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osprey_archerJulie and I have been talking for ages about doing a Disney animated movie rewatch, and this week we finally bit the bullet and started off with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Disney’s first feature-length film and in fact the first animated feature film ever.
I’m pretty sure I only watched this movie once as a child: the scene where the forest itself turns against Snow White and started grabbing at her with its horrible twiggy hands terrified me. (This will be an oft-repeated refrain as I write about these films. Many, many Disney movies frightened me. The Fox and the Hound baffled me and broke my heart because I couldn’t understand why the fox and the hound couldn’t be friends when they wanted to so much.)
Anyway! Back to Snow White. It’s fascinating to see how assured the animation was right out of the gate (of course Disney had been doing shorts for years at this point): you can see a direct line from the fawns here to Bambi, and I’m pretty sure that goofy turtle shows up again later too. And the vultures! The vultures are direct kin to the vultures in Jungle Book!
It also struck me that Disney, at least early Disney, shares one of the qualities that I find so charming in Studio Ghibli films: both studios are interested in work, particularly women’s work. Snow White’s task of cleaning the cottage looks way more involved than the dwarves’ mining: they’re plucking already-faceted gems from the ground, whereas Snow White needs the help of dozens of woodland creatures to get the house clean.
But it must be admitted that I’m a biased observer: I had an argument years ago in which I held that Disney was a more feminist studio than Pixar, on the grounds that it came right out of the gate with a female main character in its very first feature film, whereas Pixar took 17 years and twelve movies (including TWO Cars films!) before it managed the same thing.
I did not win the hearts and minds of my listeners, as you might guess by the fact that I’m still arguing it out in my head. But I still think I had a point.
I’m pretty sure I only watched this movie once as a child: the scene where the forest itself turns against Snow White and started grabbing at her with its horrible twiggy hands terrified me. (This will be an oft-repeated refrain as I write about these films. Many, many Disney movies frightened me. The Fox and the Hound baffled me and broke my heart because I couldn’t understand why the fox and the hound couldn’t be friends when they wanted to so much.)
Anyway! Back to Snow White. It’s fascinating to see how assured the animation was right out of the gate (of course Disney had been doing shorts for years at this point): you can see a direct line from the fawns here to Bambi, and I’m pretty sure that goofy turtle shows up again later too. And the vultures! The vultures are direct kin to the vultures in Jungle Book!
It also struck me that Disney, at least early Disney, shares one of the qualities that I find so charming in Studio Ghibli films: both studios are interested in work, particularly women’s work. Snow White’s task of cleaning the cottage looks way more involved than the dwarves’ mining: they’re plucking already-faceted gems from the ground, whereas Snow White needs the help of dozens of woodland creatures to get the house clean.
But it must be admitted that I’m a biased observer: I had an argument years ago in which I held that Disney was a more feminist studio than Pixar, on the grounds that it came right out of the gate with a female main character in its very first feature film, whereas Pixar took 17 years and twelve movies (including TWO Cars films!) before it managed the same thing.
I did not win the hearts and minds of my listeners, as you might guess by the fact that I’m still arguing it out in my head. But I still think I had a point.
