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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Directors: William Cottrell, David Hand
Cast: Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille La Verne
Genre: Animated Fantasy
One of the great classic Disney animations...and I had never ever seen it before, until now. I see that the movie is on Roger Ebert's Great Movies list and AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies list. So I know a lot of people appreciate the film.
I too appreciated the beauty and artistry of the hand drawn animation. It's so lovely to look at, so richly detailed that the scenes come to life right before our eyes. The camera work too is surprisingly fluid and cinematic.
I loved the way the film opens with a 'dolly in' shot as the camera moves closer to the evil queen's castle, then it dissolves to the next shot - a close up of the castle...and then we move closer, focusing on a window in the castle's turret - then another dissolve to the third shot and we're on the back of the queen looking into the talking magic mirror. I thought that was all pretty damn impressive, and there's many sequences in the film like that. It's truly made to a high artistic degree.
I love old movies because they're like a time machine back to the past. The past is never really gone, it's just a place that doesn't exist in our current time continuum...and movies are the one way people from that distant past can speak to us. So the odd thing for me was that I knew I was watching a film from 1938 and yet because it was animated it didn't at first seem like a portal to the past. But then I listened to the way Snow White sang along with the Prince and they reminded me of Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy who were the most popular singing/acting duel in the movies at the time. Snow White seemed patterned after Jeanette MacDonald and I swear Dopey was based on Harpo.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Directors: William Cottrell, David Hand
Cast: Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille La Verne
Genre: Animated Fantasy
'Exiled into the dangerous forest by her wicked stepmother, a princess is rescued by seven dwarf miners who make her part of their household.'
One of the great classic Disney animations...and I had never ever seen it before, until now. I see that the movie is on Roger Ebert's Great Movies list and AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies list. So I know a lot of people appreciate the film.
I too appreciated the beauty and artistry of the hand drawn animation. It's so lovely to look at, so richly detailed that the scenes come to life right before our eyes. The camera work too is surprisingly fluid and cinematic.
I loved the way the film opens with a 'dolly in' shot as the camera moves closer to the evil queen's castle, then it dissolves to the next shot - a close up of the castle...and then we move closer, focusing on a window in the castle's turret - then another dissolve to the third shot and we're on the back of the queen looking into the talking magic mirror. I thought that was all pretty damn impressive, and there's many sequences in the film like that. It's truly made to a high artistic degree.
I love old movies because they're like a time machine back to the past. The past is never really gone, it's just a place that doesn't exist in our current time continuum...and movies are the one way people from that distant past can speak to us. So the odd thing for me was that I knew I was watching a film from 1938 and yet because it was animated it didn't at first seem like a portal to the past. But then I listened to the way Snow White sang along with the Prince and they reminded me of Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy who were the most popular singing/acting duel in the movies at the time. Snow White seemed patterned after Jeanette MacDonald and I swear Dopey was based on Harpo.