That Duckfan's Eponymous Animation Review Series
Jul 14, 2022 10:22:23 GMT
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Post by That Duckfan on Jul 14, 2022 10:22:23 GMT
Afterword
I want to start off by thanking everyone who joined me on this animation journey. Like most of you, I'm a comics fan first and an animation fan second, and that hasn't changed. If anything, it's been reinforced. It's been a privilege and a delight to watch Disney animation change and grow throughout the centuries, but I've often found myself at odds with public opinion on more than one occasion. It's a truism that Disney movies are a little safe and a little kitsch, and they play into that image, too. The tonal difference from the comics is slight - but it's certainly there.
There were several reasons I embarked on this adventure. Disney movies are a seminal part of pop culture, and I was eager to see what the hype was all about. The studio has the reputation for being the best (mainstream, American) one in the business, so if I was going to start studying animated movies, this seemed like the ideal place to start. The fact that it's the only studio that produced features throughout the history of animation was an added bonus. You don't really get to cover different eras when you do Pixar.
In addition, I set out with an implicit question in mind. Is there such a thing as the 'essence' of Disney product that persists across the ages? That, my answer is... yes and no.
No in the sense that producer and every era clearly had its own idea of belongs in a wholesome family film. No in the sense that it wasn't Walt Disney who made these movies, it was the amorphous collective of artists employed by the studio that brought their individual touch to the project. (That's something I want to pay more attention to in future; which animator or director was responsible for something I particularly liked.)
But yes in the sense that Walt's presence - or lack thereof - is felt in the productions he oversaw. No other artist could mimic that combination of character, mischief, and conservative nostalgia. And yes in the sense that the system developed to produce these movies left its mark on production. The Disney Renaissance got its start while the animation department was briefly housed in a warehouse downtown, away from the oppressive history of Burbank - and I don't think that's entirely by coincidence. Given how central the Burbank lot was to the 1941 studio strike, arguably the single most important moment in the history of American animation, it's worth pondering the effect of the studio's internal structure and physical layout, in comparison to Hyperion Avenue or Emeryville.
While we're in the period, one thing that's interesting is how the history Disney's animated features reads like a decline. The company's most groundbreaking period was in the 1930s, capped off by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio would forever try to recapture this Golden Age of Animation, much as Disney tried to recapture his youth in Marceline, Missouri. While I have often argued that there should be more to Disney than Snow White, the fact is that its shadow looms large over the studio to this day. And in doing so, it maintains an invisible hold on American pop culture, much as Birth of a Nation has on live-action movies.
That said, if you approach each movie in its own right, there's still much to recommend. Each era has its highlights.
The 1930s, the period when the studio was still 'whole', spawned four of the most historic animated movies of all time: Snow White, Bambi, Pinocchio, and Fantasia. Each of these movies is a complete poem. Not all of them were released in time to be appreciated for what they were. The dream was shattered, forcing the studio to adapt to the changing circumstances.
The 1940s were a period of great experimentation and mixed successes. Early attempts like The Reluctant Dragon and Dumbo experimented with budget-cutting measures, while Saludos Amigos, Victory Through Air Power, and The Three Caballeros were made in the wartime spirit. The spark of animation as an art form, first articulated in Fantasia, is visible throughout.
The post-war period was more sober, releasing shorts in an anthology without fully getting the format right. Make Mine Music and Fun and Fancy Free especially fall victim to this, while Melody Time and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad saw the studio getting back on its feet.
In addition, the studio treaded water in a new medium: live-action. Both Song of the South and So Dear To My Heart speak to the aging Disney's growing nostalgia for his youth, and his search for the American fairy tale in a world where the United States was the dominant cultural power.
The 1950s represent both the return to feature-length storytelling and Walt's growing dissociation from the medium. He also became more focused on visual style, particularly Mary Blair's. Her style is present in Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. Lady and the Tramp sees a greater involvement from Walt himself, and leans deep into his sense of nostalgia. Determine to outdo himself, Walt started the stylistic masterpiece Sleeping Beauty but soon abandoned it, leaving behind a production in quagmire on many levels, and nearly closing the studio for good.
The 1960s are helmed by the stable but uninspired hands of director Wolfgang Reitherman. There's an almost alternative sense to this period, as strong plots are discarded for a greater emphasis on character and mood. It's an urbane, jazzy kind of era, marked by movies such as One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, and Robin Hood. More than ever, there was an emphasis on reimagining classic tales, preferably from England or France, like The Sword in the Stone or the ill-fated Chanticleer production. This period lasted well into the 1970s, with animation becoming notably spottier as time went by and money got tight. However, shorts like in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh showed that Disney still had it.
This period also saw the return of animated sequences in some live-action movies, often as a bit of light entertainment as in Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Pete's Dragon pioneered the use of an animated character as one of the leads in a live-action movie.
The 1970s mark a period of great change, as the old guard slowly makes way for a generation of CalArts-educated artists. Not all of these would stay around at Disney, but would end up as significant names in their own right: Don Bluth, Tim Burton, John Lasseter. Inspired by the general mood of the era, Disney movies become increasingly darker and edgier, reigniting the pathos that the old movies once had. The Rescuers and The Fox and the Hound marked something of a minor animation renaissance, but this ended rather abruptly when Jeffrey Katzenberg took a pair of scissors on The Black Cauldron to assert his dominance.
The 1980s then see a change of tone. Although they continue to feature dark and sometimes adult sequences, such as the bar scenes in The Great Mouse Detective and Who Framed Roger Rabbit or the nightmarish villains from Oliver and Company and The Rescuers Down Under, they present a more reassuring status quo. This era also sees the rise of influential lyricist Howard Ashman, who infuses Disney with a musical sensibility in The Little Mermaid.
The 1990s sees Disney riding the crest of another wave of success, but again we see a decline when Howard Ashman's stewardship is cut short after a run-in with AIDS. Beauty and the Beast represents his most complete vision, with Aladdin seeing only partial input. Its success sees Jeffrey Katzenberg with golden statuettes in his eyes, causing the surprise hit that is The Lion King to be followed by Pocahontas and Hunchback of the Notre Dame, two great misjudgments of the era. Before this happens, however, Katzenberg has already left the studio.
What follows is another set of semi-experimental movies, often featuring some kind of internal critique. Whether it's the heroic parody of Hercules, the feminism of Mulan, the lack of diegetic music in Tarzan, the artsy classicism of Fantasia 2000, the computer-generated animation of Dinosaur, or the eclectic absurdism of The Emperor's New Groove, Disney is trying new things. Disney ventures into new genres, too, such as the speculative and fiction featured in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Lilo & Stitch, and Treasure Planet.
The 2000s witnesses the slow and deliberate death of 2D animation, which went out of fashion for a number of reasons. The executive infighting of the late Eisner era and the general lack of care to the features leads to a series of banal and broad comedies: Brother Bear, Home on the Range, and Chicken Little. The real life fairy tale Enchanted also fits in this period, although the animation wasn't strictly in-house. Only with the sale of Pixar and its leading creative voice, John Lasseter, do Disney movies begin to reassert themselves. First awkwardly, as in Meet the Robinsons, but slowly with more poise, as in Bolt and The Princess and the Frog. The failure of the latter and the success of the 3D-animated Tangled seals the medium's fate, and Winnie the Pooh becomes the last hand-drawn animated feature the studio puts out.
The 2010s see Disney grow larger than ever before, which was reflected in their movies with the growth of computer graphics and franchises, all headed by the same creative leads. So we get Wreck-It Ralph and Ralph Breaks the Internet, we get Frozen and Frozen II, and even Mary Poppins Returns, another live-action movie with not quite Disney animation. The emphasis of world-building also plays an increasing role, from Big Hero 6's San Fransokyo to Zootopia's Zootopia. Alongside this we see stronger narratives based on cultural representation, such as the Pacific Islander-based Moana, the South East Asian Raya and the Last Dragon, and the Colombian Encanto. Many of these movies also heavily rely on popular culture and nostalgia-bainting, as demonstrated in Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers.
The 2020s... are yet to be written. The COVID-19 pandemic and greater awareness of social difference and democratic backsliding are likely to feed into the stories Disney will tell over the next few years, but so far these movies haven't yet made it through development. However, they can't be far off.
That's not to say that I don't have my favorites. I grew up on a steady diet of classic Disney cartoons, so the short sequences in the 1940s package films are close to my heart. What can I say, I guess I respond well to closely-timed action and old-fashioned jazz.
Another era that caught my attention was the 1980s. This period is often dismissed as a prelude to the Disney Renaissance, but it made some interesting choices in its own right, even if they didn't always work out well. It was a dark age, to a point that's often too much for Disney fans, but I think that's what makes it cool. It's a real throwback to those earliest movies like Pinocchio and Bambi, that also featured nightmarish scenes.
The late '90s/early 2000s is where Disney movies start to feel more grounded and mature, both emotionally and in subject matter. I'm not sure what prompted this, whether it was influence from outside the studio, or a return to normal after the slew of musicals.
And finally, the era that we're currently in. Yes, Disney movies have their excesses, but they've also never looked as good as today. This is a golden age of animation, not just for Disney but for the industry as a whole. And yes, that is thanks to the adoption of computer animation.
So, what's next for this blog? I'm done reviewing movies for now, but that doesn't mean it's all over. There's a couple of lists I've been working on that I'll be posting as a way of rounding off. And I have a couple of animation documentaries to catch up on.
Thanks to everyone who's followed this blog at one time or another, and we will see each other some other time! Cheers!