Author
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Topic: Walt Disney, 1901-1966
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted December 27, 2006 03:28 PM
I just recently finished reading a biography of Walt Disney and have to say it was among the most interesting of many biographies I have read. I can’t say for certain if it was the man himself or the very fact that so many Disney shorts and features I have loved for so long were all of a sudden given such backgrounds and contexts, but I’d definitely recommend picking up a Disney biography to those of you who enjoy these great films.
Being that Walt Disney died 40 years ago this month, I’d like to reflect on what I’ve learned.
Walt Disney was certainly a pioneer, in much the same way that men like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were. While none of these did everything themselves, they got things started and provided the leadership that brought their industries to maturity. Walt Disney was adequate as an artist; good enough to get a tiny studio going with Ubb Iwerks in the 1920s which brought him a little local fame and made it easier to raise money for ever more ambitious projects. He wasn’t really much of a businessman either, his brother Roy kept an eye on the money and tried to put the brakes on Walt, sometimes with real justification. Walt’s strength was as a visionary, who had ever greater ideas which were more often than not successful and ultimately profitable, but sometimes ran ahead of what studio finances and even the audience were ready for at a given moment.
A great example of Walt Disney’s genius was the creation of “Snow White”. This was the very first feature length animated film. When Walt proposed the project, Roy strongly objected, believing that animation was something the public expected before the feature, and wasn’t strong enough to sustain a feature by itself. Typical of Walt Disney, he already had the entire film in his head, and acted it out on stage in front of his artistic staff, and it became their job to bring his vision to life in images, music and dialog. It was said that when Disney was in this creative mode, his staff often found him embodying the characters in voice and mannerisms even when he was just being “Walt”. Being that he was the Boss, this was rarely brought to his attention.
This same pattern of Walt pulling forward and Roy dragging behind showed up in other projects such as “Steamboat Willy”, the early color cartoons, Fantasia, the first Disney live action films and later Disneyland and Disneyworld. Walt always wanted to push the envelope, Roy wanted to consolidate their success and maybe live off the fat of the land a while.
Much like many real geniuses, Walt Disney was not always the most agreeable human being (as if the rest of us are…). He had hatreds both personal and generalized, he could be quite spiteful and had a habit of not letting go when he felt somebody had betrayed him (He expected, and often received remarkable loyalty from people as well.) When he praised his people, it was almost never with them present. His was a monumental ego. A lot of us understand “Walt Disney” to be both a man and an entertainment company. To Disney himself, there was no distinction: everything the Studio produced was his personal work, even when his input was minor. This was so true that it took a strike at the Disney Studios before the creative staff was even named in the credits.
I guess it’s inevitable that a biography of Disney can’t reach it’s end without a discussion of Cryonics. Certainly we’ve all heard urban legends of the “Waltsickle” beneath Cinderella’s Castle in Orlando and perhaps tried to find a quiet corner of the gift shop to listen for the steady hum of some really major refrigeration equipment downstairs. (C’mon, it is Florida after all; a little hot for ice cream, never mind cryonics!) The book I read goes to great pains not to dismiss the possibility that Walt Disney actually did have his body frozen after his death. The announcement of his passing was delayed long enough for a rapid (possibly faked) cremation and interment in his family plot without any kind of ceremony, which is an odd exit for one of history’s greatest showmen. It is known that as his health failed he did a lot of research into cryonic suspension, and many of his closest colleagues believe it was very much the kind of thing Walt Disney would have tried.
To me the stated reason why he may have tried cryonics is the most intriguing part. It seems that after Disney was diagnosed with lung cancer, he realized that he would die with so much still left undone. Disney World was still being built, and EPCOT, his favorite phase of it was not even fully on the drawing boards. (The EPCOT that is there today has very little to do with what he imagined.) Beyond the same desire to just continue his time with friends and family which most of us would understand, Walt Disney realized he had no worthy successor and possibly envisioned a chance to come back sometime in the future and continue his work.
The author acidly pointed out that if he ever does come back, he won’t be too happy with what he finds.
For me, the story has a moral, and shouldn’t a Disney story have one? Who after all wouldn’t want to be Walt Disney: to have both such incredible inspiration and the means to bring it to reality, to be beloved by people the world over? If nothing else to be so wealthy he had several sets of REAL trains to play with? The fact of the matter is that Walt Disney went through great periods of dissatisfaction, stress and depression, may have attempted suicide at least once, and found refuge in excesses of drinking and smoking that ended his life way too soon. To me the moral is to find happiness being who and what we are and wait for neither wealth nor fame, because as means of happiness they seem to fail for too many people that actually have found them.
(Whether his wealth and fame provide him a second shot at it remains to be seen…)
Ref: Disney’s World, Leonard Mosley, Stein and Day Publishers, 1985
-------------------- All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted December 27, 2006 09:32 PM
Great read Steve. I have no doubt that Walt Disney had his own personal demons, all of us do. But whatever his faults, they are miniscule in comparison to the shear mountain of joy that he generated for everyone around the world. So, by any measure, he was a truly great man who gave the world the wonderful gift of 'Snow White' and all the other classic Disney films.
And don't I wish he could come back. He would be totally dismayed at what the money grubbing CEO's and bean counters have done to his company. Can you imagine his reaction when he found out that they had fired the entire 2D animation team and sold off their animation boards! Walt would fire the lot of them and turn his beloved company back to its roots. Walt said "Let us never forget that it all started with a mouse". They did.
(If you want to see the best tribute to Disney's life on film, get the 600ft S8 print of 'Once Upon a Mouse' , available from Derann - see film print review on this forum)
-------------------- The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection, Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Michael De Angelis
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1261
From: USA
Registered: Jul 2003
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posted December 28, 2006 12:00 AM
I always thought that Columbia was the "Poverty Row" of Studios during the contract days in Hollywood.
Harry Cohen was a ruthless Studio head, and Red Skelton's funny feature The Fuller Brush Man, had this one funny man and gentle comedian truly annoyed with Cohen. Cohen wrecked Jean Arthur's career, and that she ran away from the studio gates skipping with joy, but annoyed that he stole her youth in which she was not as appealing to the market in '44, as she was in '38.
The Stooges revamped many of their classic shorts, and much material footage was borrowed from short to short.
Understandably, Columbia has morphed into Sony Pictures, which also has acquired ownership of the MGM pictures and the studio.
I just saw Rocky Balboa, and it is released by MGM UA through Columbia/Sony Pictures Revolution Studios, and I would have never imagined this tranformation to exist to the mighty MGM.
Quite an achievement! By the way, Rocky Balboa is a teriffic feature and is worth seeing.
Thus, Harry Cohen should not be turning in his grave, but leaping for joy wherever he is now.
I believe that is just part of the story, and welcome any suggestions by all.
Last but not least, Disney released several cartoon shorts through Columbia before releasing through RKO.
Walt Disney was cremated after his death.
Michael
-------------------- Isn't it great that we can all communicate about this great hobby that we love!
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted December 28, 2006 09:21 AM
This has me thinking back to when I was a little kid, and my parents would take us out somewhere on a Saturday afternoon, and we'd get home and make sure dinner was done by 7 O'clock so we could watch "Wonderful World of Disney" together.
Cetainly not earth shattering entertainment, no "great issues", and no great Moral Dilemnas to ponder, but good clean fun that everybody could share in.
Now that I have my own little kid, I really appreciate this kind of entertainment. It saves a lot of "explaining" with a 4 year old in the room:
"Yesssss,...that's right. They're taking their clothes off...because it's time for their...bath."
The odd part is how little I was exposed to Disney cartoons as a kid. I came on the scene after "Mickey Mouse Club" was gone and grew up as a Warner Brothers kid (no complaints: Bugs Bunny Forever!). My greatest exposure to Mickey and Friends has come in the last few years in those thin white boxes we all love so much, so it's both a "new thing" and a "good thing"! (Especially since I have a child to share it with.)
-------------------- All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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