SLEEPING BEAUTY AT THE ACADEMY
by Mike ThomasÂ
Recent screenings at the Motion Picture Academy have proven that one’s
recollection of movies can be as ephemeral and illusionary as a wisp of smoke.
Memories, transformed by time, can play tricks, movies that once seemed
disappointing now appear to be works of inspiration and films that were viewed
as landmarks are now disappointments. Or perhaps it is simply we who change -
the films remain constant but we are older, and our experiences change, our
perceptions alter. Or maybe, the movies themselves mystically change, they are
organically dependent upon the audience, on the condition of the print, or the
auditorium.
Take for example, the recent screening of “Sleeping Beauty,†at the Academy’s
Samuel Goldwyn Theatre.. My childhood memory of that film is that it
was Disney’s masterwork, an epic of story and design. And yet, while there is
much to admire in the film, the recent viewing makes it all too clear that movie
was lacking the essence of the very best of what made the Disney canon so unique
- the input of Uncle Walt himself.
According to Neal Gabler’s masterful new biography, by the mid-50s Walt
was far more interested in developing Disneyland than he was in animation and
his lack of involvement in “Sleeping Beauty†is readily apparent. His genius in
characterization, his attention to detail, his superb sense of story
construction - these are all missing in “Sleeping Beauty.â€
The two leads, the Prince and Princess Aurora, are blanks, one
dimensional ciphers, with next to no personality and consequently, lack any
reason fro the audience identification or involvement. The opening crowd scenes
dispense with any attempt at detail, the background figures are painted extras
that are stationary and never moving. And the story is weak - we never learn
why Malificent is so angry at the king or hell bent on destroying Princess
Aurora, and the battle scene with the prince and the dragon, which in childhood
memory seemed like an epic struggle, is tossed away so quickly that if you
blinked you’d miss it. The entire scenario seems half-baked, like a rushed
first-draft and the fact that the entire enterprise cost a then staggering $8
million, makes the superficiality all that more puzzling.
And yet, there is one area where “Sleeping Beauty,†still dazzles. In
its character design of Malificent, Aurora, the Price and his Horse, the Disney
Studio modified its long held naturalistic style of animation in favor of a more
stylized approach, no doubt influenced by recent advances made in styles of
animation by competitors like UPA. Much of this modern style can be credited to
Marc Davis, who drew both Aurora and Malificent and for whom the Animation
Lecture series is named after. This modern style of design can be seen as a kind
of bridge between the old school style of animation represented by the previous
Disney feature “Lady and the Tramp,†and the rough-hewn, sketchy style of “101
Dalmatians,†which was to follow two years later.
It is this triumph of innovative design that makes “Sleeping Beauty†the
landmark it is, and the following panel discussion with Andreas Deja made clear
that its stylistic influence is still being felt in such latter Disney animated
features as “Hercules.â€Â But it is the weakness of the script and the
characterizations - only the fairy godmothers and the two kings have anything
resembling a personality - that prevent the feature from attaining any sort of
masterwork status.Â
Which only goes to show how invaluable Walt Disney was to the studio that
bears his name. Still, what is good about the film is enough to make it a worthwhile investment when the 50th anniversary DVD comes out later in the year.