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[CCBC-Net] Disney
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From: Monica Edinger <monicaedinger>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:22:37 -0400
Not all Disney is bad. Even Maurice Sendak is an avowed fan. I recently bought a DVD collection called Disney Rarities which includes a very cool Disney cartoon series from 1923, "Alice's Wonderland" that mixes live action and animation. The animation for "Fantasia" and other features of that time period are still, I think, fantastic.
And I (a committed Carrollian) would like to defend the Disney Alice in Wonderland. Yes, it is not either book quite, but I think the Disney people did a better job in parts of it capturing Carroll's sensibility than more recent turgid live action films.
With a bit less confidence, I'd even like to defend those Disney fairy tale films based on the old French retellings which I think are no more problematic than the many, many, many other illustrated retellings over the centuries. I was in an NEH seminar years ago with the wonderful Russell Peck of the University of Rochester. We spent six weeks immersed in two tales: "Cinderella" and "Beauty and the Beast." Russell and a film specialist in the group helped the rest of us look at the Disney versions of these two tales through new eyes
(lens?).
That said, I'm in complete agreement about the Disney Pooh. They are horrid. I adore the original Milne stories; they are witty, philosophical, and whimsical in just the right way. The books are so beautifully designed --- the lines and Shepard illustrations tied together just so.
Monica
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:22:37 -0400
Not all Disney is bad. Even Maurice Sendak is an avowed fan. I recently bought a DVD collection called Disney Rarities which includes a very cool Disney cartoon series from 1923, "Alice's Wonderland" that mixes live action and animation. The animation for "Fantasia" and other features of that time period are still, I think, fantastic.
And I (a committed Carrollian) would like to defend the Disney Alice in Wonderland. Yes, it is not either book quite, but I think the Disney people did a better job in parts of it capturing Carroll's sensibility than more recent turgid live action films.
With a bit less confidence, I'd even like to defend those Disney fairy tale films based on the old French retellings which I think are no more problematic than the many, many, many other illustrated retellings over the centuries. I was in an NEH seminar years ago with the wonderful Russell Peck of the University of Rochester. We spent six weeks immersed in two tales: "Cinderella" and "Beauty and the Beast." Russell and a film specialist in the group helped the rest of us look at the Disney versions of these two tales through new eyes
(lens?).
That said, I'm in complete agreement about the Disney Pooh. They are horrid. I adore the original Milne stories; they are witty, philosophical, and whimsical in just the right way. The books are so beautifully designed --- the lines and Shepard illustrations tied together just so.
Monica
-- Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at gmail.comReceived on Thu 20 Jul 2006 03:22:37 PM CDT
