In the true sense of a Golden Era 1940s movie; released in 1941 Dumbo starts with a string of violins taking the viewer on a brief musical summery of the movie in the opening credits. Dumbo, obviously aimed to small children, and a 180 departure from its previous film Fantasia, is done with bright primary colors, and kid friendly (at the time kid friendly) character designs. Also aimed to boost national pride, Dumbo serves as a military promotional tool for the war front.
After the gorgeous effect of wind and rain, thunder and lightning, we (the audience) hear the distinct sound of a P-51 mustang war airplane (or any generic 1940s mustang motor) to quickly reveal a V formation by a group of storks. This must be the definite 180 degree departure from Fantasia; in Dumbo's world sex does not exist, at all: babies are delivered from heaven by storks. The storks sing in the style popular in the 1940s, and after a series of militar-esque formations the storks decent into a literal map of Florida, again going with popular trend of being overly literal in cartoons; no risks taken in dumbo.As the storks deliver their cargo, one by one the animals are presented, with a beautiful background the audience gets a glimpse of the cages and surroundings.And it is the background that stands alone as a free form artistic expression; those watercolor paintings is what gives Dumbo a uniqueness among other cartoon of its time. As the babies are delivered and the lone elephant fails to receive her delivery, the scene moves forward an introduces the mood setter; the locomotive is the one that gives the audience clues of what the main characters are going go thru. As the train leaves its station, and yells out "lets go!" the stork delivering dumbo is introduced; since it is the stork delivering the main character, it is the only one anthropomized. A very quick introduction of Dumbo's mother, the only shy "proper" female elephant, leads to the revelation of Dumbos unique ears. After this, the locomotive sets the mood for the next act, as the sun sets (with an array of violets, blues, and pinks) the locomotive is presented with a challenge, and she/he/it delivers the clue as to how Dumbo should take the upcoming challenge "I know I can, I know I can."
This brings the viewer with one Dumbo's use of light in dramatic scenes. Now I won't get into Dumbo's use of race, and the negative connotations that the movie's characters portray, but I will say that Dumbo is a movie about the underdog. And although it does stereotype the African American culture, at the same time it puts the culture in the forefront, as with Dumbo, equalizing the underdogs of the era. That said, it is a beautiful rendition of weather, man, and animals in the construction of the circus. Which is accentuated with a blue tint that seems to dominate the color scheme of the feature. Daybreak; and the circus parade is shown, and this is one of the few instances where we see people, which aside from the spectators, the only times that the audience sees full faces and people features is when the people are in costume, or in a performance role. In Dumbo, people are not important, and are seen just like animals might see us, passing blobs of color and light. By the en of the parade, the confrontation scene, where Dumbo's mother, defends Dumbo, and spanks the bully with the big ears. And in a break from Dumbo's propaganda of the American might, in this scene the bully is seen with the same feature of Dumbo's big ears as a form of saying that bullies are just covering up their own insecurities; the strong are not as strong as they appear.
After Dumbo is separated from his mother, and shunned by the elephants, he teams up with the little mouse, who is the voice that Dumbo lacks. And after the failed attempt of stardom, and wrecking the circus Dumbo is made a clown. And he fails by not recognizing his strength and tries to hide his ears. Ike, I mean Dumbo, then goes and sees his mom with the help of the mouse. And in this scene we get the calm before the storm. Dumbo then end up drinking tainted water and gets drunk. This next sequence was the most terrifying thing in my childhood. This was a total display of Technicolor and breaks completely with the soft, almost pastel palette of the feature an dives the viewer into a psychedelic lucid dream. More than discourage the audience from drinking, the dancing elephants manage to entertain Dumbo and the mouse, so much that they end up flying. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The use of lighting and special effects in the psychedelic elephants is impressive, with my favorite being the dancing sequence with the lightning rope thing.
After Dumbo and mouse are awaken in the top of the tree by the very stereotypical southern "crows" thing happen pretty quickly for Dumbo, and the conclusion is almost rushed. This is where Dumbo as the American war machine metaphor is brought to light deliberately; at one point the mouse shouts to Dumbo to "Retract your landing gear. Raise your fuselage." By the time when the circus clowns attempt to kill Dumbo by making jump impossibly high, dumbo gains his confidence and flies and all is well. The audience is then explained the success of Dumbo via a news reel and a song. Lessons where learned from previous features, and this one was done in an economic, but artistic way, leaning toward the economic factors. A classic now, but it was a movie made for marketing and propaganda in its time of release; Dumbo encouraged the American people to endure the difficult time that they where enduring, and did it effectively.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Disney Feature Films: Fantasia or I saw a nipple in a Disney movie
So much nudity in this film! but I'll get to that later.
Fantasia is the third major feature released by Disney released in 1940. It is a mashup between a PSA from the 50s and an opera; putting it in very simplified terms. Narrated by Deems Taylor; in a very typical 50's voice over. And the orchestra was conducted by Leopold Stokowski; which I always remember him from a bugs bunny cartoon (the one with the rude opera singer). This film felt to me more of a effects reel than an actual movie, not in a bad way, it was so artistic that it felt like it was made for art's sake. I look at Fantasia as a painting, starting with the simplified and ending with the detailed and the complex.
After the introduction, the movie starts as an orchestra concerto with the abstract. We are eased into the animation with more subtlety than in Pinocchio by contrasting high hues of primary colors; blue, yellow magenta, with every high note.
The first piece, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, reminds me a lot of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Very subjective in the animation, the music does conduct the animation; the visuals do not really have any cohesion, sometimes being abstract, sometimes mimicking the instruments themselves. This first piece really give a very nice intro to the world of music and animation, and a very nice effects reel. The next piece, introduced as a classic, but almost forgotten, Tchaikovsky's least favorite; The Nutcracker. Disney took here an established story and reinterpreted as an allegory for nature; a reboot" of the Nutcracker. Starting with the abstract theme, similar colors as the first suite, we ease into the fantastical and the fairies come out. an animation that might have been more suited for Vivaldi's four seasons, we transition from season to season (duh) with the fairies being the transitioners. What must be the cutest stereotypical piece of Fantasia, the mushrooms dance like "chinese men" (term very widely used at the time) with the little mushroom having as much personality as Pinocchio, really that little mushroom deserved its own feature. I always remember the bailarina piece as very creepy, with the flowers morphing into bailarinas, sill with an anthropomorphic way of seing animation, the flowers dance thru the water and flow into into the water, leading us into the underwater piece. What must be the most flawed animation in fantasia, the underwater piece looks more like an experiment than a finished cartoon. There are a lot of glitches, but it looks like animators pushed the envelope in this one. They took the idea of underwater animation from Pinocchio to a new level, but still sticking with the same style of animating fishes. And that is one thing I've noticed of the early Disney movies, they stay very consistent on style. Anyway, the flowers close the nutcracker suite, with a display of stereotypical idea of a culture; which seems okay by the standards of the time.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the most memorable and important piece of Fantasia, introduced as an ancient legend, retold with Mickey, it was the relaunch of Mickey into popularity. With this piece, Mickey regained his classic status and really steeped into pop conscience. Why? Simplicity. Form the featured filmes, this piece is the first time that a consistent color palet is used. A triad color scheme of blue, yellow and red, the piece stays consistent throughout, emphasizing a color in moments of where the action demands it. At one point, where Mickey shops down the broom, the animation becomes very graphic, only having the silhouette (in dark blue) of Mickey and the broom showing against a a yellow background. This, probably being a solution to not showing directly a very violent mickey, instead becomes an extremely powerful scene. Another thing about this piece is the animation of water is somewhat different from the Nutcracker piece; more refined, and now adding the effect of the shooting stars.
By the end of the piece, Mickey himself congratulates Leopold in the second combination of live-action and animation of this feature; again we are eased to this idea by way of Mickey's silhouette. This next one must have been my favorite piece when I was a kid, The Rite of Spring tell the story of evolution according to Disney. When introduced by Taylor, he really seems to have a hard time having a serious face, it seems a tho this was the most fantastical piece to him. Anyway, after the introduction of a fiery sun, a red palette is used for earth, with blue creeping in. a violent dance of cools and reds lead to the microscopic. With each evolutionary landmark transitioned with live action clouds, yet another introduction of live cation, time then slows down to show the very salamander-looking dinosaurs. This sort of grim-looking depiction of ancient times ends with the deadly battle between a stegosaurus and a demonic tyrannosaurus.As in Pinocchio,the mood is set by the weather and lightning substitutes the T-rex's roar. After the intermission, which eases the viewer to live action, then back again with primary colors and silhouette. Taylor then introduces the sound wave to the audience represented by a vertical line, interacts with the sound wave character (which is given a shy personality) and the audience is introduced to the animation via an abstract representation of music once again.
The Pastoral Symphony is represented by creatures of greek myth, animated in the style of a baroque painting, it narrates the day in this world as introduced by a young pegasus and his/her siblings. As the world expands, the story becomes more mature up to a point of introducing the audience to a mating ritual. And although there is no sex illustrated, it is very sexual. But this was a baroque painting, it is consistent with the style; thus the naked centaurs. The climax of this baroque "fluff" must be the introduction via two politically and morally incorrect (but very sexy) zebras of Bacchus, the god of wine. After an orgy between Bacchus and the lady centaurs, Zeus rears his ugly head and ruins the party just for the fun of it. Again, animators experiment with lighting, sound and wind effects. By the end of the day, which started pink, the blue night embraces the world, and stars illuminate the screen, much like the shooting stars from the mickey piece. The Dance of the Hours piece must have been the most traditional looking of the time. the elephants, ostriches, corcs, and hippos, are animated in a familiar 40s style. a beautiful piece n itself, but the selling point in its time I suspect. In any case, this piece is commanded by color: as the progression of day to night passes, so too the the color scheme goes on an analog progression. This purely comedic piece is accentuated by sudden bursts of hue in the crescendo sections, likewise the comedy is accentuated by the contrast of the weight of its characters and the "lightness" of the music. Then suddenly reaffirming the obvious by a sudden "thump!" here and there, afterward ending the day (and the world) when everything crushes down.
The last piece is an amazing achievement in animation, command of color, lighting, and storytelling (even tho there isn't much of a story, it still conveys a message). The story consist of two parts; it goes from hell, with Night on Bald Mountain straight to heaven with Ave Maria. It uses a tetrad scheme of: yellows for the flames of hell, blue-purple for the devil and most of its minions, red and a wee bit of cyan for the rest of hell and the rest of it minions. The effects of wind, light and sound all flow harmoniously with the tempo of the music and grabs the viewer by the throat (figuratively, no voodoo here). An the piece is very effective in delivering that sense of viciousness of the human sin, and the frivolities of dance, sex, and drugs (because there MUST have been drugs involved in this piece). As for the sexuality here, it is more blatant than any other cartoon aimed ad children in my memory, which as grotesque as it is display here it is an effective tool as a prevention to morbidity and promiscuity. And notice that nipples apear here for the first time in female characters, accenting the shock factor of the piece. After all the display in special effects, the experimentation of the superimposed panels when doing the effect of the ghosts, the piece slows down with the contrasting "holy" bells of the church. And as the piece slows down, so does the contrast in color and light, bringing a more pastel palette, accentuated only by the lights of the mourners, or mass-goers.
With a fashion of a gran orchestral evening, Fantasia ends in a reassuring and positive note. More than a comercial film, Fantasia was an expression of art and an experiment in animation techniques, that delivered an emotional journey.
Fantasia is the third major feature released by Disney released in 1940. It is a mashup between a PSA from the 50s and an opera; putting it in very simplified terms. Narrated by Deems Taylor; in a very typical 50's voice over. And the orchestra was conducted by Leopold Stokowski; which I always remember him from a bugs bunny cartoon (the one with the rude opera singer). This film felt to me more of a effects reel than an actual movie, not in a bad way, it was so artistic that it felt like it was made for art's sake. I look at Fantasia as a painting, starting with the simplified and ending with the detailed and the complex.
After the introduction, the movie starts as an orchestra concerto with the abstract. We are eased into the animation with more subtlety than in Pinocchio by contrasting high hues of primary colors; blue, yellow magenta, with every high note.
The first piece, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, reminds me a lot of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Very subjective in the animation, the music does conduct the animation; the visuals do not really have any cohesion, sometimes being abstract, sometimes mimicking the instruments themselves. This first piece really give a very nice intro to the world of music and animation, and a very nice effects reel. The next piece, introduced as a classic, but almost forgotten, Tchaikovsky's least favorite; The Nutcracker. Disney took here an established story and reinterpreted as an allegory for nature; a reboot" of the Nutcracker. Starting with the abstract theme, similar colors as the first suite, we ease into the fantastical and the fairies come out. an animation that might have been more suited for Vivaldi's four seasons, we transition from season to season (duh) with the fairies being the transitioners. What must be the cutest stereotypical piece of Fantasia, the mushrooms dance like "chinese men" (term very widely used at the time) with the little mushroom having as much personality as Pinocchio, really that little mushroom deserved its own feature. I always remember the bailarina piece as very creepy, with the flowers morphing into bailarinas, sill with an anthropomorphic way of seing animation, the flowers dance thru the water and flow into into the water, leading us into the underwater piece. What must be the most flawed animation in fantasia, the underwater piece looks more like an experiment than a finished cartoon. There are a lot of glitches, but it looks like animators pushed the envelope in this one. They took the idea of underwater animation from Pinocchio to a new level, but still sticking with the same style of animating fishes. And that is one thing I've noticed of the early Disney movies, they stay very consistent on style. Anyway, the flowers close the nutcracker suite, with a display of stereotypical idea of a culture; which seems okay by the standards of the time.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the most memorable and important piece of Fantasia, introduced as an ancient legend, retold with Mickey, it was the relaunch of Mickey into popularity. With this piece, Mickey regained his classic status and really steeped into pop conscience. Why? Simplicity. Form the featured filmes, this piece is the first time that a consistent color palet is used. A triad color scheme of blue, yellow and red, the piece stays consistent throughout, emphasizing a color in moments of where the action demands it. At one point, where Mickey shops down the broom, the animation becomes very graphic, only having the silhouette (in dark blue) of Mickey and the broom showing against a a yellow background. This, probably being a solution to not showing directly a very violent mickey, instead becomes an extremely powerful scene. Another thing about this piece is the animation of water is somewhat different from the Nutcracker piece; more refined, and now adding the effect of the shooting stars.
By the end of the piece, Mickey himself congratulates Leopold in the second combination of live-action and animation of this feature; again we are eased to this idea by way of Mickey's silhouette. This next one must have been my favorite piece when I was a kid, The Rite of Spring tell the story of evolution according to Disney. When introduced by Taylor, he really seems to have a hard time having a serious face, it seems a tho this was the most fantastical piece to him. Anyway, after the introduction of a fiery sun, a red palette is used for earth, with blue creeping in. a violent dance of cools and reds lead to the microscopic. With each evolutionary landmark transitioned with live action clouds, yet another introduction of live cation, time then slows down to show the very salamander-looking dinosaurs. This sort of grim-looking depiction of ancient times ends with the deadly battle between a stegosaurus and a demonic tyrannosaurus.As in Pinocchio,the mood is set by the weather and lightning substitutes the T-rex's roar. After the intermission, which eases the viewer to live action, then back again with primary colors and silhouette. Taylor then introduces the sound wave to the audience represented by a vertical line, interacts with the sound wave character (which is given a shy personality) and the audience is introduced to the animation via an abstract representation of music once again.
The Pastoral Symphony is represented by creatures of greek myth, animated in the style of a baroque painting, it narrates the day in this world as introduced by a young pegasus and his/her siblings. As the world expands, the story becomes more mature up to a point of introducing the audience to a mating ritual. And although there is no sex illustrated, it is very sexual. But this was a baroque painting, it is consistent with the style; thus the naked centaurs. The climax of this baroque "fluff" must be the introduction via two politically and morally incorrect (but very sexy) zebras of Bacchus, the god of wine. After an orgy between Bacchus and the lady centaurs, Zeus rears his ugly head and ruins the party just for the fun of it. Again, animators experiment with lighting, sound and wind effects. By the end of the day, which started pink, the blue night embraces the world, and stars illuminate the screen, much like the shooting stars from the mickey piece. The Dance of the Hours piece must have been the most traditional looking of the time. the elephants, ostriches, corcs, and hippos, are animated in a familiar 40s style. a beautiful piece n itself, but the selling point in its time I suspect. In any case, this piece is commanded by color: as the progression of day to night passes, so too the the color scheme goes on an analog progression. This purely comedic piece is accentuated by sudden bursts of hue in the crescendo sections, likewise the comedy is accentuated by the contrast of the weight of its characters and the "lightness" of the music. Then suddenly reaffirming the obvious by a sudden "thump!" here and there, afterward ending the day (and the world) when everything crushes down.
The last piece is an amazing achievement in animation, command of color, lighting, and storytelling (even tho there isn't much of a story, it still conveys a message). The story consist of two parts; it goes from hell, with Night on Bald Mountain straight to heaven with Ave Maria. It uses a tetrad scheme of: yellows for the flames of hell, blue-purple for the devil and most of its minions, red and a wee bit of cyan for the rest of hell and the rest of it minions. The effects of wind, light and sound all flow harmoniously with the tempo of the music and grabs the viewer by the throat (figuratively, no voodoo here). An the piece is very effective in delivering that sense of viciousness of the human sin, and the frivolities of dance, sex, and drugs (because there MUST have been drugs involved in this piece). As for the sexuality here, it is more blatant than any other cartoon aimed ad children in my memory, which as grotesque as it is display here it is an effective tool as a prevention to morbidity and promiscuity. And notice that nipples apear here for the first time in female characters, accenting the shock factor of the piece. After all the display in special effects, the experimentation of the superimposed panels when doing the effect of the ghosts, the piece slows down with the contrasting "holy" bells of the church. And as the piece slows down, so does the contrast in color and light, bringing a more pastel palette, accentuated only by the lights of the mourners, or mass-goers.
With a fashion of a gran orchestral evening, Fantasia ends in a reassuring and positive note. More than a comercial film, Fantasia was an expression of art and an experiment in animation techniques, that delivered an emotional journey.
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