Heidi Anne Heiner's Blog, page 170

Snow White and the Huntsman for Halloween

Just in time for Halloween! Wait, it's March! Well, these aren't released yet, but they are started to be listed so you can start planning accordingly. Snow White and the Huntsman Halloween costumes. Amazon already has some up for preorder actually, but no images yet although I found some for you. Enjoy!

Article: Hollywood's Love for Fairy Tales at NYT

There is an article at The New York Times discussing much of the fairy tale tv and film we're being offered this year. Buried within is a mini preview review of the film. From The Better to Entertain You With, My Dear: 'Mirror Mirror,' 'Grimm' and Hollywood Love for Fairy Tales by TERRENCE RAFFERTY:

"Mirror Mirror" works hard to let the audience know that it's aware of its own silliness. Although the story is set in a vaguely medieval fairy-tale kingdom — easier to conjure now, with digital effects — the tone is cheerfully, unapologetically anachronistic. The mean queen seems to have stepped out of one of the riper episodes of "Desperate Housewives," while practically every line in the picture is delivered like a sitcom zinger. (Was there really so much insult humor in the Middle Ages?) And the story has been altered to reflect more contemporary notions about the roles of men and women. Snow White is a much more can-do kind of princess than the passive heroine of yore, and this Prince Charming is quite a bit less masterful. He can't stop Snow from saving him, when he believes that he should be saving her. "It's been focus-grouped," he protests, to no avail.

Despite — or perhaps because of — its rigorous lack of seriousness, "Mirror Mirror" may please its focus-grouped audience of children and tweens. (At the youth-intensive screening I attended, the seven dwarfs, a bickering band of brigands, stole the show.) It doesn't tell us much about how we should think of fairy tales in our unenchanted present day, though.

The rest of the article briefly discusses NBC's Grimm and ABC's Once Upon a Time as well as some of the upcoming films. I'm expecting many more articles in the coming weeks, especially about upcoming films, since studios will want to ride the publicity bandwagon surrounding Mirror, Mirror.

So who is planning to see the film this weekend?

Mirror Mirror: The Movie Books

Mirror Mirror: The Movie Novel and Mirror Mirror: The Movie Storybook are already available so you can read and "spoil" the movie for yourself. Somehow--and this is not cynicism--I am not expecting many surprises in this movie so I doubt there is much to be spoiled. I feel like the previews have covered the material excepting perhaps a few jokes.

These are aimed at children--the publisher is Scholastic after all. So these might work especially well with difficult readers as so many movie tie-in books do. If children are reading, I am pleased. I hope many of them fall in love with this movie since it bodes well for the fairy tale's future!

Music Month: Mirror Mirror (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

The Mirror Mirror (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) will be released on April 10th with mostly instrumental music composed by Alan Menken, yes, the Menken of a majority of the most successful Disney projects of the last 20 years or so.

The CD is supplemented with two remixes of "I Believe in Love" performed by Snow White herself, Lily Collins. I have a video of the Mirror, Mirror remix below from a fan. It also provides somewhat of a preview of the movie.

It is really hard to believe these two movies--this one and the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman--are inspired by the same fairy tale, isn't it? So is the power of fairy tales!

Guest Post: Music Videos: "Call Me When You're Sober" & "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence

    
Once again, Gypsy from Once Upon a Blog has generously taken the time to write up a music themed post for the SurLaLune blog. Thank you, Gypsy! I'm sorry I am so absent this month...


Fan made art for the singleEvanescence's Amy Lee played Red Riding Hood for the music video for "Call Me When You're Sober". Her Red wasn't so innocent, nor was she gullible. In fact, it appears she has quite a good grip on the lessons learned in the woods...


From Wikipedia:

The accompanying music video directed by Marc Webb and filmed in Hollywood, Los Angeles was based on the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood. It portrays Lee and her ex-lover, played by the British actor Oliver Goodwill. Segments of the band performing the song and Lee singing with wolves are also shown during the video.

The song has been marked by some as an indication of the band turning away from their personal self-destructive behavior at the time, though it's clearly centered around the break-up of the lead singer and her ex. I can't find any confirmation of this supposed 'turning point' beyond rumors and apart from it being a very big hit, particularly because of the Red Riding Hood imagery, I'm not sure it made a lasting impact on the band, though it makes for a nice way to editorialize the band's journey. :) The lyrics are very straight with no metaphors or allusions to Red Riding Hood at all but being so straight was apparently one of the reasons they wanted to play with imagery in the music video - to give it more resonance. It appears to have done the job very well (and made the band another hit).



Continued from Wikipedia:

A music video directed by Marc Webb[53] and filmed in Hollywood, Los Angeles in July,[54] was released on August 7, 2006.[53] The video and Amy Lee's theme is based on the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood. During an interview with MTV News, Lee described the music video saying, "the song is so literal, the lyrics and everything — I mean, obviously, just by the title — that we felt like the video would have the freedom to go in a less literal direction. So it's [a modern re-imagining of] Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf and sort of a more cool, superhero, rock and roll Little Red Riding Hood."[55] According to an interview behind the scenes of the video, the director wanted Lee to straddle her "ex-lover" in the video, but Lee, opposed to selling sex, refused. Lee jokingly said, "You can't blame a guy for trying."[56] Each of the wolves used in the video had personal trainers. Despite Lee's allergy to the wolves in the video she "pet them and [sang] to them".[55][57] She further explained the shooting with the wolves:

"These live wolves came in, and they each had trainers and it was really fun.[...] I thought it was really cool, but then when they came in, they were 150 pounds. So I was like, 'Wow, if I got on all fours, I'd be about the same size as this huge animal.' But it was me and the wolves in the room, and it was all cool. It was awesome. My allergies kicked in, but I powered through. And then we shot the scene at the vanity with the Big Bad Wolf coming over my shoulders and trying to seduce me."[55]

The video begins with Lee wearing a red satin cape, and singing while sitting on opposite ends of a dining table with her "lover", played by British actor Oliver Goodwill. Lee is then shown standing in front of a mirror while her "lover" comes behind her; he starts to massage her shoulders and prepares to kiss her, but Lee refuses, saying that he is "too late". This cuts to Lee and four back-up dancers descending a staircase, where upon reaching the bottom, first Lee then the dancers are lifted into the air. At the end of the song, Lee walks atop the length of the dining table, while chairs and tabletop items are flung aside as she passes. She reaches her "lover" at the end, places her finger on his lips, and sings "I've made up your mind". Shots of the band performing and of Lee sitting with wolves are interspersed amongst the other elements of the video.

Since we're on the subject of Evanescence, mention should be made of their arguably biggest hit, "Bring Me To Life". Although the music video is fairly straight forward with regard to sleeping and waking (and "not dying") metaphors, the music and lyrics have been heavily connected with fairy tales, particularly Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, though I've seen it connected to The Little Mermaid as well. It was also popular in Christian circles for a while, being seen as a cry for spiritual awakening, until Evanesence's record label finally stated that despite the "...spiritual underpinning that ignited interest and excitement in the Christian religious community," Evanescence are "...a secular band, and as such view their music as entertainment(source) The song was pulled from many Christian playlists directly after this statement but the metaphor was (and is) such a strong one it's stuck with the public at large, resulting in many fan-made remix videos at the time, showing fantasy imagery and allusions to a gritty yet fairy tale-like awakening.


You can see a recent fan-made image-mix video HERE which uses "Bring Me To Life" as Snow White's theme and centers mainly on the soon-to-be-released movie Snow White and the Huntsman. I sort of wish they'd continued in their creativity and included more variety  as they did at the start of the clip but I agree - it does fit well as a theme for her.

On a slightly different and more classical tack, here's a remix of Disney's Sleeping Beauty - told entirely in clips and via use of Evanescence's song. It not only keeps the story intact but fits very well:



By the way, this is the image of the official live CD/DVD released which includes two performance of "Bring Me To Life" (one is an "easter egg"). Nicely reminiscent of Sleeping Beauty, don't you think?

New Edition Released: The Twelve Dancing Princesses by Ruth Sanderson

The Twelve Dancing Princesses by Ruth Sanderson is one of my favorite renditions of the fairy tale. And I have only owned it in paperback, but the good news is that it has been re-released with a new cover in hardcover so I can finally own a pristine copy of the book. It was released earlier this month and has been sitting in my blog drafts for too long. It is a truly gorgeous book and has captured more than my fancy. A friend of a friend wanted to make sure I knew about it last year when she learned I work with fairy tales. She was passionate about it, too.

Here is a video promoting the new edition with previews of many of the illustrations:



And here are some more images:


You can read about the conception and execution of this rather famous image (it has been licensed quite a bit) on Sanderson's site at The Artist at Work. Page down to the very bottom.

Advertising: Katy Perry and GHD Give Us The Little Mermaid

Back in October I shared Katy Perry's Snow White inspired ads for ghd (hair products in the UK) and now we have a new fairy tale inspired ad: The Little Mermaid. The photo was shot by David LaChapelle.
Here are some more behind the scenes shots from ghd. The company has been using fairy tales for a while from Rapunzel to Cinderella to these Katy Perry ads. I wonder what they will do next?
And the mermaid costume is a gown, by the way. Still can't imagine it is easy to walk in.

Music Month: The Frog Prince by Keane

The Frog Prince by Keane is an unexpected usage of The Frog Prince and thus becomes today's song of the day.

The first two stanzas of the lyrics:

An old fairytale told me
The simple heart will be prized again
A toad will be our king
And ugly ogres our heroes

Then you'll shake
Your fist at the sky
"Oh why did I rely
On fashions and small fry?"

I couldn't find a video without an ad in front of it, but you can skip it pretty quickly. And I always liked this album cover, too.

Music Month: Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman

 
Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman is today's music post. If you are unfamiliar with him, Chapman is a Christian music artist who has had some mainstream hits. This song is not religious. It is the song of a father cherishing time with his daughter.

From the lyrics:

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone

Here is a music video followed by Chapman sharing the story behind the song's inspiration:



The poignancy of this song grew shortly after its release due to the tragic accidental death of Chapman's daughter, Maria Sue, one of the inspirations of the song. The accident occurred about six weeks after the above video was shared on YouTube in 2008 although I am unsure when it was filmed. Chapman lives in the Nashville area so this story was well-shared news in my hometown at the time and remains a sad note, almost making me not want to share it. But I appreciate the message as well as the use of Cinderella in a less common way in music, so I am sharing it with you today.

Music Month: Professional Cinderella by Corinna Fugate

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Professional Cinderella by Corinna Fugate is today's song. It is no longer for sale on Amazon but may be on iTunes which I always have difficulty linking to specific songs. (The iTunes link does support SurLaLune--about three dollars a year actually since readers rarely link to there from SurLaLune. I prefer Amazon myself since their songs are not MP4s and can be used on multiple players more readily.)

From the lyrics:

Professional Cinderella, I am praying
Was it too much to ask for
One happy ending
Professional Cinderella, my heart's breaking
Was it too much to ask for one happy ending

Here are two different fans' videos for the song: