Bambi, book and movie

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The Story: One spring, a little fawn is born into a world of sunshine and flowers - but as the seasons pass, and the young deer comes of age, neither he nor the world around him will remain so innocent.

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“You’d be forgiven for picturing cute, wide-eyed little critters wandering through daisy fields and singing happy songs,” I wrote when introducing this month’s theme, adding pointedly, “Not so.” And I meant it - yet here we are! Well, let this prove that clichés obscure more than they illuminate. The cute, wide-eyed little critters of Bambi inhabit a violence- and sex-filled world of tragedy, stoicism, and carnage. Despite frequent light and happy moments, this is ultimately a very dark forest indeed. Why? To unearth Bambi's roots, I dug up the book that gave it birth.

Felix Salten’s Bambi was published in 1923, and it shares the qualities of much classic children’s literature: quiet, thoughtful, with a delicate playfulness, yet fundamentally somber, elementally instructional and subtly allegorical – simple yet deep. Walt Disney more scrupulously balances the dark and light, yet much of the book’s mood and atmosphere is effectively conveyed. Those majestic moments when Bambi and his mother cautiously approach a meadow, or tiptoe through the snow to hunt for food, admirably capture Salten’s spirit. Even those prototypical Disney elements – anthropomorphized chattering forest critters, resembling gossipy housewives or restless schoolkids – have their source in Salten, who devotes many pages to the silly conversations of little birds.

An Open Letter to Toontown

November 20, 2011

Toontown City Council, c/o Cloverfield Development Co.

Acme Avenue & Avery Alley

Toontown, CA 90@#!

Dear Toons,

Well, gang, I just watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit again, this time for an online series called "Fixing a Hole." (You remember holes, those convenient black discs you carry around in your pockets, portable escape hatches when you're in a pickle. Incidentally, how much those go for nowadays?). Anyway, the movie was a delight as always; though the climax is a bit drawn-out, the appearance of a one-dimensional Judge Doom, crushed and cackling like some maniacal cross between Johnny Paper and Johnny Rotten, is well worth the wait.

I dug that, and I laughed along with Roger, cringed for Baby Herman (somebody tell that middle-aged infant about Viagra, or better yet, don't), and marveled at Bob Hoskins' ability to play it straight even as he was acting against thin ai-  er, I mean, against real, live Toons who must have been rather intimidating “in the flesh.” And Jessica Rabbit. Oh Jessica Rabbit. With her in their extended family, it’s no wonder the fluffy-tailed little mammals are so eager to breed.

Dumbo ("Fixing a Hole")

This Sunday brings, as all Sundays do, a fresh "Fixing a Hole." This week I've selected guest writer Stephen Gebbett-Russell of Checking on My Sausages to cover the Disney classic Dumbo, continuing the theme of "Animated Animals" for November.

He has an interesting take on the film, ambivalently noting its drawbacks while appreciating its unique charms. Here's a snippet to whet your appetite, after which you can follow the link for the full piece.

Read "Dumbo" on Wonders in the Dark

"While the story is a bit of a bore (and by no means offering an inspirational moral to take home, as we shall see), the film occasionally gets off the ground in a few magical details, the red ribbon that wards off the evil eye: Dumbo's bath-time frolics with his mother, a kangaroo cradling its young and creaking like a rocking chair, a clever song that plays on nouns and verbs (“I've seen a fireside chat, a baseball bat...”) and a drunken hallucination that includes a hideous monster made up of elephant heads and ends with floating pachyderms softly morphing into clouds in a dawn sky."

The Story of the Fox

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The Story of the Fox (1937/France/directed by Wladyslaw and Irene Starewicz)

stars the voices of Claude Dauphin, Romain Bouquet, Sylvain Itkine, Marcel Raine

written by Jean Nohain, Antoinette Nordmann, Roger Richebe, Irene Starewicz, Wladyslaw Starewicz from Johann Wolfgang Goethe • photographed by Wladyslaw Starewicz • designed by Wladyslaw Starewicz • music by Vincent Scotto • animated by Wladyslaw and Irene Starewicz

The Story: The royal lion seeks to punish Monsieur Renard (Mr. Fox) for eating his fellow creatures, yet the crafty animal tricks, manipulates, and fights his way out of every scrape.

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“Animated Animals”: you’d be forgiven for picturing cute, wide-eyed little critters wandering through daisy fields and singing happy songs. Not so: this month there’s one cuddly creature (albeit too mute to sing), an amiable buffoon, a murderous yet still sympathetic monster, and then there’s Monsieur Renard (French for "fox"), the eponymous antihero of the brilliant stop-motion feature The Story of the Fox. Crafty, nasty, and carnivorous, Renard may have the least redeeming qualities of all the November beasts; unsurprisingly, he may also be the most human.

Watching as he assaults and semi-cannibalizes his fellow creatures, regarding us every now and then with an ambiguously conspiratorial twinkle in his eye, we titter nervously.  We recognize we aren’t really compatriots in crime but rather spectators in a show enacted only for the fox’s own benefit. Renard has the gifted performer’s contempt for the audience – and we’d probably be his next victim were we onscreen ourselves. Not only the fox but his master are winking at us with raw, mischievous relish.