The Hunchback of Notre Dame

[osprey_archer]

Without really meaning to, we went into something of a hiatus on the Disney rewatch, but the release of Raya and the Last Dragon has spurred us back into action: our goal now is to be all caught up by the time Raya is free on Disney+ in three months time.

This may be a somewhat ambitious goal, as we started this Disney rewatch in August of 2019 and we just today reached Fantasia 2000, but we will do our best.

I've also gotten behind in writing reviews, so although we watched Fantasia 2000 today, in reviews I'm still only at The Hunchback of Notre Dame, or as I like to call it, "Disney's MOST OT3 movie." Quasimodo/Esmeralda/Phoebus? Yes? Yes? Who is with me? Okay, possibly no one. I'M JUST SAYING. QUASIMODO COULD BE SO LOVED.

The movie is visually and musically splendid - maybe one of the most beautiful Disney movies in both of those respects. The rose windows, Quasimodo's home high in the bell towers, "God Help the Outcasts" and "Hellfire," the entire sequence where Quasimodo rescues Esmeralda and shouts "Sanctuary!"... I strongly suspect that this is the sequence in the book which made some bright-eyed Disney animator suggest an adaptation, because God knows the movie's not faithful to much else. Disney, as is its wont, very much built its own thing on Hugo's foundation.

There are times when this propensity of Disney's is exasperating: if they don't want to keep any of the things that make this property special, then why are they adapting it? But in this case I think it works, because although it's not really the same as Hugo, it also doesn't feel like extruded Disney product. Like Quasimodo in his tower, the animators have created their own beautiful little micro-world.

Comments

[asakiyume]

extruded Disney product 😂

This makes me want to re-watch the movie. I remember feeling like the hellfire scene was more intense than the typical Disney.

[osprey_archer]

The entire movie goes hard, but the hellfire scene is PARTICULARLY intense. Just... wow! That's a lot right there!

[skygiants]

I still desperately want the ability to time travel to witness the story planning meeting where someone did first pitch this as a Disney film. "What's this you say this book is about?" "Well, setting aside the lustful priest, and the philandering guardsman, and the inevitable fated deaths of all of its protagonists, I think at its heart it's a story about .... accepting differences .....?"

(There are many charming things about the Hunchback film and this is in no way a drag but I am DEEPLY fascinated by the Journey.)

[osprey_archer]

REALLY THOUGH. There's probably a book about it somewhere that I could track down if I really wanted to, but the written account of the happening surely can't hold a candle to the actual experience of being a fly on the wall at this meeting where everyone stares at Maverick Animator, who has just presented The Hunchback of Notre Dame for the boss's consideration as a children's movie, and the boss considers in silence while sweat beads on the Maverick Animator's forehead, till suddenly the boss grins and slams down a glass and is like "I LOVE IT."

[silverusagi]

"God Help the Outcasts" and "Hellfire," the entire sequence where Quasimodo rescues Esmeralda and shouts "Sanctuary!"

Those shots really are gorgeous.

[osprey_archer]

The animators went all out for this movie!

[evelyn_b]

I don't OT3, so I can't follow you down that far. But I do love this wonderfully bad idea of a movie more than most Disney joints.

[osprey_archer]

It shouldn't work! It should be an unholy mess of a movie that deviates bizarrely from its source material and never quite comes together. And yet... and yet. Somehow it sings??

[lokifan]

Oh man, as you say, so beautiful! I hung out with a couple of friends and we watched Hellfire in different languages with literally-translated English captions, so you could see what the different languages & cultures had done with it, and it was FASCINATING. (French: very sexy! Arabic: removed Maria almost entirely which makes sense, he's just talking to God in that version.)

[osprey_archer]

Oh, that's so interesting about different versions of Hellfire! I guess you would have to translate songs fairly loosely in order to keep the rhythm of the song intact, too.