From start to finish, Johnston�s career is filled with smaller turns that are marked by their sincerity. Even behind their bumblings and squashings and stretchings, the Johnston characters are endearing and real because they speak a personal truth, no matter how daffy or dastardly. But the career of the eighth of the Nine Old Men to arrive at Disney�s, is perhaps best bracketed by a bravado-filled bear named Baloo, who struggles with his growing, unexpected emotional attachment to a man cub, and a notable early performance of the title character in Pinocchio when the little wooden boy is facing the consequences of his decisions, locked in a cage in Strombolli�s wagon. These are thinking characters, thoughtful individuals coming to grips with an understanding of previously unexamined flaws in their own character. What they each discover in themselves catches them off guard; the boy, lost and confused, turns to his conscience for solace, and the worldly bear finds himself growing attached to someone he will soon be forced to hurt, risking rejection and trust in order to do the right thing for the person he loves most in the world � and quite possibly the only person he loves more than himself. While the films don�t pretend to be so seriously analyzed, the result of Johnston�s performance in these moments, nevertheless, makes it impossible not to feel the gravity of the choices the characters have made. Without thinking so hard about it, we are naturally drawn in, and care, and are connected to things that feel familiar, personal, and truthful.

Not long after receiving the National Medal of the Arts, Ollie moved from his home on a hillside in the Flintridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, to live with his youngest son, Ken, just outside Seattle, Washington, leaving the home that he and his wife of 62 years, Marie (Worthey), built next door to Frank and Jeanette Thomas over half a century ago. Both of their sons, Rick and Ken, grew up in that backyard outlined by Ollie�s own personal railroad, now all long gone. Marie was working in the ink and paint department of Disney when she met Ollie, and she died only eight months after Frank Thomas. It had been a painful last few years of letting go of cherished people and places. But Ollie was a pro at knowing when enough was enough. More importantly, he knew why.

As glib as it may be to say that �the final chapter of great Disney animation has closed� with the death of Ollie Johnston, the fact remains that what passes along with him is a fiery insistence for respecting the legacy of first hand knowledge and experience that defined animation in America. It came from a lifetime at work on ones art, a lifetime spent in the company of other artists who grew up together working on the same projects, at the same studio, tackling the questions of great performance until they mastered them � a company of actors as opposed to a group of at-will employees doing work for hire. Long before they began authoring books, Johnston and Thomas, along with Eric Larson, attempted to secure that model and pass an invaluable body of knowledge directly on to other artists in their tutelage, like Glen Keane, Ron Clements, Andy Gaskill and others. It was a precious model that suffered a severe blow when a mass exodus lead by an egotistical pupil threatened to derail the entire program. Determined young animators made it work, but finally lost to Michael Eisner, who saw fit to tear apart the second generation and cut short their shot at securely passing that legacy to other generations � seeing only the net present value of box office returns and devaluing the talent under his charge, discarding them to the unemployment lines or the hungry jaws of other, lesser studios, while pardoning and then repurposing visionless animation management who colluded in the plan, sending them to other divisions where they could cash in on every imaginable incarnation of the characters they saw simply as franchises.

Still, it�s too easy to blame �management�. There remains the question of filmmakers being willing to face down the oh-so-hip cynicism of irony laden modern day Hollywood and be brave enough to go back to the kind of truth that Ollie Johnston delivered for close to four decades, sitting at a desk with a pencil, and fearlessly observing not just what people do, but how they feel when they are doing it. It isn�t that it�s been entirely absent, but while industry professionals can talk about carrying Ollie�s truths forward like a flag to the barricades, as the memories and mournings pour in over the next few days and weeks, how successful they will be at both understanding and then fighting for emotional truth in animation from this point forward is questionable.

Regardless, it is over. No drawings, no steam engines, no commemorative pins or DVD extras can bring him back to us. The last, and possibly the greatest, of the Nine Old Men is gone, and that is that. The time has come and it is a painful, inevitable loss that feels much too soon, although Ollie would remind us that it was past due. He was frequently the one who reminded Frank of when to let go and when to move on. So he has. The very soul of animation goes with him, but the heart remains. Let us be mindful of it, and courageous enough to keep it beating.

-- Posted April 15, 2008