tremendously fun, one of the most prodigiously, even
profligately imaginative films ever made. Ideas, asides, jokes and stylistic
flourishes are in practically inexhaustible supply—you need multiple
exposures to uncover all the aural, visual and conceptual treasures on offer here. Just as importantly, and even more basically, Miller and associates are exploring a great many of the major themes and questions of children’s
literature, and doing so with wonderful clarity and feeling.
This very depth was the source of much negative press at the time of the film’s release—too scary, they said. Too much! You could make that argument; the vulnerability of innocence in a corrupt and weary world is not glossed over here, and the results are not necessarily reassuring. But you find this kind of thing in many of the marginal-in-decorum, absolutely core folk tales that started out for and by adults, then somehow—Andrew Lang?—got co-opted by kid culture. (Try the Grimms' "Mother Trudy", or "The Two Travelers", or "Misfortune", or even, more lightheartedly, "The Clever People".) Unsuitable for children, unless they are, or you make them so. Like those difficult tales, George Miller’s film demonstrates how constructive this kind of exploration can be. If we’ll have it, the vivid portrayal of darkness serves to strengthen affirmations of virtue and hope. In such contexts the victory of these latter qualities actually means something.
Not incidentally, it is in this affirmation that Babe, Pig in the City particularly distinguishes itself. Not content with simply defeating dark forces, Miller, through his wondrous child (pig)-like protagonist, sets out to understand and transform them. With one amusing exception (Hortense!), this film will have no villains. This is most particularly demonstrated in the amazing sequence featuring Babe, a Doberman pinscher, a pit-bull and a lawn mower. (See what I mean?!) Here, and in the margins throughout the film, injustice, cruelty and horror are close and real and ultimately susceptible to the ministrations of kindness and mercy. The resonances are considerable—I am put in mind of stories as varied and as substantial as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Albert Camus’ The Plague, not to mention even more basic sacred texts from a number of cultures. This film works like the best kind of fable or parable or multi-leveled narrative: after the fun and the laughs and the thrills, after the story for its own sake, there is so much of value to discuss and enact! Whether it is presently acknowledged or not, this is one of the superlative milestones of children’s media.
P.S. Watched it again. It still plays as profligately imaginative, possessing the technical and craft wherewithal to pull off every ridiculous folly. I notice that these animals are actually performing, or at least that they’ve been typage-juxtaposed in such as way to as suggest as much. Also, in the midst of all these fireworks, every tender expression is underplayed. More please, Mr. Miller!
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| Critics are wrong, sometimes |
This very depth was the source of much negative press at the time of the film’s release—too scary, they said. Too much! You could make that argument; the vulnerability of innocence in a corrupt and weary world is not glossed over here, and the results are not necessarily reassuring. But you find this kind of thing in many of the marginal-in-decorum, absolutely core folk tales that started out for and by adults, then somehow—Andrew Lang?—got co-opted by kid culture. (Try the Grimms' "Mother Trudy", or "The Two Travelers", or "Misfortune", or even, more lightheartedly, "The Clever People".) Unsuitable for children, unless they are, or you make them so. Like those difficult tales, George Miller’s film demonstrates how constructive this kind of exploration can be. If we’ll have it, the vivid portrayal of darkness serves to strengthen affirmations of virtue and hope. In such contexts the victory of these latter qualities actually means something.
 |
| Vanity Fair (cf. Bunyan, 1678) |
Not incidentally, it is in this affirmation that Babe, Pig in the City particularly distinguishes itself. Not content with simply defeating dark forces, Miller, through his wondrous child (pig)-like protagonist, sets out to understand and transform them. With one amusing exception (Hortense!), this film will have no villains. This is most particularly demonstrated in the amazing sequence featuring Babe, a Doberman pinscher, a pit-bull and a lawn mower. (See what I mean?!) Here, and in the margins throughout the film, injustice, cruelty and horror are close and real and ultimately susceptible to the ministrations of kindness and mercy. The resonances are considerable—I am put in mind of stories as varied and as substantial as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Albert Camus’ The Plague, not to mention even more basic sacred texts from a number of cultures. This film works like the best kind of fable or parable or multi-leveled narrative: after the fun and the laughs and the thrills, after the story for its own sake, there is so much of value to discuss and enact! Whether it is presently acknowledged or not, this is one of the superlative milestones of children’s media.
P.S. Watched it again. It still plays as profligately imaginative, possessing the technical and craft wherewithal to pull off every ridiculous folly. I notice that these animals are actually performing, or at least that they’ve been typage-juxtaposed in such as way to as suggest as much. Also, in the midst of all these fireworks, every tender expression is underplayed. More please, Mr. Miller!
Pinocchio
Italy, 2002
Directed by Roberto Begini.
Directed by Roberto Begini.
This Pinocchio is funny, but what it really gets is the paradoxes of childhood, of how the brat and angel so frustratingly and exaltingly intermingle. We all like Disney’s Sunday School version, but like Collodi's sloppy, sublime original, this one really gets repentance down, in all its agony and sweetness. The same goes for its take on family life, and friendship, and most all of what goes on in this lone and dreary world. The ending is sweet, satisfying, and almost unbearably poignant. It’s in the source, triumphantly served in this adaptation, and not at all out of place on that similar shelf containing Don Quijote, The Wind in the Willows, The House at Pooh Corner, or your own child packing up and driving away. The carriage. His wife. The hat!
Warning: don't use the English soundtrack! This film only works in Italian.
