Forever Magical
Page 6 of 7
This time we were off once again to the Frank G Wells Building but this time it was for an afternoon seminar with Disney film historian, movie critic and Disney fan Leonard Maltin hosted by Tim O’Day.
The room was dimly lit with Tim and Leonard on a spotlighted stage flanked by large viewscreens. The presentation began with talk of Leonard Maltin’s collection. I found that he is my type of collector. He collects from the heart, in essence when an item speaks to him. He said it could be a simple $3 item, but if he connects with it he’ll keep it. He also collects various lapel pins. Maltin developed a documentary on the classic John Wayne The Quiet Man. In honor of that work, John Wayne’s son gave him a shillelaghs he had purchased in Ireland during the filming.
Maltin then discussed his history writing about film. If you’ve read LaughingPlace.com’s interview with him you’re familiar with his history so I’ll focus on the rest of his talk. The first video clip shown was the short Mickey’s Parrot followed by a clip of Snow White. It was the first time I had watched Snow White in that type of context. Maltin explained Disney had to invent the colors for the shifts that occur as a character walked from sunlight to shade or darkness. He talked about the staging that was used in Snow White. The specific scene that was shown featured Snow White in a meadow as the huntsman is supposed to kill her. The contrast of the cartoon with the animated feature hit me. I decided I needed to pull Snow White off the shelf and watch it again. I’d forgotten how rich the film was, within seconds I was caught up in the moment.
The next segment was a sequence from Pinocchio, that opens over the town and then slowly moves in until you see Gephetto preparing Pinocchio for his day at school. As Maltin explained the medium isn’t the message. The film must have heart which is powerfully illustrated in the Baby Mine sequence from Dumbo. In watching the sequence with a more critical eye I finally realized how it gets to me everytime. I’ve always been amazed by the how this simple scene makes me cry everytime. Today I realized that I get caught up emotionally in the scene as the song starts and Dumbo’s mother begins to cuddle with him. Then the scene cuts to various other animals mother and child together including a humorous depiction of a hyena family which made me chuckle. Then they cut back to Dumbo and his mother and I begin to cry. I think the chuckle makes me more vulnerable because I cry ever time. There are other scenes from Disney films that I tear up during if I watch the film in its entirety but this scene gets to me each time.
Matlin then discussed Disney’s desire to continually strive for something new, better and different. Following the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs he didn’t continue with a film featuring Dopey. Years later when he did Sleeping Beauty, he wanted it to be a different film. So they did it in widescreen and gave the film unique visuals. They also used the music of Tchaikovsky for the film’s score. In introducing the next clip Maltin told us Sleeping Beauty took 6 plus years and cost $6 million - a huge sum at the time. We watched Prince Philip and Princess Aurora enter and dance as their parents watched. Fauna’s comments had Mary Costa (the voice of Sleeping Beauty), who was seated a few rows ahead of me, chuckling.
Maltin focus turned to xerography, the next step for Disney. The animators were excited over the process that they felt would keep some of the energy of their rough pencil sketches. They apparently felt that something was lost with the neatness of the strong lines that were created during the inking and painting process. With the new process the roughness was able to show through more. 101 Dalmatians also gave animators a chance to do charicatures, as illustrated by Cruella de Vil's angular, exaggerated features.