DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE
Sleeping Beauty
The story of Sleeping Beauty has been told many times with the earliest version dating back to the 1300’s. The Disney version adds it's own spin to the story. The King and Queen have a daughter named Aurora. During the celebration of her birth 3 fairies (Flora, Fauna, Merryweather) begin to give their blessings on baby Aurora. Flora blesses Aurora with beauty, Fauna blesses her with the gift of singing, and before Merryweather can present her gift Maleficent the evil fairy interrupts. She curses Aurora with death before her sixteenth birthday when she touches a spindle on a spinning wheel. Since Merryweather hadn’t given her a gift yet she was able to change Maleficent's curse from death to enchanted sleep. She will awake from the sleep when her true love kisses her. But to be safe the King orders all spinning wheels to be destroyed and the fairies agree to hide Aurora in the woods till she turns 16. Jump to 16 years later the fairies are getting ready to celebrate and tell Aurora (who now is going by the name Briar Rose) that she is a princess. Before they can tell her she meets a man who she instantly falls in love with. She doesn’t know but the man is Prince Phillip who she was betrothed to at birth. But after 16 years of searching Maleficent finally finds Aurora and with only hours to spare before sundown tricks Aurora in touching a spindle. She then captures the prince so he will have no change in kissing the princess. The fairies spring into action and rescue the prince, help him destroy Maleficent, and finally lead the Prince to Aurora. He kisses her and she awakes and everyone lives happily ever after.
The first thing striking about this film is the way it looks. The animation style is different from any of the other Disney films. Eyvind Earle worked on the background painting and brought a unique Gothic and medieval style to them. The backgrounds, which Walt Disney approved of, forced the other animators to rework their drawing so the characters felt part of the same world. This led to stress on the animators and when Earle left prior to the movie being finished they went back and toned down some of the gothicness.
The next thing that became apparent on watching the film is that Aurora is not the main character in the film. She is only in the film for approximately 18 minutes, sings two songs and has very little dialogue. I recently listened to a Podcast that briefly discussed the difference between protagonist, main character, and hero (check out The Shame List Picture Show wherever you get your podcasts they are a fun listen). The definitions went something like this:
Main Character - The person or people we follow good or bad
Protagonist - The person or people propelling the story forwards
Hero - The “good guy”
Aurora does not fit any of these descriptions. The ones that fit all of these are the three fairies. They are there when she is born and hatch the plan to protect her by hiding her away in the forest. An argument could be made that Prince Phillip is the hero but it is the fairies that release the Prince from jail and the fairies that ultimately defeat Maleficent. Just odd that the title character of the movie is not a large part of the actual movie.
The last aspect I wanted to talk about is the Prince. This is the third Disney Princess Fairy Tale movie and the first that gave the prince a name. It is also the first to give the Prince something to do besides sing a song or dance. Unfortunately it comes in a movie that really sidelines the princess and it will always be strange to me that it has to be a kiss that saves the princess.
Overall: A fun watch. Great use of color and sound, and the style really stands out from Disney Films. The sequence at Maleficent’s castle is one of the most harrowing and suspenseful we have seen in a Disney movie yet. The three fairies have really fun interactions. Songs are ok. but not really my style.
Random Facts
There is a running bit of two of the fairies arguing over the color of Aurora’s dress. This is based on two of the animators arguing over the same thing and not being able to decide.
The Black Cauldron (1985) is the only one other Disney animated film shot in Technirama.
One of the few Disney Princess Movies where both parents are alive (although the Queen barely speaks and isn’t part of the story).
It would be 30 years before Disney made another fairy tale movie. The next one would be The Little Mermaid in 1989.
The movie took 7 years to make. A record for any Animated Disney movie. The only other movie that tied that record was The Black Cauldron (1985) which was also filmed in Technirama.
George Bruns composed the score for the film. He would go on and score the next 5 animated features for Disney. For this one he adapted the music from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty Ballet. He got an Oscar nomination for his efforts.
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