I have never outgrown a fondness for animated movies, although some of the gooey and simplistic films churned out today are nigh unwatchable. Against this the advances in digital technology have produced some wonderfully-detailed and warming tales from both Pixar and Disney (now of course the same company) and others. However I am still a sucker for the beauties of hand-drawn animation as exemplified by the early Disney classics and of course the amazing Studio Ghibli. These works are a labour of love.
Although I have seen the above movie many times over the years, it never ceases to amaze me how much I forget between viewings. Yes, I remember the gist of the tale and certain stand-out moments and songs, but at a recent viewing, I was staggered by just how brilliant, beautiful, meticulously detailed, amusing, and yes 'scary' the film actually is. It is definitely a landmark movie in cinema history. It was Walt Disney's first feature-length animation, costing 1.4 million dollars (over its original budget of $250,000), with more than two million individual illustrations and 1500 shades of paint. Before its release, sceptics immediately labelled it 'Disney's Folly' and the prophets of doom predicted the worst.
However it was an immediate critical and popular hit and, adjusted for inflation, it was long the highest grossing animated movie of all time. It was the first animated feature selected for the National Film Registry and it received a special Academy Award -- one regular-size Oscar and seven mini-Oscars for each of the seven dwarfs. Parenthetically I do have my own mnemonic for remembering their names -- a popular party trick -- but it is too rude to be immortalised on the net! There are no brownie points for discovering that it was one of Hitler's favourite movies, but Sergei Eisenstein declared it to be the greatest film ever made (and he should know). It certainly created the platform for the myriad full-length animations that have been released since.
I also did not remember just how eerie and dark the film is at times, with an underlying vibe of sinister menace. Initially the British Board of Film Classification gave it an A certificate rather than a U, making it off-limit to the under-sixteens. Although this was soon revised, I can understand that kids could be left with nightmares on viewing Snow White facing the murderous huntsman who has been ordered to place her heart in a casket, being attacked by trees while lost in the forest, seeing the evil queen morph into a wicked hag (a la Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde),watching her tempt Snow with her poisoned apple, and seeing her fall to her doom during the final storm -- with the last image of hungry vultures descending. There is no question that many of Disney's movies had their share of black moments and this one has them in spades.
But of course children are resilient, and they are more likely to come away with memories of Snow White's chirpy animal buddies, the jolly songs, and a fondness for the individualised dwarfs, especially the bumbling Dopey who is mute and the irascible Grumpy who is very very angry. The movie still holds up today -- apart from possibly the over-operatic warbling from the uncredited Adriana Caselotti as Snow White; it has lost none of its freshness and easy charm. It remains a timeless classic.
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I will not be blogging next Friday since, contrary to previous resolutions, we have again opted for the full FrightFest weekend from next Thursday through the Bank Holiday Monday. After only choosing a handful of movies last year, we were tempted to buy the whole package once again and well may regret doing so. They say that old dogs never learn -- and I won't take that analogy too far. So watch this space for the many reviews to follow....
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