Part 1
Re-examining Disney
Chapter 1
Disney Authorship
Introduction
The Sorcererâs Apprentice is one of Disneyâs most iconic animated sequences. It tells the story of an impetuous apprentice â Mickey Mouse â who seeks to use his masterâs magic to make his domestic work easier. After seeing the sorcerer leave for bed, Mickey dons his masterâs hat, interpreting it as the source of his powers, and proceeds to bring a wooden broom to life. Having done so, Mickey then instructs the broom to fill the basementâs basin with water from an outside fountain; witnessing the broomâs mastery of this task allows Mickey to relax, which quickly sees him fall asleep. However, while he rests, the broom continues to fill the indoor basin until it begins to overflow. Panicking, Mickey tries, ineffectively, to stop the broom, eventually attacking it with an axe. Unfortunately, the broken splinters become new brooms that, in turn, form a water-carrying army which relentlessly fills the basement with water. As Mickey floats upon the Sorcererâs spell book, frantically searching for an incantation to stop the brooms, his predicament becomes increasingly perilous as a whirlpool begins to pull him beneath the surface. At this moment the Sorcerer appears at the basement entrance. Gesturing, he parts the water and descends. With the water receding, Mickey bashfully returns the magic hat to his master and continues with the housework by hand.
Most viewers would probably identify Mickey Mouse as the sole perpetrator of this chaos. Such a response, however, reveals the difficulty of studying authorship. Romantic notions of authorship, such as William Wordsworthâs definition of poetic authorship as a âspontaneous overflow of powerful feelingsâ (1984, 598) recollected in tranquillity, no longer offer a satisfactory account of the authorial process. Roland Barthesâ essay, âThe Death of the Authorâ, provides perhaps the most famous counterpoint, arguing that a âtext is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of cultureâ (1995, 128). Although Mickey may be the most visible authorial force in the aforementioned sequence, this belies the numerous converging factors that both support and are shaped by his vision â most notably the broom, the hat and the Sorcerer.
Disneyâs role in the âauthorshipâ of his animated features is no less complex. As Sean Griffin notes, âWalt Disney so successfully performed authorship of his studioâs output during his lifetime that many customers thought Walt drew all the cartoons himselfâ (2000, 141). Worryingly, this oversimplified appreciation of Disney authorship can still be seen today, perpetuated, as noted in the Introduction, through internet forum posts and similarly critically unregulated spaces. If we return once more to The Sorcererâs Apprentice, it is possible to view the short allegorically, representing specific tenets of Disney authorship: Mickey reflects Disneyâs desire to innovate, to find new ways of producing animation; the broom, a paragon of hard work, which, in its fractured state, becomes an efficient work force, symbolizes the hierarchical evolution that occurred at the Studio as Disney pursued an industrialized model of cartoon production; the hat, emblematic of the Sorcererâs magic, functions much in the same manner as Disneyâs name, serving to prime audience expectation; and lastly, the Sorcerer, a figure of power, mirrors Disneyâs omniscience during his Studioâs âGolden Ageâ. Given this complexity, it will be useful, in this opening chapter, to detail how âDisneyâsâ authorship evolved during his stewardship, and to explore the possibility that other figures within the Studio might hold competing claims to authorship of âDisneyâsâ animated features.
Authorial Evolution
Clearly, Disney constitutes a rather unconventional authorial figure. The collaborative nature of film, which in recent years has come to represent the biggest challenge to the auteur concept, is even more pronounced when discussing feature animation. In addition to the compartmentalized nature of animation production, in which hierarchically and topographically separate artists work towards a unifying goal, the Studio, by 1935, âhad more than 250 employeesâ (Barrier 2008, 110). However, this vision of Disney production, which problematizes a simple attribution of authorship, is reconciled by Disney himself: âI think of myself as a little bee. I go from one area of the Studio to another, and gather pollen and sort of stimulate everybody . . . thatâs the job I doâ (Schickel 1997, 33).
Central to this âbeeâ analogy is Disneyâs disengagement from the actual physical act of animation, which had been a facet of Disney production since the late 1920s. Disney has himself remarked on this transition:
This was how Disney functioned for the majority of his stewardship, operating as, to borrow Paul Wellsâs definition, an extra-textual auteur; while Disney did not draw the key frames and in-betweens, or even ink the image, he was the âperson who prompt[ed] and execut[ed] the core themes, techniques and expressive agendas of a filmâ (2002b, 79). The production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) provides a good example of this type of authorship in action.
Michael Barrier observes that although âDisney had started the year planning to direct Snow White himself . . . he was by the fall of 1936 delegating to [David] Hand a supervisory role over the whole of Snow Whiteâ (1999, 212â13). Given that much was resting on Snow Whiteâs ability to return a profit, the election of Hand to effectively direct the project was a calculated decision. Hand âapproached the directorâs job in the spirit of a business executive, farming out detail work . . . to subordinates and concentrating instead on broader issues, which at the Disney studio entailed primarily an intensive reading of Walt Disney himselfâ (Barrier 1999, 134). Barrier uses âreadingâ as a way of alluding to Handâs need, and ability, to gauge how best to please Disney. However, Handâs proclivity towards a broader level of control over Snow White, and his reluctance to involve himself in the daily artisanal tasks of the project, resulted in certain aspects of the film becoming fragmented.
One such issue revolved around how the dwarfs were to be realized. While it had been common practice in the years leading up to Snow White for animators to be assigned a particular character to animate (for example Art Babbittâs animation of Goofy), this appropriation of resources was impractical given the scale of Snow White and the numerous overlapping characters. Hand once remarked, with reference to the dwarfs, âThere were so many of the damn little guys running around, and you couldnât always cut from one to the other . . . We had to cut to groups of three and four, so it became a terrific problem of stagingâ (Barrier 1999, 244). Early in 1936 Hand came up with an alternative to the one-animator-to-one-character model, breaking the animation down, more or less, by sequence. To combat the lack of continuity inherent in this procedure, Hand called for âeach dwarf [to have] obvious mannerisms, so that they would be recognisable even in the least accomplished animationâ (Barrier 1999, 214). Babbitt, however, argued against such superficial mannerisms as a way to define character, calling for animators to adopt a Stanislavskian mindset: âYou have to go deeper . . . You have to go inside â how he [the character] feelsâ (Barrier 1999, 214). Ultimately, the solution to this conflict came via live action. By filming actors (and Studio staff) to form unique character âmapsâ for each dwarf, when individual animators were called to animate a particular dwarf, they had a quick reference point, which could refresh the specific mechanics of that character.
While this situation was effectively resolved by a handful of the Studioâs more senior personnel without Disneyâs direct intervention, this belies the authorial influence he did exert. This can be seen, first and foremost, in the fact that continuity of appearance was such an important issue. Disneyâs insistence on carefully planned scenarios and industrially executed animation constitute key predicates on which Snow White was made, and an absolute insistence on continuity is one of the most visible ways in which Disneyâs animation differs from earlier examples of âstraight aheadâ animation (see Chapter 2). Secondly, and perhaps most significantly, the key animatorsâ awareness of Disneyâs instance on believability would have guided them, as Babbitt remarked, to get âinsideâ the dwarfsâ minds. This insistence on âverisimilitude in . . . characters, contexts and narrativesâ (Wells 1998, 23) during the production of Snow White effectively established the blueprint for what would become the Disney-Formalist style (see Chapter 3) âa style that dominated the Studio for several years.
Given that Disneyâs name now connotes and promotes much more than just squash-and-stretch animation, Wells has also argued that the âDisneyâ name be redefined âas a metonym for an authorially complex, hierarchical industrial process, which organises and executes selective practices within the vocabularies of animated filmâ (2002c, 140). This appropriation of âDisneyâ is a particularly appealing one considering the persistence and mutability of Disneyâs authorship, beginning in the 1920s, running throughout the âGolden Ageâ, and continuing after his death in 1966. Furthermore, âDisneyâ has become a signifier for a particular way of reading âa film, or series of films, with coherence and consistency, over-riding all the creative diversity, production processes, socio-cultural influences and historical conditions et cetera which may challenge this perspectiveâ (Wells 2002b, 76). In this sense, Disney serves as a trigger, priming the audience to expect a specific style of animation, be it produced during the âGolden Ageâ or more recently, during the Studioâs Renaissance period (see Chapter 6).
This interrogation of the complexities of Disney authorship, and the industrial processes that support it, provides a welcome alternative to Marc Eliotâs troubling and controversial account of Disney authorship. At his most progressive, Eliot proposes a romanticized notion of Disney authorship, positioning Disney at the centre of all filmic meaning â a version of authorship far removed from that of the cross-pollinating bee, whose main responsibility is to unite the creative individuals who are physically responsible for the finished animation. Taking The Three Caballeros (1944) as an example, Eliot sees the filmâs colourful aesthetic and amorous Donald Duck (Figure 1.1), as âthe most vivid representation yet of Disneyâs raging unconsciousâ (2003, 180). Most alarming, however, is how Eliotâs account ignores the social context in which the film was produced â a factor which would have had a definite influence on the filmâs animators.
FIGURE 1.1 An amorous Donald Duck.
Ultimately, Eliot sees The Three Caballeros as a direct reflection of Disneyâs own personal feelings and mental state, pointing to how, during the production of The Three Caballeros, â[John Edgar] Hoover was feeding Walt a continuous stream of information regarding the possibility of his Spanish heritageâ (2003, 180). Eliot argues that at the âsame time the true facts of his birth were being investigated, Disney âgave birthâ to Donald Duck, in many ways Waltâs âsecond-bornâ and Mickey Mouseâs antithetical âsiblingâ â (2003, 180, emphasis added). Eliot even goes so far as to interpret the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck characters in a psychoanalytical context:
Eliot concludes that Disneyâs decision to âretireâ Mickey Mouse for The Three Caballeros had less to do with market demand, and more to do with Disneyâs personal emotions: âMickeyâs absence may have signalled the breakdown of Waltâs fragile emotional balance, projected in the emergence of an unleashed Donald, the sexually provocative, libidinous duck, who thumped with desire for all make and manner of unattainable Spanish womenâ (2003, 182).
By contrast, Esther Leslie comments, with reference to the production of The Three Caballeros: âThe loss of [stylistic] unity is symptomatic; that is to say, it is true to the epoch. The film reflects the deep bewilderment of the time, a time of war. Disney comes yet again to be a symptom of the crisis of culture, and the crisis of the social world, yet this time negatively, without hope. Disney is absorbent of the prevailing energiesâ (2004, 291). While the precise sociohistorical conditions highlighted by Leslie would undoubtedly have coloured the animatorâs artistic choices at this time, other, more pragmatic, influences would also have had an impact on the collaborative process required to produce such a film.
Given the obvious attraction, yet inaccuracy, of such accounts of Disney authorship, Wellsâs redefinition of Disney as metonym provides an essential, industry-centred paradigm through which to interpret Disney authorship. While Wells observes that Disney is âan auteur by virtue of fundamentally denying inscription to anyone else, and creating an identity and a mode of representation which, despite cultural criticism, market variations, and changing social trends, transcends the vicissitudes of contemporary Americaâ (2002b, 90), he does not seek to recover the authorial claims of those subsumed by the Disney name. Instead, his multi-purpose redefinition serves to âprioritise an address of the aesthetic agendas of the Disney canon in preference to ideological debatesâ (Wells 2002b, 85).
However, Disneyâs investment in the authorial process changed throughout his life, ranging from his well-documented omnipotence during the Studioâs âGolden Ageâ, to a more reticent involvement through the late 1950s and up until his death in 1966. His authorial commitment during the earlier period is particularly evident in a series of memos sent in June 1935. As Barrier notes, Disney sent these âmemoranda to thirteen of his animators, criticizing their work individuallyâ (2008, 112). One animator, Bob Wickersham, received the following comments:
Such micromanagement, representative of Disneyâs own bee analogy, contrasts starkly with his involvement in the Studioâs animation from the mid-1950s onwards. In the years following World War II, âDisneyâs interest in animation waned as he increasingly turned his attention to live-action movies, nature documentaries, television, and the planning of his innovative amusement parkâ (Watts 1995, 95). Moreover, Barrier observes:
This disengagement had a profound effect on Disneyâs attitude towards his Studioâs short animation. No longer was he concerned, above all else, with the quality of his art; now his priority was quantity. Confronted with the realities of television scheduling, Disney drew a startling analogy: âOnce you are in television, itâ...