Movie #3: Fantasia (1940)

Watched: July 3, 2012

I was slightly nervous about making myself sit down for two hours to watch this one. As much as I enjoy animation and (at least some) classical music, I am an expert on neither, and I remembered being slightly bored when I tried watching it a few years ago. I don't think I ever particularly took to it as a kid ether, which I guess is good because I can't remember ever having nightmares from the "Night on Bald Mountain" segment.

Anyway, it turned out I shouldn't have worried: my attention only lagged for a little during the middle, and I got through it just fine.

That said, I think for me, this concept would work better as a series of shorts than as a two-hour movie. I'd have a much easier time focusing on and appreciating them individually than I would watching them all back-to-back, I think. But this may not be any fault of the movie's; I am an uncultured swine with the attention span of a gnat. If you're more into art and music than I am and haven't had your brain totally rotted by the Internet, maybe it's the most captivating two hours you could ever spend! (And I should emphasize again that I do love most of the segments.) This will also be an easy response to format, because I can just go through the different segments.

So.

1. Toccata & Fugue in D Minor (Bach)

Shamefully, my first thought when this started was, "hey, I have this on Magic Piano!" That is the level of appreciation for the finer things I'm dealing with here.

The whole "drawing sound/the concert experience" thing is a REALLY cool idea. People must have been weirded out when Fantasia premiered and THIS was their introduction to it though (assuming they didn't already know very much about the movie). I'd be interested to see what the animation process was like for this! Seems like a difficult thing to collaborate on- how do you get four or five different people to all agree on what a piece of music should "look" like? (Even if they were all smoking the same crack pipe, I'm given to understand it would have different effects on different people.) Crazy shit, my friends.

2. Nutcracker Suite (Tchaikovsky)

Disney's Fantasia: the reason I associate the "Nutcracker Suite" with morning dew and flowers and frost and not, y'know. Anything from The Nutcracker. Anyway, those are some racially questionable animated mushrooms, huh!

I'm... is this offensive? I'm pretty sure this is offensive, right?

Now, the fish I'm positive are offensive. Or, at the very least, troubling. What is it with 1940s!Disney's preoccupation with weirdly feminized/sexualized fish? (Looking at you, Cleo.) They're fish! I know they're "Arabian" and that means they MUST be all coy and heavy-lidded and sexily-veiled and harem-y, but... wait. No. No, that doesn't mean that at all! God damn it, Disney, this is why we can't have nice things.

This ethnically-stereotyped fish wants to sleep with you. WHAT THE FUCK.

I absolutely love "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," and I love Fantasia's interpretation of said, but the ending should look so much more epic! That's the best part of the music, and the animation is just... slowly-falling and twinkling snowflakes. Skating would look so much more dynamic! I am disappoint.

(I should mention I have no idea what the ballet is supposed to look like, so maybe the music is actually intended to go with fairly languid action, but damn it, it doesn't sound that way.)

3. The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas)

It feels like Mickey should get entrance applause here. And appearances like this are why I still have affection for Mickey even though he's an unrelenting dickbag to his girlfriend and his dog in House of Mouse.

Awwww!

Anyway, it's appropriate that he should be in this movie (instead of Dopey, like some people originally wanted), given that the whole "syncing animation to music" thing is, y'know. Named for him, and everything. And this style actually impresses me a lot more than the "pure music" thing they did with the Fugue. That is undoubtedly cool, but this is more circumscribed: tell a coherent story and coordinate it perfectly with a preexisting piece of music. And the segment feels completely natural the whole way through, and it just works, and I think that is so freaking cool. (Yeah, Sleeping Beauty will just blow my little MIND when I get to that.)

4. Rite of Spring (Stravinsky)

DISNEY SUPPORTED THE HISTORICAL EXISTENCE OF DINOSAURS AND EVOLUTION AND THE BIG BANG AS FAR BACK AS 1940. TAKE THAT, RELIGIOUS WINGNUTS.

Ahem.

The volcano part is really cool! But this is probably the low point of my attention in this movie. It get insanely fucking depressing too! SPOILER ALERT: the stegosaurus dies horribly. And that upsets me because in second grade when we all had to study a dinosaur, I had the stegosaurus, and stegosauruses are my favorite, you guys, and this was so painful for me. ;___; I'm not even including a picture because it's too upsetting.

Oh, and then all the dinosaurs (who we'd previously seen peacefully eating leaves, and leading their little ones along, and generally being weirdly cute for giant reptilian monsters) go on a death march, slowly starving to death in a horrible fashion. Time passes and their bleached bones are crushed by volcanic movement.

You know, for kids!

5. Pastoral Symphony (Beethoven)

My VHS from the 1990s doesn't have Sunflower, of course. I've never actually watched the scenes with her in them, though I've seen screencaps and... to be honest, I don't really feel any need to watch them. It's offensive on a level that makes the orientalist harem-slutfish look tasteful.

I have no good way to segue out of that. Racism is bad, kids. Don't do it. Anyway, to move right along and address the version of this scene that I watched:

Disney's mythological setting is pretty, but I find the countryside evoked by Beethoven a lot more appealing, and sort of wish they'd done something with that, even though it would sort of defeat the point of the movie. *shrug* Whatever. The important thing here is:

BOOBIES. Freaky, nipple-less boobies. Attached to pastel-colored lady centaurs.

This is a weird movie, y'all. And cupids have weird ideas about fashion.

Pink-Haired Lady Centaur is right to look doubtful.

FOREVER ALONE

FOREVER ALONETTE

... And then they have sex? And then... a naked baby's ass becomes a heart? SO ROMANTIC OMG.

OH NO, OMINOUS MUSIC. WHATEVER COULD IT BE?

Zeus: Y HALLO THAR

I didn't know Zeus moonlighted as a militant temperance reformer.

So, basically he fucks all the shit up, and then gets sort of bored and casual about the shit-fucking-up. This is exactly as big a douchebag as Zeus is. Disney got it in the 1940s, but they lost it by the time they did Hercules.

I too enjoy the occasional glass of rainbow. THIS MOVIE.

5. Dance of the Hours (Ponchielli)

I don't actually have a lot to say about this one. I can't decide if the alligators are murderous rapists, or gentlemen, or what. They kind of started out murder-and-rape-y, but then the hippos were all "Dammmmn, I wanna take a ride on your disco stick. Chase me, big boy!" and then the alligators are like "kindly allow me to twirl you, milady!" and I just... don't get what is happening. Then again, I was pretty exhausted after the Rite of Spring and the Pastoral, so it's entirely possible I just missed something. Whatever.

DAT ASS.

6. Night on Bald Mountain (Mussorgsky)/Ave Maria (Schubert)

THIS IS THE FREAKIEST OF SHIT, YO. But it's intended to be the freakiest of shit, so it's awesome. But scary (seriously. I'm 21 goddamn years old and I still sort of ran to turn the lights on as soon as the movie was over).

Also, an incredibly important and insightful observation:

Only evil has nipples in the Fantasia-verse. ~*THE MORE YOU KNOW*~

Then blah blah blah, good triumphs, light chases out the darkness, whatever. FREAKIEST. OF. SHIT.

It's so cool.

Movie #2: Pinocchio (1940)

Prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish, and someday you will be a real boy.
 (Lady, if that's what it takes, then I'm pretty sure there are no real boys.)

Watched: June 19, 2012

In contrast to Snow White, I haven't seen Pinocchio since I was very small, and it never left much of an impression on me. So, I was a little bit unenthusiastic about watching it now, but I was very pleasantly surprised! I think the animation and scenery impressed me even more than Snow White's did, and there weren't any parts during which I found myself terribly bored. I even got a little choked up at a few parts!

Mainly, though, it's the most disturbing Disney movie I can think of. (Like, seriously disturbing, not Three Caballeros "why does a duck want to have sex with a human OH GOD"-disturbing.) It's cool! But... whoa. Good prevails in this movie, but not over evil. More on that later.

I have to say: Geppetto is less sympathetic to my mind than he's intended to be. The absent-mindedness and commitment to his art (and his son) are endearing, but the guy's kind of an asshole to his cat, and that loses you major points with me. Also, why did he think it was a good idea to send his effectively-newborn son, who had no compunction about lighting his hand on fire because he didn't know fire was bad into the wide, wide world (/school) unsupervised THE VERY NEXT MORNING? This man is clearly not fit to be a father.

 

 

Or a pet owner.

That said, as John Grant points out, this is an interesting movie for employing a(n ersatz) wicked stepfather (in the form of Stromboli), instead of a wicked stepmother. In fact, there are barely any female characters at all- just the Blue Fairy and Cleo the goldfish. (Speaking of the Blue Fairy... she is totally Evangeline from The Princess and the Frog, Y/N? Don't get too flirty, Jiminy, or Ray will fuck your shit up!) Geppetto is a single dad! And his son still winds up being a good, reasonably well-adjusted person in the end! How is a Disney movie made in 1940 somehow more progressive than some people are today? (Then again, Geppetto is pretty... passive, in terms of actually teaching Pinocchio about the world. Jiminy and the Blue Fairy do more to raise the kid, within the span of the movie anyway. Food for thought!)

Also, to be fair, I don't totally buy that Pinocchio proved himself in the end. Brave and unselfish, definitely, but truthful? He never actually told Geppetto where the ears and tail came from, and the Blue Fairy basically only has his word that he's going to tell the truth from now on, and he'd already been established as insanely naive and gullible. I'm just saying. Maybe I'm too critical, but I think she could raise her standards a little when it comes to creating human life.

Random things that charmed/entertained me...

There is SO MUCH DETAIL in Geppetto's shop. It's wonderful.

*head spins*

And also, Geppetto made a clock of a drunk getting kicked out of a bar.

I love when Disney movies have totally intentional, obvious things that belie the people who write them off as exclusively children's entertainment.

More art squee: the sweeping shots of the village the morning after Pinocchio comes to life.

Is that a bird's nest on that chimney in the forefront of the second one? God, I love Disney movies. So much detail!


Honest John: I'm speaking, my boy, of the THEATRE!
Music: DUN DUN DUNNNN
XD


I think I would like to hire the Blue Fairy to float down from on high and spout authoritative moralisms at people:
"You see, Pinocchio, a lie keeps growing and growing, until it's as plain as the nose on your face."
"Remember, a boy who won't be good might as well be made of wood!"
"Put down the PS3 controller and tell your girlfriend she looks pretty. Oh, and give your mother a call- she misses you. Dick."
(One of those isn't actually a line from the movie, but I'll leave it a mystery.)


The Coachman: I'm collecting stupid little boys.
Like you do.

ALTERNATELY:

The Coachman: I'm collecting stupid little boys.
Me: STORY OF MY LOVE LIFE, LOL, AMIRITE LADIES?

All of the stuff with the Coachman rounding boys up off the streets and taking them to "Pleasure Island" for nefarious purposes... probably reads very differently now than it did in 1940 (sadly).

That said, some things never change, and I give Disney points for realism for including the following exchange:
Lampwick: Come on, let's go in and poke somebody in the nose.
Pinocchio: Why?
Lampwick: Just for the fun of it.
Pinocchio: Okay, Lampy!
That is not just Pinocchio being naive; that is EXACTLY as dumb as I now understand boys to be. Four for you, Disney.

I got serious chills when Jiminy Cricket starts singing "When You Wish Upon a Star" at the end. Things like this are why I'm a hopeless Disney nerd, I guess.

I cried when... well, I didn't cry, but I got choked up and freaked out during the whole donkey transformation business. That... is one of the most disturbing things, if not THE most disturbing thing I have ever seen in a Disney movie. I'm not saying they were excellent human beings, but little boys being abducted, turned into donkeys, and sold to do a (short) lifetime's worth of backbreaking labor... and all the while retaining sentience and memory of being human! That is horror movie shit! And the Coachman's never even defeated! He just... goes on to transform more kids into beasts of burden. NO one is saved except Pinocchio! So much for good triumphing over evil. In some ways, it's a very optimistic movie (be[come] a good person --> wishes come true!), but in other ways... it is incredibly, incredibly dark. None of the villains get their comeuppance; instead, a bunch of misbehaving kids get a death sentence after being abducted, then effectively tortured and enslaved. ~*DISNEY MAGIC LOL*~

I wanted to pull my hair out when... Geppetto sends Pinocchio out on his own during his first day of... life. SO CLEARLY ILL-ADVISED, AUGH. I know there wouldn't be a movie if he didn't, but it's frustrating all the same.

Best song/sequence... Any scene that involves Geppetto dancing joyously around his shop, with all the clocks and music boxes and everything going. Pure charm.

In short... This movie was seriously entertaining and interesting! It probably won't wind up being one that I rewatch a ton of times (because it's not about a self-absorbed Incan emperor, or a girl who poses as a man and saves China), but I'd rate it as one of the better Disney films out there. Also one of the most nightmare-inducing.


Images all taken from the marvelously exhaustive disneyscreencaps.com.

Movie #1: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Remember, you're the one/who can fill the world with sunshine.

Watched: June 13, 2012

All right, blog, let me just kick things off here by saying that I am a Snow White apologist. I LOVE Snow White, and have done since I was about three years old. My love of this movie/character is probably largely to blame for my longstanding dream of living in a cottage with animal friends helping me cook and clean, while I sing and wear pretty dresses and become a master chef.

This dream has yet to come true, but I remain hopeful.

Anyway, as I've gotten older, my love has not diminished. As a result, I have MUCH more to say about this than I will about most of the other movies I watch. Probably. I make no promises; I do like the sound of my own voice (or whatever the text-equivalent is).

First: Snow White herself. Gentle, trusting, pure, industrious, in tune with all the goodness of nature, and not a bad dancer... yes, she is a total Mary Sue. She is goodness incarnate, wrapped in an adorable package and sealed with a bow. Yet she doesn't irritate the shit out of me. Why? Partly nostalgia. Partly the fact that I can understand what her behavior and attitude must have meant to Americans in 1937 ("optimism + hard work = happy ending" seems to have been a REALLY appealing formula in the middle of the Depression for some, strange reason). Partly because she's so young. John Grant pegs her at somewhere between 12 and 14 years old, and, well... I find her goodness a more or less believable (if remarkable) product of being a very sheltered, young princess who was made to wear rags and work as a scullery maid her whole life, but otherwise seems reasonably well taken care of. She certainly doesn't seem to suspect that her stepmother (the one who made her work as a maid to begin with) might hate her enough to want to murder her as soon as she hits puberty, at any rate, in spite of the fact that the Queen regularly checks in with an enchanted mirror to make sure she's still the prettiest, and is plainly evil.

I'm certainly not saying anyone in her position would have turned out the same way, but in a movie with magic spells and animals who do laundry, I don't find her personality wildly implausible.

Also, I just want to take this time to give Disney credit for making Our Heroine slightly less gullible than she is in the Grimms' fairy tale. In their version, the Queen provides Snow with poisoned goods three times, and Snow takes them every time. In the Disney version, she only makes the mistake once. Then again, in the Grimm version, the prince decides to put the corpse of his beloved on display in his home so he can always gaze at her beauty. Sometimes, the changes Disney makes from the source material are for the better- that's all I'm saying.

At any rate, as at least one scholar has noted: Snow White is essentially a story about Shirley Temple triumphing over Greta Garbo. It's the "good woman" of the 1930s triumphing over the sex symbol of the 1920s.

 

I mean, I think it's safe to say the Queen has way more sex appeal than Snow. She's supposed to: she's an adult woman; Snow is a child. But in 1937, highly-arched and sculpted eyebrows, heavy eyeshadow, and high cheekbones do NOT "fairest of them all" make! No, no, in 1937, it's all about wholesome, all-American, girl-next-door prettiness.

There are probably arguments to be made for the Queen embodying a "dangerous" female sexuality, whereas Snow White is... pretty entirely asexual, in terms of the way she's presented (and likely the way she thinks). This being 1937, and views on female sexuality being what they were (/are), being sexual and a woman gets you thrown over a cliff in a lightning storm, while being wholesome and innocent and Good (and rather motherly, as it happens) gets you a shiny castle and a handsome prince.

That said, I would never argue that Snow White gets her happy ending because she's a chaste doormat. Well, chaste, maybe, but doormat, no. I don't think that she does just sit around serving men and waiting for her prince to come save her. Let's recap:

Within the first, like, fifteen minutes of the movie, the girl has a guy pull a knife on her, finds out her stepmother wants her dead, and is forced to flee civilization and live in the forest for an indeterminate amount of time. And right when she'd just met this really cute, romantic guy, who seemed to like her back! That's a pretty tall order for a 12-to-14-year-old. And what happens?

Well, she runs into the forest as advised by the huntsman and has a little bit of a freakout. (Side note: I'm not sure if the reveal that the scary monster eyes in the woods actually belong to an adorable bunny wunny is supposed to get a laugh, but it sure did when I watched it.) Understandable. After having a good cry, she almost instantly regrets losing her head, and sings what might be THE most "American" and the most Disneyish song in the Disney canon, "With a Smile and a Song." She then uses her available resources (friendly woodland creatures) to find shelter, and immediately sets to work about said shelter because she hopes to be able to barter her work for room and board (she explicitly says that if she cleans the place up, maybe the owners will let her stay, and later negotiates her own arrangements with the dwarfs). 

Okay, yes, she's breaking and entering, which is deeply weird even if you do wash the residents' dishes and everything, but the point is: she is doing things. I'm not sure what the critics want her to have done in that situation. GPSes didn't exist, she had no idea where the prince was likely to be, and had no other (human) contacts outside her castle. And while plotting regicide would have been badass, it's probably more than I would have been capable of at any age, let alone hers. As it is, she fled into the forest, did her best to make a life for herself there (and make herself useful to others at the same time), and did it all without complaining. No, she's not beating up bad guys, or leading a revolution, or wearing thongs, or whatever it is "strong female characters" are supposed to do, but I think her actions indicate a certain strength of character that people seem prone to undervalue just because she also hoped she'd be reunited with the guy she fell in love with one day. She never seems to be counting on that, she'd just be very happy if it happened.

I mean, I'm not saying it's a feminist parable for the ages. The sensibilities concerning gender are quite dated, and heck, maybe she IS supposed to be counting on the prince to come save her, and I'm reading things in a way the creators didn't intend. I'm just saying: I don't agree with those who think she is the Worst Role Model Ever for a little girl. (Not least of all because I don't think most little girls regard animated movies as a rigid guide for how to live their lives. This one grew up to be a left-wing, pro-choice, patriarchy-questioning, Joan Scott-reading, aspiring gender historian. Who just happens to want to live in a cottage in the forest with sentient woodland creatures. I contain multitudes.)

Anyway. Now that I've ranted at some length, I will also say that the movie itself continues to be as magical as it was when I was three. The artwork is beautiful, and it is almost unbelievable that every single frame was hand-drawn.

I love all of the water animation in this movie, but this small part with the deer in the forest is probably my favorite.

Random things I found particularly charming...

 When Snow runs into the castle while the prince is singing "One Song" and she sort of primps before she appears on the balcony. She's so clearly playacting the role of the young miss being wooed. She settles into it by the end of the song, but you can see her assuming the "role" and trying to look all mature and haughty at the beginning. It's kind of subtle, but I got a kick out of it.

"Aloof, unavailable, rag-wearing princess. Aloof, unavailable, rag-wearing princess..."

Having now visited the living quarters inhabited by six college-aged men, I have a whole new appreciation for Snow's discovery of the dwarfs' cottage. Everything's dark and eerie, there's trash all over the place, and something doesn't smell totally right. "There must be seven little children who live here... Seven untidy little children!" Indeed. Just don't go into the outhouse, Snow. You won't be happy with what you find there.

I love how the dwarfs don't even question that if one of them is going to get eaten by a witch/goblin/dragon, it's going to be Dopey, their poor, mentally challenged, little brother. Real nice move, guys. Ya dicks.

Our Heroine is pretty hilariously patronizing to Grumpy, even when he starts being somewhat open about being fond of her. Snow White: pure, good, industrious, graceful... and kind of a bitchy sense of humor. Good for her.

"He was so romantic, I could not resist!" "Awww, yeah, get it, girl."

If anyone has an alternative explanation for what the hell THAT was about, I'd be glad to hear it. (Actually, no, I wouldn't. I like mine.)

I cried when... Grumpy gets choked up and cries during her funeral. YOU BIG SOFTIE. ;___; Their princess is dead, you guys. MY CREYZ.

I wanted to pull my hair out when... The dwarfs are trying to solve the mystery of who cleaned up their cottage and is IN THE HOUSE OH MY GOD. Seriously, the entire beginning of the movie (which includes Snow White falling in love, almost being stabbed, fleeing into the forest, and finding [and cleaning] a house) happens in about 20 minutes, and then this scene just seems interminable. Maybe if you've never seen the movie before it doesn't seem that way, since it establishes all seven dwarfs' personalities, but once you take it for granted that, y'know, Doc makes with the Spoonerisms, Sneezey has allergies, Bashful is shy, Grumpy is a dick, etc., it really drags (I thought).

Best song/sequence... "Whistle While You Work." It was my favorite when I was five, and by gum, it's my favorite now. And I always sing it when I vacuum.

In short... I will never stop loving this movie. NO ONE CAN MAKE ME. <333


All images taken from disneyscreencaps.com, a wonderful and overwhelmingly precise website.

The Project

This is my last summer of freedom before I start grad school. My best friend is working, my boyfriend is on his way to California, and I need to do something productive (but not too productive) so I don't go insane.

So, I did what any other well-adjusted adult would do: I decided to watch every movie in the Disney (animated) canon, in chronological order. 51 films, from Snow White to Winnie the Pooh- many of which I've seen before (being a huge Disney nerd), many of which I haven't (being a lazy Disney nerd). I'll post at least a few words about every movie on this blog, primarily for my own motivation and entertainment. This is the sort of thing I can easily see myself abandoning, so I'm curious to see how stubbornly I stick to it... Good luck, self!