MARC DAVIS ANIMATION LECTURE AT THE ACADEMY
by Mike Thomas
Forty one years after the Summer of Love, a love-in was held
at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theatre on Friday night, May 9th. A group of contemporary
Disney animators paid tributes to their mentors and heroes in a wonderfully
entertaining and informative evening at the Academy, whose screenings and
seminars have been on a roll as of late. A more love-filled evening would be
hard to imagine.
The film industry is well known for its disregard of the
past, the disposability of anyone it deems less than hip or contemporary and
this built-in career obsolesce has become far more acute in recent years.
However, there is one group that is not only free from this industry bias
against its elder statesmen but actually reveres its pioneers and that is in
the field of animation. The Academy event was proof positive that for
animators, the pioneers are not only revered, but studied and continue to influence
animation in all its forms, whether the standard 2-D pen and ink drawing or the
3-D computer wizardry of the Pixar CGI triumphs. The reverence that today’s top
animators feel for Disney’s “Nine Old Men†(most of whom were in their Thirties
when they were so dubbed), was a joy to behold.
The evening began appropriately enough, with a a clip of the
Marc Davis-animated villainess, Cruella deVil from Disney’s 1961 beloved
classic, “101 Dalmatians.†With its graphic, rough sketch look, “Dalmatiansâ€
was last of three mid-period Disney features that rivaled the best of the
studios early period in the Thirties, “Snow White,†“Pinocchio,†and the still
revolutionary “Fantasia.†With the widescreen “Lady and the Tramp,â€
followed by the 70mm epic, “Sleeping Beauty,†and then “Dalmatiansâ€
the mid-period Disney animators created a stylized look the took the art of
animation to a different realm than Disney had previously explored. And nowhere
is this radical departure from the past attempts at naturalism more pronounced
than in the character of Cruella deVil.
With Cruella deVil, Marc Davis defied all the previous
Disney rules of naturalism and clean lines. The lines are sketchy and sharp,
they look like rough drafts were inked and colored. Yet the same Disney attention
to characterization is evident in every frame and the scary Ms. deVil remains
one of the transformative animated characters in film history. This was
followed by a light-hearted introduction by Academy Executive Director
Bruce Davis, whose puckish good humor set the celebratory tone for the
evening and whose respect for the art of animation was readily apparent in his
knowledgeable remarks.
Charles Solomon, the esteemed animation historian and author
of the books, “Enchanted Drawings: the History of Animation,†and "The
Disney That Never Was,†a study of unrealized animated Disney projects,
introduced Polish-born animator, Andreas Deja, one of the star animators of
today, and a member of the group dubbed the “Nine New Men.†He chose a scene
from the 1959 Disney masterpiece, “Sleeping Beauty,†and the beautiful print
revealed the visual splendors of the film, which may well be the very summit of
the Disney animation studios during Walt’s lifetime.
The stylized design is midway between the naturalism of
“Lady and the Tramp†and the graphic exaggeration of “101 Dalmatians;†the
lines are more angular than before, yet have a finished polish to them, unlike
the rough sketch look that made “Dalmatians†so groundbreaking. And the
character of Maleficent still retains the classic Disney virtues of character
revelation through animation. As Mr. Deja pointed out, Maleficent is one of
those characters that is the hardest to animate. She doesn’t move, she just
stands there and talks.†Yet because she does so magnificently (Maleficently?)
another point was brought home - as Jean Kerr once once observed, “The
snake gets all the lines,†- and in Disney films, it is the villains that
seem to get the best animation.
Mr. Deja then showed one of his most famous animated
characters - Jafar from “Aladdin.†(I never noticed before how much Jafar looks
like Torin Thatcher, who was the evil magician practicing black arts in many a
Ray Harryhausen film of the 50s & 60s). With so many of the characters in
“Aladdin†bouncing around so maniacally - Robin Williams’ frenetic Genie, Iago
the Parrot, Abu the Monkey - Deja decided that the evil Jafar should be like
Malificent - stationary and unmoving, grounded in his villainy.
Then Pete Docter, whose business card reads, “world’s
tallest animator,†ambled to the stage to show his influences on “Monsters,
Inc.†When it came time to animate Sulley, the vast grotesque beast that
befriends the tiny little Boo, Docter & fellow Pixarians went back and
referenced “The Jungle Book,†sequence where the Phil Harris-voiced Baloo, a
massive brown bear befriends the slight Mowgli. Docter used that same sense as
a way of contrasting Sulley and Boo and by screening the poignant scene where
Sulley says goodbye to Boo, he managed to outdo his influences in emotional
impact.
James Baxter also showed “The Jungle Book,†but chose a
different sequence, the scene where King Louie, voiced by the marvelous Louis
Prima, decided to let Mowgli stay in the jungle. Though Mowgli is the film’s
protagonist, it is King Louie who gets all the attention as he hurls bananas
and bounces all around the central character. Mr. Baxter then illustrated how
he adapted that concept for “The Lion King,†when Simba, is similarly
overwhelmed by the manic baboon shaman, Rafiki.
And to complete the the links between, animator Eric
Goldberg showed the wild title song sequence from “The Three Caballerosâ€
that was the direct influence on the frenetic musical number, “You Never Had a
Friend Like Me,†from “Aladdin,†which he helped animate. Mr. Goldberg was the
highlight of the evening, a gifted mimic and born stand-up comic, he regaled
the audience with every story and observation. Yet his love and reverence for
the early masters was in evident in the awe in which he discussed the free-form
style of a Ward Kimball sketch or the effortless brilliance of a Fred Moore
drawing during the sequence that ended the evening.
And the evening’s finale, tribute was paid to the pioneers
like Moore and “The Nine Old Men.†And as drawings from each of the pioneers
was shown and examined, it was thrilling to hear these master animators of
today analyze and praise the styles of their mentors. And it became apparent
that in the world of animation, there still retains that sense of fraternity
that seems to have been lost in the rest of the industry. These new giants
still displayed the boyish reverence and enthusiasm for those who inspired them
and taught them coming up. Animation is a craft, but it is art form as well,
and never has received the critical acclaim it so richly deserves. For as these
men so amply demonstrated of themselves and their mentors, they are not simply
talented cartoonists, but understand the whole point is to reach the audience
with their drawings, to create an emotional connection. As one of them said,
discussing what he learned from his teachers, “What do you leave the audience
with?†Precisely. And it is that understanding, far more than any rules of animation, that
set Disney apart from its competitors.
And what these animators, old and new, have left the
audience with, is a lifetime of treasured memories. Like many of my generation,
my love of movies was stimulated by Walt Disney’s films - “Cinderella,†“Lady
and the Tramp, “Sleeping Beauty,†“101 Dalmatians,†and they remain my earliest
memories of a life spent in the movies. Though I have grown to appreciate the
films of Antonioni and Godard, of Kubrick and Bergman, I am glad I can still
look at the Disney animated films and marvel at their brilliance, their innovation,
the pure joy of creation that they display in nearly every frame. I had even
dreamed of becoming an animator myself one day, until I realized I didn’t have
the patience to do the same drawing over and over, but you never forget your
first love. And last Friday at the Academy, the flame was rekindled and
the passion reborn anew. So here’s to Uncle Walt, and Winsor McKay and Pat
Sullivan and Fred Moore and Ub Iwerks and to Frank and Ollie and Ward and
Woolie and Marc Davis and all the rest of the Nine Old Men and to the Nine New
Men who carry the flame and to anyone who has picked up a pencil and given us
the Illusion of Life to illuminate our lives. We are in your debt.
And as I left the theatre I noticed everyone was smiling.