There's a charm to early Disney shorts; I've been rewatching them lately. Something about
the playfulness of their movements is calming. Lately I've been feeling that sense of longing
every adult gets when watching things made for children - where you're either revisiting old
childhood favorites or seeking out new ones. Ones that you missed from your childhood,
the first time around. Like this one: an adaptation of the story of The Pied Piper of
Hamelin. I never saw this Disney adaptation as a kid. It's a lesser entering the Silly Symphonies,
but I found it interesting. Particularly the ending; where in this version - after getting
rid of the rats with his piping and getting shirked out of payment by the townsfolk after
doing so - the piper takes the children of Hamelin, not to punish the townsfolk,
but to save the children from having such greedy and ungrateful parents.
"You're dishonest and ungrateful! And it really is a shame that the children of this city should
grow up to be the same!"
The short ends on a song about living in the Piper's new land of eternal childhood.
To quote a contemporary critic: "The epos of Disney is 'Paradise Regained'.
Precisely Paradise. Unreachable on Earth. Created only by a drawing.
It is not the absurdity of childish conceptions of an eccentric clashing with adult reality. The humor of
the incompatibility of one with the other and the sadness of man's forever-lost childhood,
and mankind's Golden Age, lost irretrievably to those who want to bring it back from the past, instead
of creating it in a better Socialist future. Disney (and it is no accident that his films are drawn) is
a complete return to a world of complete freedom - not accidentally fictitious!
This observation came from a rather successful director-slash-academic named Sergei Eisenstein. Maybe you've heard of him.
It may seem odd to think that the artist who codified the founding cinematic mythology of the young Soviet Union
would speak so fondly and admirably of the baron of an All-American Empire of monetized escapism,
yet strangely enough, Sergei Mikhaylovich Eisenstein was quite the fan of Walter Elias Disney.
Such a fan that he intended his eventual book on Disney to begin with,
"The work of this master is the greatest contribution of the American people to art."
Eisenstein toured Hollywood in 1930 while negotiating a film deal with Paramount Pictures.
"The deal fell through, even though he got a few incredible photos out of it.
so one of the pictures that he took was this one which I found on a google image search and I need the world
to see it as well because I want to make sure that I didn't hallucinate the picture of
Sergei Eisenstein, father of film theory, with this... interesting cactus
um..............yes
Though all of Eisenstein's projects in the West would fall through in 1932 when Joseph Stalin ordered him
back to the USSR; out of fear that his activities abroad would lead to his defection.
Eisenstein's late works continued to reflect the story of the Soviet Union and its consolidation of
power under Stalin - through grand historical epics about titans of Russian history: Alexander Nevsky
and Ivan the Terrible. But during this productive time, he still wrote enthusiastically about Disney,
preparing notes for an eventual book on his works - to be included in a series of writings
about other American directors like Chaplin and Griffith. He died in 1948, having never completed
his books or many other projects, but his notes survived; to be posthumously translated and later
published. This is my copy, available through Seagull Books, and it's a fascinating take on a key figure
in American pop culture from the perspective of someone outside of the American capitalist system
that let him flourish. Now Eisenstein writing has proven to be foundational to the discourse
around the philosophy of filmmaking, and if you've taken any course on film it's likely that you've
been assigned some of his text to study. So maybe you know that his writing, um... well
Eisenstein writes in the same way that he edits: furiously and with a hundred random tangents, demonstrating through example
and cross-reference the meaning he wants to convey.
There's a heavily overanalyzed part in "October: Ten Days that Shook the World" where an intertitle reads: "For God and Country!"
And then Eisenstein shows a montage of religious icons from faiths around the world, then closeups of state uniforms
using juxtaposed imagery to break down the hollow philosophical concepts submerged within the words:
"God and Country". In his unfinished essay, Eisenstein's observations are just as varied and far-reaching.
He points out Disney characters' ability to stretch and squash, and makes connections to the first
chapter of "Alice in Wonderland," the illustrations of Walter Trier, the comics of Wilhelm Busch and
even Japanese satirical ukiyo-e woodcuts by Toyohiro, Bokusen, and Hokusai. Eisenstein also
goes on tangents about animism and totemism; and the religious properties found in humanizing the
nonhuman and the inanimate. How Disney's animals are often, metaphorically, human. And sometimes, even
other animals Eisenstein wrote a lot about this short: "Merbabies." Where through animation, animals
on an ocean bed become the animals of the circus. And most interestingly, Eisenstein planned a lot on
Disney's relationship to cultural worship of fire. Or something. The book includes notes he wrote to
himself to do more research on fire cults. "Study more Hegel, more Heraclitus." He writes about Agni
the Hindu god of fire, and goes on a long tangent about Maxim Gorky's "Other Fires." Again, this essay
was never finished, so some of these thoughts were never fully fleshed, out but Eisenstein sought
to link the appeal of the animated character to that of fire. "Like an embodiment of the principle
of eternal coming into being, the eternally life-producing womb and omnipotence. In this sense, it also
resembles the potentiality of the primal plasma, from which everything can arise." In other words,
animation - like the shape of a flame - is infinitely mutable. The possibilities of movement for a drawn
image are limitless, allowing for control over the frame unthinkable in traditional filmmaking.
Eisenstein calls this feature "plasmasticity' - the ability for the animated drawing to assume
any shape that can be rendered by human hands. And it's tempting, though a bit of a stretch, to
speculate how much Disney influenced Eisenstein. I mean, sure, if you look at Eisenstein's later
works, they're aesthetically designed more on the subtle movements of the actors, rather than the
principle of montage that he made famous. The kind of gesture that could be carefully acted.
Or drawn. Like, take this ambitious shot in Ivan The Terrible. Eisenstein clearly wants Ivan's head
to cast this huge, imposing shadow. But it appears that what's actually casting the shadow was some
sort of puppet? It's not directly connected to the movements of the actor. One wonders if this
scene might be easier to animate than shoot. It's a shame Eisenstein never got the chance to really
experiment with animation. Clearly, it fascinated him. But again, this writing never made it past the
draft stage. Never peer-reviewed or published. And reading it, the arguments he makes seem a little
bit broad? Like, broad enough to be applicable to all of animation? After all, Disney wasn't
the only cartoon game in town. Not the only one to be using anthropomorphized animals as characters
and storytelling devices. Not the only one who used the principles of squashing and stretching. Though
Disney's colleagues certainly helped popularize them. I say "Disney's colleagues" because Disney
himself was a rather poor animator. Mickey Mouse's look and movements owe more to the talents of
Ub Iwerks than Disney. Though it's Disney's name on the company. It seems like Eisenstein was using
the same reductionism that all critical writing about Disney has to do. Use the part as a way to
talk about the whole. Conflate Disney the Man with Disney the Company. Reducing the creative endeavors
of an entire team to be considered critically as the work of Disney. (which I'm sure Walt would have
been fine with) The works of countless artists have already been folded under the mega-huge
name of Disney, and will continue to for a long time. But there's one observation that Eisenstein
makes which applies to Disney and Disney alone, and it's this. Eisenstein half remembers a fable
about an Arab man thrown from a camel over a cliff. The man catches a branch before falling and then
see some ripe berries which he reaches for. Then he alludes to an even vaguer story about angels
who travel to hell to allow a drop of water to touch the lips of sinners in torment. The
third can actually be cited: the scene from Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame where Esmerelda
approaches Quasimodo, in the middle of being tortured by a crowd, and gives him water. Eisenstein
recalled these scenes while watching Snow White. Writing, "because Disney's works themselves strike
me as the same drop of comfort, an instant of relief, a fleeting touch of lips in the hail of
social burdens, injustices, and torments, in which the circle of his American viewers is forever
trapped. Beyond the framework of the poem, the Arab ,of course, will fall into the precipice or will be
trampled to death by the camel. The sinners will go on suffering in the cauldrons of boiling pitch.
The angel's caress, the two or three refreshing berries, Esmerelda's cup and goat, will in no way
change their fate. But for an instant, for a fraction of a second, they give them the most
precious thing in their situation: obliviousness. And Disney, like all of them, through the magic of
his works, and more intensely perhaps than anyone else, bestows precisely this upon his viewer,
precisely obliviousness, an instant of complete and total release from everything connected with the
suffering caused by the social conditions of the social order of the largest capitalist government.
In short: for Eisenstein, Disney's cartoons give people a brief respite from capitalist society.
This observation is interesting for three reasons. One because, his allusion to Victor Hugo is kind
of funny to consider having grown up after Disney themselves used Hugo to make more Disney product. -
Two: because director Preston Sturges came to basically the same conclusion in "Sullivan's Travels". Where a
hotshot screenwriter looking to make a high-minded drama loses everything and lands in prison, where
he's brought to jubilant tears by the simple joy of watching a cartoon starring Pluto.
"Hey, am I laughing?"
And three, it's an interesting observation because, um Sergei? Sergei? Serge? You know this is Walt [--] Disney
we're talking about right? Did Eisenstein know, as he was writing in the early 40's, the extent
to which Disney would refuse to listen to his worker's demands? How he paternalistically told
his workhorse and a huge assembly "to put your own house in order?" Did Eisenstein who began
his sterling career by glorifying the right to strike, know how far Disney would go to harass,
intimidate, and silence those animators who dared to demand better working conditions? "I, I, don't
believe it's a political party, I believe it's an Un-American thing!" Could Eisenstein have known
that Disney would name multiple strike leaders as communist sympathizers before the
House Unamerican Activities Committee? Effectively ending careers and frightening existing employees into
silence? Preventing them from ever organizing in their own interests? "And I feel it that, they
really ought to be smoked out and shown up for what they are, so that all the good, free
causes in this country, all the liberalisms that really are American can go out without the stain of
communism! That's my sincere feelings on it". But, reading this book knowing what Disney the Man
and Disney the Company would become, it raises a disturbing question: was Sergei Eisenstein full
of [ __ ]? Like, I'm the last person to question someone else's praxis, but how can you praise
an artist for getting respite from capitalist society, when that same artist invested so much
effort into maintaining that same capitalist society? And what would he have made of Disney's
current cultural and economic monopoly? A monopoly which really does have negative effects on public
accessibility do classic artwork! Ask the many repertory theaters which are increasingly having
trouble showing classic films because Disney now owns the rights the entire library of 20th Century
Fox. A library which, with few exceptions, is made of titles that don't fit into the Disney "brand". A
brand that not only requires an industrial model that habitually underpays the labor needed to
stay massively profitable, but also makes product designed to upset no one. Provoke no one. Do no more
than remind you of a more innocent time. With over a third of the market share, Disney's epos
is all encompassing. We are getting nothing but "relief from capitalism". Relief, not in the form
of a material good, but in a feeling. A feeling that anything is possible, and your dreams can come true.
A land of eternal childhood. So I didn't watch this version as a kid. This is the version I watched as
a kid. It was made by Cosgrove Hall Films for ITV in 1981. This version focuses on the sorrow of
the town of Hamelin, and the tragedy of the one boy on crutches who couldn't make it into the Piper's
promised land before being closed off forever. "Did I say all? No. One was lame, and could not dance the
whole of the way. And in after years if you would blame his sadness, he was used to say "It's dull in
our town since my playmates left. They can't forget that I'm bereft of all the pleasant sights they
see - which the Piper also promised me. For he lead us, he said, to a joyous land, joining the town and just at
hand where waters gushed and fruit trees grew, and flowers put forth a fairer hue, and everything was
strange and new!" It's based on the poem by Robert Browning: an achingly tragic telling of the story.
One that's far from the Disney "brand". Cosgrove Hall films closed in 2009. Unrelated. I grew up on Disney.
I don't know anyone who didn't, in some way. Whether it be through the many theatrical releases, Disney
home video, Disney Channel, trips to Disney World. Even those things that Disney later acquired: I grew
up on Star Wars, on The Muppets. Innocent things. Or rather, things that remind me of my own innocence,
of my own childhood. Of so many childhoods. And I have to ask myself, "did any it make my life
better? Or did it only make it bearable?" Maybe that's enough? Maybe 'bearable' is enough? "The
triumphant proletariat of a future America will erect no monument to Disney as a fighter, either in
their hearts or on street squares. Memory will not crown his brow with the glory of a fabulist or a
lampoonist, but everyone will recall him with warm gratitude for those instants of respite
amid the torrential, desperate struggle for life in existence which he gave to the viewer in the troubled
years of the social paradise of Democratic America. Well, the proletariat certainly didn't; Disney
erected his own statue. But even after nearly a century, Disney's reason for existing has remained
consistent. Even as it contributes to a social order of exploitation and greed and disdain
for anyone seeking a better life, it provides momentary relief from that same terrible life.
It wipes your brow after turning the rack. Both the mob that torments Quasimodo, and Esmerelda
who comforts him. The wish made upon the star and the terrible desperation that necessitates
the wishing. That's life in the Land of Eternal Childhood. So now that I've said that, what do I do?