On My Shelf: Snow White (1937) - Context is Important!
Just in time for Valentine's Day -- a lovely, romantic little cartoon. Do you know the story of Snow White? (I'm guessing you do.)
You know, it's the story of the young princess who is hated by her evil queen stepmother -- who sends Snow White out to be killed by a woodsman, who has a change of heart and lets her live? Seven dwarves, witch, apple, handsome prince, etc. etc.?
If you're familiar with that story -- you know the plot of Disney's Snow White. All Disney does is flesh it out with songs.
A LOT of songs.That might sound like a criticism... but I'm very conflicted about criticising this cartoon, because it really was a seminal work. It needs to be viewed through a context: namely, as Wikipedia points out, "it is the first full-length cel animated feature film and the earliest Disney animated feature film," (emphasis mine). No one had ever done anything like this before. It was a wholly new thing. It needs to get some respect for that alone.
Even more context: The movie industry itself was only 31 years old when this film came out -- and the "Talkie" was only ten years old -- and the first full-color film was somewhere in the range of just five years old. Just seeing color images on screen, singing and dancing, was a pretty big thrill for people -- and Disney delivered!
This knocked people out of their seats!
I love the animation, the songs are charming, and the story is simplicity in itself -- because they basically just tell the story I described to you above, and (as I said) flesh it out with songs. And, in a way, it actually is kind of nice that doesn't take a lot of weird liberties with the original story. (I don't need a lengthy backstory explaining that the evil Queen had a hard childhood and her father didn't respect women who weren't attractive so she overcompensated by trying to become the most beautiful lady of all and the woodsman was actually her boyfriend and they just had a bad breakup and blah blah blah... That's the sort of thing that makes modern movies morally confusing and painfully, excruciatingly long.)
If this movie had come out more recently and wasn't the first of its kind, I would mention that no time is wasted on things like... oh... character development. Specifically for Snow White; she is kind, and pretty, and likes to sing... and that's about it. (Mind you, the people who like to rag on about there not being enough character development for the Disney Princesses should check out how much development Prince Charming has in this movie. His character is: he is a guy with a good singing voice who literally just happens to be passing by).
Right: Snow White. Left: Some Guy.I'll admit it... I begin to get a little impatient during the second or third non-plot-advancing dwarf song, too. But I think small children watching this film would be perfectly satisfied with the content -- and I think anybody older than that should be watching it through the window of CONTEXT and not hassling it for any perceived flaws.
It's a marvelous achievement, a harmlessly cute story, and that's that. When you start holding it up and saying things like, "Well, by TODAY'S standards, it's [fill in the blank]..." you're missing the whole point.
RECOMMENDED.
You know, it's the story of the young princess who is hated by her evil queen stepmother -- who sends Snow White out to be killed by a woodsman, who has a change of heart and lets her live? Seven dwarves, witch, apple, handsome prince, etc. etc.?
If you're familiar with that story -- you know the plot of Disney's Snow White. All Disney does is flesh it out with songs.
A LOT of songs.That might sound like a criticism... but I'm very conflicted about criticising this cartoon, because it really was a seminal work. It needs to be viewed through a context: namely, as Wikipedia points out, "it is the first full-length cel animated feature film and the earliest Disney animated feature film," (emphasis mine). No one had ever done anything like this before. It was a wholly new thing. It needs to get some respect for that alone.
Even more context: The movie industry itself was only 31 years old when this film came out -- and the "Talkie" was only ten years old -- and the first full-color film was somewhere in the range of just five years old. Just seeing color images on screen, singing and dancing, was a pretty big thrill for people -- and Disney delivered!
This knocked people out of their seats!
I love the animation, the songs are charming, and the story is simplicity in itself -- because they basically just tell the story I described to you above, and (as I said) flesh it out with songs. And, in a way, it actually is kind of nice that doesn't take a lot of weird liberties with the original story. (I don't need a lengthy backstory explaining that the evil Queen had a hard childhood and her father didn't respect women who weren't attractive so she overcompensated by trying to become the most beautiful lady of all and the woodsman was actually her boyfriend and they just had a bad breakup and blah blah blah... That's the sort of thing that makes modern movies morally confusing and painfully, excruciatingly long.)
If this movie had come out more recently and wasn't the first of its kind, I would mention that no time is wasted on things like... oh... character development. Specifically for Snow White; she is kind, and pretty, and likes to sing... and that's about it. (Mind you, the people who like to rag on about there not being enough character development for the Disney Princesses should check out how much development Prince Charming has in this movie. His character is: he is a guy with a good singing voice who literally just happens to be passing by).
Right: Snow White. Left: Some Guy.I'll admit it... I begin to get a little impatient during the second or third non-plot-advancing dwarf song, too. But I think small children watching this film would be perfectly satisfied with the content -- and I think anybody older than that should be watching it through the window of CONTEXT and not hassling it for any perceived flaws.It's a marvelous achievement, a harmlessly cute story, and that's that. When you start holding it up and saying things like, "Well, by TODAY'S standards, it's [fill in the blank]..." you're missing the whole point.
RECOMMENDED.
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