CROSS-CUT CLIMAX

It starts with the dwarfs’ arrival at the mine still singing then whistling “Heigh-ho Heigh-ho” as they get down to work – loading the mine cart with their tools and dragging it toward the tunnel. Doc as usual at the front of the line halts and the others behind train-wreck into him again as they had done the night before upon noticing the light in their cottage. “Hey, look!” – their leader points ahead at the onslaught of panicked animals speeding their way. At first the dwarfs are surprised and befuddled at the strange behavior of these frantic critters as they push and pull trying to goad each of the little men individually into action. Sneezy’s sneeze only temporarily blows away the birds which are beleaguering him.

Cross-cut back to the cottage, now the interior where the Witch shares a “secret” with Snow White that the apple is no “ordinary” one but rather a special “wishing” apple. We know that the naïve princess is already primed for such a fairytale ruse because upon our first meeting her she was engaged in wishing into a well in the place courtyard. “One bite and all your dreams come true” the Witch assures her then shoves the luscious apple forward directly at us (we see this gesture from Snow White’s perspective), urging “Take a bite!”

Cross-cut back to the mine where the animals continue their ruckus.

Sleepy drowsily suggests that “maybe the old Queen’s got Snow White”. Immediately the others acknowledge that this must indeed be the case and in a series of quick full-screen close-up clips they each individually determine they must go save her. They stop swatting at the critters and instead start mounting them to race back to their cottage, Grumpy leading the charge on the back of a stag, the others following mounted on other deer, aided by birds, Dopey bringing up the rear holding onto a deer’s tail and pulled along behind with gigantic strides. Racing back through the forest they stampede past the turtle still plodding forward trying to catch up, sending the poor slowpoke into a spin out of which it comes reversing its direction. We now see the rampage from the turtle’s perspective, hurtling off through the forest ahead of him.

Cross-cut again to the cottage where the Witch encourages Snow White to make a wish for something – or perhaps someone she loves? Backing cautiously away against the wall behind her, the princess fesses up, yes, there is someone. “Ah! Granny knows a young girl’s heart,” chuckles the crone. She presses the poisoned fruit into the princess’ hands and encourages her to make a wish. Snow White utters “I wish… I wish…” and as the Witch goads her in an urgent whisper, “Go on. Go on”…

Cross-cut to the dwarfs speeding through the forest back along the route we saw during their trek homeward the day before – across an immense fallen tree, down a steep embankment, over a wide ravine.

Cross-cut to the cottage where Snow White is concluding her heartfelt wish with the words “and he will carry me away to his castle where we will live happily ever after”. The Witch betrays just the slightest impatience as she pressures the girl to take a bite.

Cross-cut again to the dwarfs’ charge this time in close-ups…

Cross-cut to the cottage where the Witch tells Snow White not to let her wish “grow cold”. The princess starts to bite into the apple. The focus shifts to the hag as she watches in wicked anticipation. We hear Snow White say she feels “strange” and – the girl herself gasping but unseen off – instead we watch the Witch narrate what is happening to her as specified in her recipe for the Poisoned Apple: “her breath will still, her blood congeal…”. The camera pans down to the floor at the crone’s feet where shortly Snow White’s arm falls lifeless, her hand releasing the apple now with a bite taken out of it.

Standing in front of a window cackling and savoring her victory, the Witch declares “Now I’ll be fairest in the land!” Lightning flashes outside and a heavy downpour can be seen through the window. Cut to the exterior of the cottage: the Witch – highlighted in a sudden flash of lightning – abandons the scene of the crime through the front door.

Now the simultaneity of the two cross-cut scenes collides with their proximity: the departing Witch looks off to her right and we see what she sees – the dwarfs charging out of the forest in her direction mounted on deer and accompanied by an army of woodland creatures. She makes a hasty exit stage-left. The rain starts really pelting the scene. Arriving in front of the cottage, Grumpy briefly reins in his steed then points off after the Witch – “There she goes!” – and gallops away in hot pursuit, the other dwarfs following close behind. Those two patient vultures take flight, presuming one way or another they will soon find some prey.

The Witch stumbles across the forest’s rocky terrain as the thunderstorm intensifies. In an ironic twist she grapples with those very same vines that snarled Snow White during her terrifying flight though these woods just the day before. The dwarfs are right behind the Witch. She starts climbing a stony crag, its rocks dripping rain and reflecting the lightning. The dwarfs arrive at the base of this crag and start scrambling up the slippery terrain after her. Panting from the exertion she rests on a ledge and looks back, confronted by the little men getting closer and closer. She resumes her ascent, the dwarfs now right behind, their shadows thrown by lightning against the stone wall beside them. Grasping a dead treebranch the Witch pulls herself onto another ledge but finds she is stranded on a high precipice with no way to escape. The two vultures alight on another dead limb nearby. The dwarfs are close upon her now. “The meddling little fools!” she curses. She grabs a fallen log, crams it for leverage underneath the bottom of a huge boulder and starts trying to pry the rock loose and send it crushing down on her pursuers.

In one of the film’s most dramatic shots but all too brief, this entire scene is depicted from below, the Witch high on the distant precipice, prying at the boulder, the dwarfs seen from behind all scuffling up toward her through the driving rain and lightning.

And now happens what insurance agencies all insist is “an Act of God”: a tremendous crackling lightning bolt strikes the precipice squarely between the Witch and the boulder she’s been weaponizing thus demolishing the ledge into crumbling/tumbling bits and pieces and sending the hag backwards and down into freefall.

That immense boulder teeters a bit, then careens after her into the misty abyss below. The Old Peddler Woman’s wretched scream gets muffled in a tremendous clap of thunder followed by a deadly silence. After all the raucous brassy orchestral accompaniment and loud sound effects of wind, rain and thunder, this sudden silence itself  seems deafening. The two vultures take flight.

All seven dwarfs reach the top and gaze over its edge, watching the vultures circle down and down until they vanish into the impenetrable haze and the sequence fades slowly to black. This accidental demise of the Witch makes moot a problematic question: what were the dwarfs going to do once they caught up with her? The unrelenting momentum of the sequence makes this issue so immaterial that it never even comes to mind unless you’re writing a book about it…