Pocahontas
Alice in Wonderland (and Saludos Amigos/ The Three Caballeros too!)The deflowering of the Americas by the Europeans is the central story of our millennium. The systematic loss of environmentalinnocence that defined the settling of these lands is still going on today, wherever developers can find an empty lot within commuting distance of a metropolis or think they can inexpensively harvest a natural resource. The animated Walt Disney film, Pocahontas , embodies this metaphor and is almost a masterpiece for having done so. The movie is so littered with phallic and vaginal imagery that Christian watchdog groups will be spending months decoding it for their boycotts. The most obvious and compelling symbol in this motif is a willow tree that talks--its gnarled, bark-lined, old woman's face being a nearly flagrant rendering of a clitoris, one that Pocahontas reveals to the historically-accurate-but-still-marvelously-generic-named John Smith as her deepest secret. The indigenous Americans had cities, civilizations, wars and polluted the land as best they could, but it took the Europeans to genuinely ravish and spoil the place on a continental scale; similarly, a woman is still a woman even if she has not lost her virginity (when you start analyzing the film closely, it is easy to look upon the canoe ride as a representation of menstruation), and therefore the genuinely convoluted meaning of a maidenhead's loss has the same, complex resonance as the claims indigenous Americans make upon our shared real estate and heritage. The film, however, fails to sell this idea completely and becomes, instead, 'The Incident at Jamestown Colony.'We feel part of the reason is that the artwork doesn't Hudson Valley things enough. The forests tend too much to be like the trees in Sleeping Beauty , and the rock algorithms look like theywere leftover from The Lion King . The artwork is a mix of styles that never completely gels, and it rarely seems daring or innovative. Additionally, the music never reaches an orgasm. More so than The Lion King , the film is in dire need of catchy, soul-lifting tunes, and the songs don't deliver. Then, too, there isn't quite enough humor--it is downplayed for the sake of the drama. Nevertheless, the film is a far more satisfying feature than, say, An American Tail , and is a worthwhile entry in the Disney canon, one that contains levels of meaning laying and waiting to be explored with multiple viewings. Walt Disney Home Video has released a standard Walt Disney Masterpiece Letterbox Laserdisc CLV presentation of Pocahontas (5741AS, 30) and a Walt Disney Masterpiece Deluxe CAV Letterbox Edition (6875CS, $100). The picture and sound transfers of the film are identical on both discs. The letterboxing has an aspect ratio of about 1.66:1 and is apparently the complete image, going past the upper and lower guidelines one sees on some of the drawings as the theatrical masking boundaries in the CAV supplement. The animation in some passages of the film seems a bit soft, as if it had undergone a few too many cost-saving short cuts, and so the picture is not consistently gripping from beginning to end. However, the colors look accurate and the presentation is very nice. The stereo surround sound is okay and there are some nice separation effects, but this isn't a science-fiction action film and there aren't many powerhouse audio moments. Even the storm sequence is relatively simple. The discs are also AC-3 encoded. The AC-3 tracks have a little more detail and a little more strength in comparison to the regular stereo tracks, but again it is not an elaborate production. The CAV presentation has commentary on the other analog track, but the CLV presentation has a monophonic Spanish soundtrack, where even the songs are dubbed. The film runs 81 minutes and is adequately closed captioned. Supplemental materials are closed captioned where possible. The chapter encoding and jacket guide are very good. The three-platter CAV set is accompanied by a thin but lovely picture book of artwork called The Art of Pocahontas and an Artist Portfolio print collection. The four step-by-step prints in the Portfolio , showing the creation of a frame, first by a sketch, then by a rough line drawing, then by a clean line drawing and finally by a completed colored-in image, are instructive and suitable for framing, but those of you with a sense of humor may just wish to turn the final painted image upside down, to see, as we stated above, what Pocahontas is really about. Be sure to cover it up when your Christian watchdog friends come to visit. The movie on the CAV disc is spread to three sides, with the fourth side, in CLV, containing a standard, half hour TV promo 'making of' documentary, hosted by the babe who served as the model and voice for Pocahontas, Irene Bedard; a brief overview of the film's music; two theatrical trailers, the first of which still gives us goose bumps and leaves us wondering where they went wrong; all one needs to know about the film's 'premiere' outdoors in Central Park in New York; a look at an elaborate promotional exhibition that toured shopping malls the summer the film was released; and our favorite part of the disc, a seamlessly edited rendition of the Colors of the Wind sequence, in which the lyrics are presented with the variously dubbed languages the film was released in around the world, not just German and French, but Turkish, Icelandic, BrazilianPortuguese and many more. It all seems to rhyme and scan. The singers are identified along with the languages, but, sadly, it is not captioned. Seven of the filmmakers contribute to the audio commentary, whichnot only plays over the running of the film but also the 50 minutes of side four. Here, the development of the music and the story are discussed in great detail, and the various narrative and artistic strategies the film underwent during its creation are explained. Having visited Jamestown and prowled around the Virginia countryside where the film is set, the animators were impressed with the tall trees and gave the film a 'vertical' motif, in everything from the background designs to the heroine's hairstyle. It is stated a couple times that Pocahontas is the first Disney effort to tackle historical figures, so we guess that Ben and Me has pretty much been disowned (and we suppose Da Fuhrer's Face doesn't count). The filmmakers speak about their gradual and painful realization that the film could not be played as a piece of comical fluff, with funny animals talking to Pocahontas (John Candy was even cast at one point to voice a turkey), and how the drama became so compelling that they even had to drop musical numbers from it. Sides five and six are presented in CAV, mixing still frame materials with developmental motion sequences and other appropriate footage to tell the complete story of the film's creation. Included are storyboards for major sequences, abandoned sequences (the narrative went through many changes--at one point the 'rescue' of Smith was to happen in the film's middle), character development and designs, deleted characters, background designs, 'prop' closeups and designs, a look at the portions of the film that were computer animated, several scenes that made it to the first previews in a work-in-progress format before being deleted (as one of the filmmakers points out, any time a scene was dropped, it was stored away for the laser disc--the CAV disc is clearly a keepsake the filmmakers have created for themselves as well as for fans, which is one more reason why laser discs are not going to be disappearing anytime soon), and advertising designs. These materials are exhaustive but highly rewarding and add greatly to a viewer's appreciation of the completed work and to the Disney animation process as a whole. Disney has released a number of CAV discs such as this now, but while they all seem to cover the same topics, each continues to be as fascinating and unique as the film it depicts. Pocahontas may not top anyone's list as a favorite, but the disc proves, if there was any real doubt, that it belongs in the group.
Found these at: www.dvdlaser.comWalt Disney Home Video has released two outstanding collector's editions of classic cartoon features, Disney's Exclusive Archive Collection -- The Three Caballeros -- Saludos Amigos -- CAV Edition (5716CS, $100) and Disney's Exclusive Archive Collection -- Alice in Wonderland -- CAV Edition (6139CS, $100), each containing more surprises in their supplementary sections than a piñata, and you don't need a bat to break each one open, just a C-note or thereabouts. It should be made clear that on both discs, the supplementary features are effectively designed to tell the story of each film's production in a rewarding and entertaining manner. Both discs were produced by Harry Arends and Phil Savenick. The picture and sound transfers on Three Caballeros and Alice in Wonderland are identical to the previous releases we reviewed in Jun 89 and Oct 92 respectively. The pressings, however, are so much better that they give the illusion the picture has been improved, with sharper and more solid colors and a cleaner image on both programs. Three Caballeros was released previously in CAV, but Alice appears in that format for the first time. The 42 minute Saludos Amigos , also presented in CAV, appears on disc for the first time. The picture on Alice is excellent, with vivid, fresh-looking colors, no hint of wear and a crisp focus. The monaural sound is fine. Three Caballeros , which was shot in an especially vivid Technicolor, has a slightly softer image, with colors that sometimes take on a little haze. There is also a bit more speckling here and there. Much of this, however, is more likely an effect of the 1944 film's complex production, which combined live action sequences with animated characters, than a flaw in the transfer, and the colors are so bright that the program looks terrific anyway. The monaural sound is also a bit scratchy in places and is best held to a sensible volume. The colors on Saludos Amigos look bright and crisp, with the animated sequences looking as fresh as if they had been shot yesterday and only the travelog documentary footage that bridge them betraying the 1943 film's true age. The monaural sound is okay. The image and sound quality on the supplementary materials is clearly in the best condition achievable. Trailers that have been included for Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos , incidentally, have an even stronger and more confident picture than the feature presentations. On Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos , the music and effects tracks have been isolated on both analog channels, while on Alice in Wonderland the music and effects appear on a single analog channel. The films are closed captioned with some paraphrasing on both discs and, when appropriate, the supplements have also been captioned. The chapter guides on both discs are superbly organized. The production essays, on the other hand, are a bit lightweight. With the wealth of the materials provided on the discs, straightforward, scholarly, bad-with-the-good essays about the films would have been helpful in giving the viewer a well-rounded understanding of the collections and their significance. In 1941, when Europe was too busy to watch movies, all of Hollywood turned to Latin American themes. The early Forties saw the rise of a number of Hispanic and Brazilian stars, as well as many musicals, thrillers and adventure stories that were set south and sometimes substantially south of the border, all in the hopes of generating more boxoffice from the Western Hemisphere to offset the closure of markets elsewhere (a trend that pretty much died when the War ended). As is detailed in the Three Caballeros -- Saludos Amigos disc, Walt Disney went on a 'working vacation' to South America in 1941 with a dozen or so of his animators, artists and producers. The trip was sponsored by the American government and was good publicity for existing Disney products, but it also reaped the benefits Disney had counted on, generating a number of film projects geared for the Western Hemisphere audience. It did him more good than that--his brother managed to settle some severe labor troubles while he was out of the country--and although there is no real mention of it in the disc, the positive responses he got from his own personal appearances probably encouraged him further in the selling of his own image along with his product, an idea that blossomed fully a decade later with the start of his TV programs. Both Saludos Amigos and Three Caballeros resulted directly from this trip (both films combine cartoon shorts with live footage of South American locales; Three Caballeros also combines animation and live action in the same footage), as did a half hour documentary, South of the Border with Disney , which is also included on the disc. Within the supplement, the itinerary of the trip is detailed on an almost daily basis, and the completed and abandoned projects inspired by the trip are itemized. Two short cartoons that were abandoned without being completed, A Brazilian Symphony: Caxanga (in which Donald Duck attempts to master a rhythm game) and The Laughing Gauchito (in which the young Gaucho character, also seen in Three Caballeros , discovers that his laugh can break glass), have been reconstructed to near-finished condition exclusively for the disc. Two others that were not quite so far along, Blame It on the Samba which was to feature Donald, Joe Carioca and Carmen Miranda, and The Hornero Bird , about a near-sighted bird and narrated by Sterling Holloway, have also been put together as closely to the original plans as possible. Nearly a hundred of the many sketches and paintings done by the artists while on the trip have been included, chosen to show the variety of styles and subject matter considered by the artists. Most have little direct relationship to the features, demonstrating instead the compelling views the artists had of the places they visited. Other errata collected on the disc include an Argentine newsreel about Disney's visit (presented in Spanish on one channel and English on another); Aurora Miranda's screen test for Three Caballeros ; behind-the-scenes footage of the 'Acapulco beach'--actually the Disney parking lot--where actresses run about pretending Donald Duck is dive bombing them; costume sketches; footage of dancers that was used as reference for staging the dances in the film; the animated background sequences for the finale of Three Caballeros , without the live action overlay; a Mickey Mouse Club excerpt featuring a visit by José Oliveira, who voiced the Joe Carioca character; and a nice collection of publicity materials for both cartoon features. If that were not enough, there is also a bevy of audio supplements, including more than an hour of promotional radio programs (usually featuring Disney and a couple of cartoon characters being interviewed by the program host, followed by a musical number or two from the film), the theme song to Three Caballeros sung in Spanish, and radio commercials. The disc contains three platters, with five sides in CAV and one side, which features the South of the Border documentary, the trailers and some of the less-critical live action clips, in CLV. Some of the supplementary material is featured on side three after Caballeros is ended, but we recommend that the viewer resist the temptation to step through it until after viewing Saludos Amigos and the CLV material, both of which are heavily referenced within the supplement. Just as the Three Caballeros -- Saludos Amigos disc charts Disney's tour of South America and his focus on the Latin market, so the Alice on Wonderland disc charts Disney's obsession with the Lewis Carroll classic. It is this disc especially that could have used a unifying essay, one that explored Disney's reverence for what is essentially a novel of jokes, puzzles and dream-like displacements (all captured nominally, at best, within the film) withmany characters but very little character development, and why the film failed at the boxoffice. Nevertheless, what the disc does contain is fascinating. The disc runs to six sides. The first four are in CAV, three containing the feature and one containing the supplement, and the final two are in CLV. Again we recommend viewing the CLV sides before stepping through the CAV supplement. Side five is particularly exciting, for it contains the very first Walt Disney television program, One Hour in Wonderland , broadcast on ABC on Christmas in 1950. The entire show, Coca-Cola commercials and all, is presented, featuring Disney, Edgar Bergen and his puppets, Kathryn Beaumont (the voice of Alice), and a collection of Disney family members and employees, including Bobby Driscoll. One need not have any coordinating reference to see the exquisite humor contained in a shot of Mortimer Snerd--one of Bergen's dummies--talking earnestly to a stuffed Goofy doll. The show is a delightful piece of nostalgia, depicting the search for a promotional formula that can clearly be seen as having split off both into Disney's prime time TV show and the Mickey Mouse Club . Also featured in the TV program are lengthy clips from Alice , Snow White , Song of the South and two cartoons (one, Clock Cleaners , has appeared on disc before, but the other, Bone Trouble , with Pluto, is new to disc and contains an extremely inventive hall-of-mirrors sequence). For all of the show's cartoon sequences, color footage has been substituted for the original black-and-white. Side six contains two other TV promotional broadcasts. One, from the Ford Star Revue in June 1951, is a 'making of' segment, hosted by James Melton, that shows the various steps in the development of Alice and includes preliminary animation and live action reference sequences. Here, even the clips from the completed cartoon are left in black-and-white. The other, from the Fred Waring Show in March 1951, is a re-enactment of the cartoon story, with human performers and featuring Beaumont and Sterling Holloway, primarily showcasing the film's songs. The CAV supplement opens with a brief history of Carroll's novel and a look at some of the book's original illustrations. That is followed by the most appropriate of Disney's silent Alice cartoon & live action featurettes, a 1923 effort entitled Alice's Wonderland , and a 1936 Mickey Mouse cartoon that also drew from the story for inspiration, Thru the Mirror . Following that is a fascinating collection of storyboards and a script outline, produced in 1939, for an abandoned animated version of the tale, with extremely sophisticated artwork and a much darker--even horrific--tone. There are also storyboards for a 1943 effort, also abandoned, that was closer in organization to the version finally produced. Details of an alternate opening sequence to the completed movie, background designs and character designs are presented (though often without comment--the Mad Hatter suddenly changes from his earlier designs to looking very much like Ed Wynn), along with more of the live-action reference films (which the animators used to guide their drawings), profiles of the voice cast, excerpts from Disney's introduction of the film during TV broadcasts in 1954 and 1964, publicity materials and trailers from the original release and the 1974 re-release, the latter, of course, conforming to the standard sales pitch but slipping in the one-pill-makes-you-larger references as well, to be sure the film attracted its widest potential audience for that era. The two CLV sides also contain about three and a half hours of audio material on the two analog audio tracks. One inclusion is an hour-long dramatization, broadcast on the BBC in 1951 with Beaumont and Disney. The format is fairly interesting, as it is 'Lewis Carroll' who not only narrates the story, but carries on a conversation with Disney about how much he admires the animated production. Also of interest--one of the performers blows a line in the middle of The Unbirthday Song and it takes a couple of seconds and another mistake or two before they get back on track. Another 1951 promotional show made for the BBC is also featured, which contains introductions to the songs but not the songs themselves. Songs from the film and songs that didn't make it into the film are also presented in extensive test recordings, many performed by the songwriters. Highlights include a musical number for The Lion and the Unicorn , the Mock Turtle soup lamentation (though it is not a lament the way they sing it), another version of the Mock Turtle's tale--somewhat more amusing--set to Blue Danube , a catchy rendition of the Lobster Quadrille entitled Will You Join the Dance , and Speak Roughly to Your Little Boy . What much of this shows is the searching through of both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass that Disney's team did to find the most potent passages and best mix for translation to film. The listener can judge whether or not they succeeded or if, indeed, they ever came close. The film is charming and the disc is terrific, but it is clear from the materials presented that a lot of compromising went on to make Disney's dream a reality.
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"Pato Donald! Como vai você? Como vai essa força? Como tem andado? A quanto tempo que não o vejo! Or, as you American say: What's cooking?"
-José Carioca, "The Three Caballeros"
i guess we'll find out rite
