WHAT MAKES A MASTERPIECE?
Walter Elias Disney died December 15, 1966, just 10 days after his 65th birthday. During his lifetime he directed the creation of thirteen full-length animated films nine of which are masterpieces unequaled in that art form: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp and The Sleeping Beauty. The four others – Dumbo, 101 Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone and The Jungle Book – while quite extraordinary in their own right, do not quite measure up to the stunning brilliance of these others. Why? Primarily because the master, himself, due to other diverting concerns, did not supervise their creation with the same fine-tuned attention he lavished on those aforementioned nine.
A master is a visionary capable of materializing his own vision while concurrently expanding our own… With Disney’s coup de grâce – Fantasia – who could deny the mastery there?[1]
It is my intention in this blog to encourage readers to watch these nine beautiful films again and to view them – and their prime mover as well – in a new light. Additionally, to evoke for Walt Disney himself the accolades due to one of humanity’s all-time great artists, an assessment he was well on his way to generating at the start of his career, as great American playwright (Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth) Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) concurred, “declaring in 1936 that Walt and Charlie Chaplin were ‘the two presiding geniuses of the movies’”.[2] World-renowned Russian film-maker (Battleship Potemkin, Ivan the Terrible) Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) became a “Disneyphile” and wrote in 1941 that “the work of this master is the greatest contribution of the American people to art.”[3] This high regard got undermined later as Disney’s personal, political and aesthetic beliefs matured and split away from contemporary intellectual trends. There is now a plethora of books about this man, his life and career, his studio, his staff and collaborations, his works, his theme parks, animation itself, et al, many of these written before Internet access was available with its seemingly unlimited trove of pertinent information. While I have mined many of these texts for insights pertinent to my own purposes herein, please be advised that this blog is in no way another biography but rather a critical evaluation of and guide to nine of the animated features produced during Walt’s lifetime. I include a compilation of references from many varied sources in order to bolster my humble opinions, to provide enlightening details regarding how these masterpieces came to be and to credit aspects of their creation to other artists in addition to Walt himself.
[1]Euvino, Gabrielle: “What Makes an Art Masterpiece?”, idiotsguides.com
[2] Kaufman, J.B.: Pinocchio, The Making of the Disney Epic, The Walt Disney Family Foundation Press, p. 21.
[3] Lane, Anthony: “Wonderful World – What Walt Disney Made”, The New Yorker, December 11, 2006, p. 71.
