Movie #16 of The Disney Discussion
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Featuring the voice talents of Mary Costa, Eleanor Audley, Barbara Luddy, Taylor Holmes, Bill Shirley, Verna Felton, Barbara Jo Allen, and Bill Thompson
Directed by Clyde Geronimi (supervising director);
Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Les Clark (sequence directors)
Summary (in 150 words or less):
Upon the birth of Aurora to King Stefan and Queen Leah, the baby is set to be betrothed to Prince Philip, son of King Hubert. However, at a celebration in which people in the kingdom brings gifts to the newly-born child, evil sorceress Maleficent places a spell on Aurora, stating that by her sixteenth birthday she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die. Fortunately, three good witches -- Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather -- are able to change the curse slightly by having Aurora fall asleep (rather than die) and be given the opportunity to awaken by true love's kiss. Still, in order to try and protect Aurora, the three fairies take the princess into the woods and raise her as a "normal girl" in an attempt to hide her from Maleficent (and all spinning wheels). However, as her sixteenth birthday arrives, the forces of good and evil inevitably meet.
Let the Discussion Begin...
Sleeping Beauty is the Walt Disney Company's sixteenth full-length animated feature film and was released on January 29, 1959.
Sleeping Beauty was Disney's most expensive animated feature to date with production costs totaling $6 million, and while it brought in $7.7 million in its initial release, its disappointing returns (coupled with a disappointing 1959 film slate overall for the company) resulted in company-wide layoffs in 1960. [It should be noted, I've also seen $5.3 million as Sleeping Beauty's initial gross...I'm unsure of which is the true total.]
It didn't help that upon its release, the critics didn't rally behind the film, with many finding it slowly paced and its characters not fully realized -- two criticisms that I couldn't disagree with more.
Like Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty was released in a widescreen format, but Disney employed the super-wide Technirama format here which also provided the film the usage of fantastic stereophonic sound.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Motion Picture, but it did not win.
The Characters
(The Best...The Worst...The Villains...)
Although I certainly didn't calculate it myself, I've read that the title character in Sleeping Beauty is onscreen for less than twenty minutes. Despite the lack of screen time, the film is all about Princess Aurora. Rather surprisingly, however, Aurora is the least detailed -- both animated and story-wise -- of all the main characters presented in the film. Part of the reason for that, of course, is that she's got to fall asleep in order for the story to gain its momentum to its conclusion. Admittedly, however, as you will see in sections further down, she plays a huge role in my favorite scenes in the film. So, perhaps I'll just hold off speaking more about her until a bit later in the post.
Much of the film's humor and heart comes courtesy of the three fairies -- Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather -- who vow to protect young Aurora and see her through to her sixteenth birthday at which point the evil Maleficent's curse will become moot. With Flora acting as the bossy know-it-all, Fauna's sweetly dim-witted demeanor, and poor Merryweather the smart though often overruled one, their different personalities are a refreshing treat, bouncing off of each other with ease and naturalness.
Considering the lightness of the fairies, Maleficent stands in huge contrast to their kind and gentle nature. We're only sixteen movies into this Disney Discussion, but Maleficent will certainly find herself in the upper ranks of the "most evil" villains in the Disney pantheon. Consider these two facts:
- Maleficent curses Princess Aurora to death simply because she wasn't invited to the ceremony introducing the baby to the public. (Granted, I couldn't help but think there was some bigger "backstory" involving the evil witch's dealings with the King and the Queen of the kingdom that wasn't revealed.)
- When Maleficent catches Prince Philip, rather than kill him, she says he will keep him locked up for decades only to release him to lift the sleeping curse for Aurora. However, with him in his eighties or nineties, his love for Aurora will never be permitted to be fully realized.
Just plain nasty...and devilishly smart. Voiced by Eleanor Audley (who also voiced the evil stepmother in Cinderella and plays a prominent role in The Haunted Mansion attraction at Disney's theme parks), Maleficent is a return to the malevolence that we first saw from the Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The Music
Sleeping Beauty really only has one song in it despite what its soundtrack would have you believe. I'll hold off discussing that one song until the "My Favorite Scene" section, however, I will discuss briefly the decision to utilize the music of Tchaikovsky's ballet in both the score and the little snippets of songs -- typically only four to six lines -- sung by an omniscient choir. The use of classical music gives a rather rich depth to the score itself, however, with the exception of what I'll discuss below, music doesn't play a huge role in the film.
My Favorite Scene
Although the scene in which Maleficent hypnotizes a sixteen year-old Aurora to prick her hand on a spinning wheel (all done in a green-tinted eeriness) is incredibly successful in its tenseness, the best moment in Sleeping Beauty is Aurora's one big show-stopper -- the song "So This Is Love" set to a lovely Tchaikovsky waltz.
On the day of her sixteenth birthday, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather resolve to throw a birthday bash for the girl -- whom they've named Briar Rose in order to try and hide her better from Maleficent -- so they tell her to head to the woods for a bit. Upon arriving in the woods, the forest creatures hear of her longing for romance and conspire to do something to make her feel a bit better. Fortunately for the woodland animals, Prince Philip happens to be riding by on his trusty steed at the same time. After a little mishap lands Philip in a pond, Aurora's forest friends steal Philip's cape and hat and set off to dance with the lovely Aurora. While singing the lovely song about her desire to fall in love, Philip overhears Aurora, runs to her, and begins to dance with her, falling in love seemingly at first sight, with neither knowing that they were set to be betrothed to each other from their childhoods.
Not only is the song beautifully and simply written, the animation is witty (thanks to the animals) and charmingly romantic (thanks to the humans) at the same time, creating a lovely set piece that is truly memorable.
On the day of her sixteenth birthday, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather resolve to throw a birthday bash for the girl -- whom they've named Briar Rose in order to try and hide her better from Maleficent -- so they tell her to head to the woods for a bit. Upon arriving in the woods, the forest creatures hear of her longing for romance and conspire to do something to make her feel a bit better. Fortunately for the woodland animals, Prince Philip happens to be riding by on his trusty steed at the same time. After a little mishap lands Philip in a pond, Aurora's forest friends steal Philip's cape and hat and set off to dance with the lovely Aurora. While singing the lovely song about her desire to fall in love, Philip overhears Aurora, runs to her, and begins to dance with her, falling in love seemingly at first sight, with neither knowing that they were set to be betrothed to each other from their childhoods.
Not only is the song beautifully and simply written, the animation is witty (thanks to the animals) and charmingly romantic (thanks to the humans) at the same time, creating a lovely set piece that is truly memorable.
Random Thoughts
- This one opens with the classic Disney storybook being omnipotently opened again.
- The colors are just so vibrant right from the beginning.
- I love that the animation style is so different -- very angular and not necessarily fluid in crowd scenes -- as if we're watching a painting come to life.
- I didn't remember much of this movie, but what I did remember was Maleficent saying the word "hell" and me thinking that it was such a bad word as a little kid.
- This is by far the most epic battle scene with a villain we've seen thus far in the Disney Discussion.
Final Analysis
(Does It Belong in the Revered Disney Pantheon and How Does It Stack Up to Past Films?)
Sleeping Beauty was never prominent in my childhood. In fact, I'm not sure the VHS copy even had a place on a shelf in my home. Viewings of the film likely came from screenings at school which were certainly few and far between. Because of this, I was able to come to this film with a refreshingly blank slate...and I found the film to be a real treat.
The animation is gorgeous. Scenes -- particularly ones with large crowds or landscapes -- look as if they're out of a painting. Even the darker moments (look at the picture above with Maleficent as a dragon fighting Philip) are beautifully rendered. Admittedly, the characters beyond Maleficent and the fairies aren't given a whole lot of complexity in terms of their animation, but there's still a huge improvement here from the last princess tale of Cinderella.
The flick moves along at a rather brisk pace, however, there's still a bit too much borrowing from Snow White and Cinderella here for the film's own good. We're always going to have talking and/or helpful animals in our Disney princess flicks, but as the decades progressed, the storytellers got a tad more inventive. Similarly, there's no denying that the "sleeping princess awakened by a prince's kiss" storyline is something we've seen already.
However, despite the similarities to its predecessors, the film is just as successful as them and therein deserves its place in the revered Disney Pantheon of animated films.
The animation is gorgeous. Scenes -- particularly ones with large crowds or landscapes -- look as if they're out of a painting. Even the darker moments (look at the picture above with Maleficent as a dragon fighting Philip) are beautifully rendered. Admittedly, the characters beyond Maleficent and the fairies aren't given a whole lot of complexity in terms of their animation, but there's still a huge improvement here from the last princess tale of Cinderella.
The flick moves along at a rather brisk pace, however, there's still a bit too much borrowing from Snow White and Cinderella here for the film's own good. We're always going to have talking and/or helpful animals in our Disney princess flicks, but as the decades progressed, the storytellers got a tad more inventive. Similarly, there's no denying that the "sleeping princess awakened by a prince's kiss" storyline is something we've seen already.
However, despite the similarities to its predecessors, the film is just as successful as them and therein deserves its place in the revered Disney Pantheon of animated films.
The RyMickey Rating: B+
Join us next Wednesday for 101 Dalmatians, the seventeenth film in The Disney Discussion.
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