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| He's climbin' in ya windows, he's snatchin' ya people up, tryin' to kiss 'em... |
Following the success of 1950’s Cinderella, Disney decided to push ahead with another fairy tale adaptation, which followed the exploits of a fair-haired young princess yet again. Work on the film was slow; artists struggled to adapt the unwieldy folk-tale into a workable screenplay, animators came and went from the project, and Walt himself became increasingly occupied with the opening of Disneyland. Work ploughed ahead in earnest later in the decade, with the animators struggling to bring the flat, modernist character designs to life against the stunning backgrounds designed by artist Eyvind Earle (who based his designs on medieval tapestries and works from the Italian renaissance.) The film had five credited directors, each working on either an individual character or specific sequence (with artist Clyde Geronimi credited as Supervising Director,) and was mostly pre-filmed with live actors on a stage to be used as visual reference - a practice many animators saw as a creatively stifling crutch.
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| Rope-drop at the Magic Kingdom |
What was eventually produced stands as one of the most gorgeous movies (animated or otherwise) to ever grace the silver screen. It’s clear that every decision made, from the aforementioned art style to the use of large-format Super Technirama 70mm film for exhibition, that Disney was looking to make their latest fairy tale a truly theatrical spectacle. From the impressive opening, in which throngs of revelers stream into the castle of King Stefan (voiced by Taylor Holmes,) to the climactic battle between Prince Phillip (Bill Shirley) and the evil Maleficent (Eleanor Audley,) each sequence looks like a medieval storybook come to life. Earle’s wide background vistas are so detailed and handsome that they could be hung in an art museum. The soundtrack, originally presented in thunderous 6-track stereophonic sound, also impresses. Frequent Disney collaborator George Bruns, conducting the Graunke Symphony Orchestra, adapted Tchaikovsky's 1890 Sleeping Beauty ballet into the film’s score and its songs. The forest-set “Once Upon a Dream” sequence is a stand-out number, and really makes one wonder why more of Disney’s “love songs” aren’t waltzes instead of torch songs.
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| I've had the time of my life ... and I owe it all to you... |
Despite the nearly decade-long production and countless hours put into its creation (and a then-record budget of $6 million,) the film was met with lukewarm reviews and disappointing box-office returns. Disney would end up laying off many of its animators, and the 1960s would see budgets and ambitions cut from its animated features; hence the change to the economical Xerox process of copying art to cells, started with 1961’s One Hundred And One Dalmatians. Disney would not produce another animated film based on a fairy tale until 1989’s The Little Mermaid.
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| Im'ma buy you a drank, then Im'ma take you home with me... |
As visually breathtaking as the movie is, I have to agree with many that feel there’s a certain coldness to the whole affair. The sharp, stylized art does sometimes come off as stiff and stilted, lacking the cartoony “squash-and-stretch” technique that made previous films like Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs feel more charming. The backgrounds, as noted, are wondrous in their size and theatricality, but help to reduce any sense of realism that the studio’s earliest features strove for. The widescreen photography, as grand a spectacle as it is, does not always draw one’s eye instinctively to the on-screen characters, who are sometimes lost in the composition unless moving or drawn in close-up.
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| Wait, what am I looking at here? |
Most characters, despite valiant efforts by the voice cast, are not served well by the script, and end up lacking likeability. Mary Costa, who voices the grown-up Aurora, has a beautiful voice – but doesn’t sound like a sixteen year old. Aurora ends up coming off more like some regal Barbie doll than a protagonist. It doesn’t help that we only see her in a few brief scenes before she goes to sleep, in which she falls in love with a stranger, pouts about not being able to see him, and then falls under hypnosis. Truly and unfortunately, she's possibly the least progressive of Disney's princesses.
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| Life in plastic ... it's fantastic! |
The voice actor who ends up served best is the great Eleanor Audley as Maleficent, one of the finest “nasty women” Disney ever produced (is she a woman, though? Are those horns, or a headdress? Why’s she green?). Despite fighting tuberculosis at the time of recording (or maybe because of it,) her voice is perfectly suited to the “Mistress of All Evil.” While portrayed as a vain witch whose bitch-switch is stuck in the ON position, there’s undeniable delight to be had in watching her order a roomful of burly guards to “stand back, you fools!” She’s also one of the few Disney animated characters to get away with some light swearing, as she confronts Prince Phillip (after having had enough of his fairy-assisted heroic bullshit) and declares that now he “shall deal with me … and all the powers of Hell” before turning into a badass dragon. God Damn!
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| You may think you're so powerful - ah, ha ha, well - this is my dream! |
Even understanding that Sleeping Beauty is a fairy tale (and as such requiring a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief,) much of the story is head-scratchingly odd, and many of the characters display astounding lapses in common sense. The entire plot hangs on the fact that the royal family chose not to invite a sorceress to their baby’s christening. It’s hard to tell without any background (live-action prequels notwithstanding) but is there a reason for this? The King and Queen already seem aware that she’s someone not to be trifled with; hence their nervousness when she does show up. How could they not know Maleficent would be furious, then? Why not just throw her a bone and send an invite? It’s not like they were being discreet about throwing the party, either: the entire kingdom was seen marching toward the castle, singing the praises of the newborn princess.
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| Maleficent poses for her heavy metal album cover |
Once Maleficent does crash the party, and decrees that Aurora will prick her finger on a spinning-wheel spindle and die upon her sixteenth birthday, the royal family goes paradoxically helicopter-parent, by burning every spinning-wheel in the land, and absentee-parent, by shipping their baby off with a trio of fairies to hide out in a woodland cottage. Is their castle honestly less safe than a random cabin in the woods? Does it have a panic room or something? Maybe so, because the minute Aurora returns home, BOOM! She pricks her finger and drops dead asleep. They had been planning all this for a decade-and-a-half! Just to be safe, couldn’t everyone have just waited ONE MORE DAMN DAY to bring Aurora back!? Or would MTV only shoot My Royal Super Sweet Sixteen on her actual birthday?
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| Freakin' useless... |
I feel I'd be remiss if I failed to point out that the fairies, Flora (red one,) Fauna (green one,) and Merryweather (blue one) are real dipshits. Apparently unable to directly undo Maleficent’s magic, they spend years as mortals raising the refugee princess, but (a) never learn how to bake, (b) never learn to sew, (c) never let Aurora in on the situation for her own safety, (d) let themselves be spotted during a petty dispute over dress color, and, after all this trouble, (e) leave Aurora alone to be hypnotized by Maleficent. Why can’t they undo Maleficent’s magic anyway? Is there a code of fairy conduct they follow? Merryweather has no problem turning the villain’s pet crow to stone during the film’s climax, and Flora can enchant a sword to fly straight into a dragon’s heart, but they can’t directly harm Maleficent themselves? They couldn't at least cast a spell that makes Aurora wake up after a short catnap or something?
These are all silly nitpicks, of course. Disney’s most recent re-release of Sleeping Beauty promoted the film as “the ultimate fairy tale,” and it certainly is that. With a damsel in distress, fairies, a wicked sorceress, royalty, evil dungeons, dragons and what-have-you, this film really gives Ridley Scott’s Legend a run for its money as the definitive cinematic fairy-story. It remains one of my most favorite examples of the possibilities of what great art can be produced through motion-picture animation, and should be seen by everyone at least once in their lifetime.
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| Fire walk with me... |
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