Welcome to another entry in my blog series; The Most Important Movies of All Time. This series deals with movies that have had a tremendous impact on the movie industry as well as changing elements of popular culture after its release. This week, we take a look at one of the greatest movies in the Disney canon, and how it manged to save the Mouse House's reputation by ushering in a new Golden Age for the studio.
jotajota94 Presents
The Most Important Movies of All Time
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
No one can argue that Walt Disney Animation Studios is responsible for some of the most iconic scenes of cinema history: Snow White biting the poisoned apple, Cinderella riding off in a magic pumpkin, Bambi realizing his mother's not coming back, and countless others. In 1966, during production of The Jungle Book, Walt Disney, visionary behind the likes of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, lost his battle to lung cancer, and died on December 15th of that year. His loss was felt throughout the studio, and suddenly the bold and risky ideas Disney had championed were now a thing of the past. The Disney movies of the 70's and 80's were a string of small box-office success, full of forgettable fare such as Robin Hood and Oliver and Company when compared to the bona fide hits of Pinocchio or Cinderella. The ultimate low point, though, was the release of The Black Cauldron, a much darker film that previous ventures, failing to make back its $25 million production budget, making it one of the worst failures in Disney history.
Something had to be done about the direction the studio was taking, so in 1986, Walt Disney Productions was reorganized into Walt Disney Feature Animation, and after providing animation work for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, appeared to be making up for lost time. There first true hit, however, came out of an adaption of an old Hans Christian Anderson story entitled The Little Mermaid, which netted the studio two Academy Awards. For the time, Disney had staved off ruin, but one triumph would not be enough. Disney had to pull out all the stops to ensure it would not fall into an obscurity that had claimed countless other studios before them.
The first written appearance of Beauty and the Beast hails from 18th century France, under the title La Belle et la Bête, and was a story that always intrigued Walt Disney. After Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, he began looking for other stories to adapt into feature films, and Beauty and the Beast was on the short list. After numerous attempts to get the project running, the concept was abandoned until the release of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which prompted Disney studios to revive the project. Sent to the satellite studio in London that had done the work for Roger Rabbit, it became the first animated film in history to use a screenplay in addition to a storyboard; all animated films before this point used solely storyboards.
The film suffered numerous set-backs during official production. Original director Richard Purdum dropped out of the film after Walt Disney Studio chairmen Jeffrey Katzenberg saw the initial storyboards and ordered the entire film reworked, which required them to hire first-time film directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale to finish the job. Pre-production also had to be moved from London to New York to accommodate for songwriter Howard Ashman's failing health. Furthermore, the 4-year animation schedule had to be completed in two years, on account of the lost time spent working on the scraped Purdum version. By outsourcing different scenes to various affiliates and reworking aspects of the original story, which had far too few characters for a engrossing story, the film finally came together.
A new form of animation was also coming into the fold during production of Beauty and the Beast: Computer Animation Production System, or CAPS for short. CAPS was unique in that it allowed the the hand drawn ink and pen animated scenes to be scanned into a computer system. While this may not seem impressive, it actually allowed the animators access to a wider range of colors, as well as the ability to use soft shading and colored line effects. But perhaps the most important use of this technology, for Beauty and the Beast at least, was an easier way to combine CGI with hand drawn images, making the movie's most well known sequence possible.
The ballroom sequence is easily the most recognizable scene of Beauty and the Beast, but carries much more importance than simply being well-known. As mentioned earlier, the use of CAPS allowed the Disney animators to place traditional animation on the same screen as computer-generated images seamlessly, allowing them to create scenes that were impossible in animated films just years before. The biggest advance in the field of animation present in this scene is the illusion of dollying around Belle and the Beast as they dance to Angela Lansbury's beautiful, Academy Award-winning voice. The background is animated in CAPS, with the hand-drawn Belle and Beast dancing over it, and this scene alone convinced Disney executives to continue supporting the film and led the way for this technology to be used in future projects.
On September 29, 1991, a "work-in-progress" copy was screened at the New York Film Festival, where it received a 10-minute-long standing ovation, despite almost 30% of the animation being incomplete (it was shown in the copy as pencil test and storyboards). When Beauty and the Beast was finally released in theaters, it received unanimous praise from critics and movie-goers alike. Critics pointed out its beautiful animation sequences, well-defined characters, and Menken and Ashman's stunning music, all adding up to some of the best reviews Disney had gotten in fifty years. When the Academy Awards rolled around, Beauty and the Beast made movie history by becoming the first animated movie to ever be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Menken and Ashman receiving an Oscar for their titular song, "Beauty and the Beast." These awards proved Disney was officially back and was a force to be reckoned with again.
With this new-found clout, Disney began in earnest on several new projects that would collectively become to be known as "The Disney Renaissance." The movies in this era were categorized by a return to Broadway-style musicals, full of more mature storylines, and a new wave of inventive and colorful animation. Projects like Aladdin and The Lion King defined this time, becoming cherished memories for children of the 90's, filled with catchy musical numbers and deeply touching stories. While some could argue that The Little Mermaid is the real start of the Disney Renaissance, the methods used by Disney during this age were all put to their best use in Beauty and the Beast.
With the box-office returns generated by Beauty and the Beast, Disney had regained its footing, and after its Renaissance, it had the power to continue reaching out for other projects. Without the success of this movie, we might not see the Disney we have today: a Disney who had its merchandising recharged by new, more dynamic Princesses added to its roster in the forms of Belle or Mulan, a entity that expanded to new markets for its Disneyland theme parks, and (most importantly) a studio that financed risky projects like a shared universe between guys who dress up in spandex fighting crime and a continuation of an old sci-fi series whose last trip to movie screens was met with critical backlash. Even if you don't agree with the direction Disney has taken in the past 20 years, you cannot deny that the shift occurred because of its new Golden Age of Animation, and at the root of this, was a little movie about a lonesome monster and the woman who freed him of a curse.
Thank your for reading the newest entry in my blog series: The Most Important Movies of All Time. Participation and discussions are encouraged, but please try to be respectful of other people's opinions. I am also open to criticism, and will use your thoughts and ideas on how this series can be changed to be more enjoyable for you the readers.
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