Thoughts on animation, Disney and WALL-E. Sort of.
As much as I miss travelling, I do appreciate being back near the beach again. There's just something about the sand and the sea and the salt that I really missed, and am so happy to be near again. There was a dolphin swimming not far from us today - it was a beautiful sight, quite amazing really that it came so close to the shore and didn't mind the people at all.
On an unrelated topic, I've recently re-watched WALL-E and if you haven't seen it, I really recommend you do. I think it's brilliant.
It has also made me think back to my childhood and the important role films like that have made in my life, and how rare they actually seem to be, now. On that train of thought:
I think myself lucky to have grown up when, I believe, some of the best Disney films were being made. The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King were all wonderful and iconic films. They weren't movies just geared towards kids, and yet they weren't ones which had the 'adult' jokes shoe-horned in, either. I think my main problem with Disney and/or Pixar in the past ten years or so was that they fell into either of those two categories - they felt like lazy re-hashes of older films, or they were all style and no substance. While I do love Shrek and all it stood for, to watch it now it seems very...dated. The post-modern feel to it was fresh at the time, but the jokes seem somewhat stale now. I still think it is one of the better ones, but it really was the beginning of the end for the more 'traditional' animated film, as opposed to CGI. And I mean in Hollywood - because obviously they are still out there (notably in French animation and Japanese anime, which I unfortunately don't watch enough of) but the cinema seems somewhat dominated by CGI for the sake of CGI. Post-modern for the sake of pop-culture. Any of the Disney films of the 90's listed above can be enjoyed by many generations, they are almost timeless in the way they are presented. Can you say the same for Shrek the Third or Bolt??
Which is not to say that I dislike CGI animation. I just think it has gone too far. The style of animation should represent the story being told - for example, the way Lilo and Stitch utilised traditional watercolours in its backgrounds to bring out the colour and texture of the landscape, the animation in The Lion King which replicated focus-pulls and camera movements to give it an epic feature feel - the wonderful, frantic colours in Alice in Wonderland. Similarly, I don't think Toy Story would have been as effective if not done in CGI. And I would like to point out here that I realise Disney and Pixar are now very separate entities, and Pixar's madate is that form of animation, but now everyone else seems to be doing it too, for no real discernible reason, except perhaps they think that is what makes money. Also, I know that Disney does not have the monopoly on American animation either (who remembers the wonderful Don Bluth films like An American Tale and The Secret of Nimh?)
Which brings me back to WALL-E. If there was ever a film that was enhanced by CGI, this is it. The character of Wall-e is a triumph of animation (and sound design), character you feel for who really is little more than a half-batty, ugly little machine. I think a large success in his design is that he wasn't cutified - he looks and works like a robot, and yet is so human, so childlike. From the moment he sat with his Ariel-like collection of human oddities, watching Hello Dolly! and longing to hold someone's hand, he had me. He isn't a world-weary cynic with a quip for every occassion - but rather a character who found amusement and joy in the smallest things, and infected everyone he met with his enthusiasm, without even realising it. And yet he wasn't sugary - his loneliness felt real and he had an essential essense of pure humanity.
Everything about the animation was artful - the robots and machines, the depiction of a wasteland Earth, the universe and star systems...and yes, the human characters still look a little fake, but even that fit in with the humans-as-babies motif.
I really don't know why this film touched me so much when others that are popular and critically acclaimed like Finding Nemo, Ratatouille and The Incredibles haven't. Maybe it is just personal preference. What I responded to was the little moments in WALL-E - like when he freaks out that Eve has destroyed his beloved Hello Dolly! tape, and he test-plays it - his little metal hands tapping together in anxiety and worry - really sold the character. Maybe it was the message of love, hope and beginning again. Maybe it was the wonderful depiction of the history of art in the end credits.
Ultimately, I think great films (and art in general) are about taking risks. It was risky to kill Mufasa and deal with death onscreen, it was risky to make Toy Story using CGI, it was risky to make a film's heroine a off-beat Hawaiian child and not a princess (and on another note, I would really like to make a post someday about Disney heroines), it was risky to blend animation and live-action in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, it was risky to make a full-length animated film in the first place. And it was very risky to make a film with virtually no dialogue for the first 40 minutes - but that's what makes it rise above the average, that makes you think this isn't just pretty, or funny, or cute - this is something new and different, or, probably more appropriately, taking something very old and re-inventing it. I was a little saddened to see that WALL-E wasn't nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (why does it seem the only films that get any attention are always released in the last few months?). I really do think it deserved it.
I think perhaps it was so successful for me was that it did remind me of that childhood wonder of going to see a Disney film - before I was jaded. Those films felt mythic - and as much as I enjoyed, say, A Bug's Life, I really can't say the same for that. I mean, which is fine. Sometimes films can just be entertaining and don't have to be wonderful and epic. But...I don't really know what I'm trying to say. Perhaps maybe it just felt like they used to be, whereas now they don't. Or at least, not as often
I suppose...in summation: go see WALL-E. It's good.
And, to finish on a less-convoluted note, my top ten favourite Disney and/or Pixar films, in no particular order:
The Lion King
WALL-E
Beauty and the Beast
Sword in the Stone
Mulan
The Little Mermaid
Aladdin
Hercules
Lilo and Stitch
The Jungle Book