The SmarK DVD Rant for Bambi: Platinum Edition
Oddly enough, I had never seen this movie before now. It might sound strange since most of the movie is firmly rooted in the consciousness of every fan of animation, but because I lived in an isolated area growing up and didn’t much care for cartoons about talking deer, I just never sat down and watched Bambi until now.
More’s the pity, I guess.
The Film
Released in 1942 as an odd counterpoint to the horrors of World War II, Bambi is a movie that acts more as a pure celebration of animation and visual playfulness than any kind of great storytelling epic. In fact, as emphasized by the extras on the DVD, the total amount of dialogue is less than 1000 words total, much of it by Thumper. In fact, much of the movie, using stuff that is commonplace today via computer animation, was an incredible technical marvel at the time, and a breakthrough of artistic vision as well. Up until that point, animals were done as cartoonish figures with little definition or care paid to anatomy. Just look at the deer in Snow White, for example, made only shortly before Bambi. This movie marked a huge departure from that philosophy, as Walt Disney wanted “the spirit of reality, interpreted in fantasy”, according to one of the animators. And that’s certainly what you get. Deer and rabbits look like real deer and rabbits, painstakingly rendered down to the shape of their bones, and then slightly caricatured for ease of animation. There is little doubt what animal is being viewed at any given time, and that alone justifies the influential status that the movie has, I think.
However, if that’s a bit flimsy for you, then all it takes is one look at the opening sequence of the movie to really seal the argument. Filmed using the revolutionary (for 1942) “multi-plane” camera technique, it was some truly balls-to-the-wall stuff for the time. Eschewing the traditional flat backgrounds and unchanging perspectives of previous works, the multi-plane camera allowed animators to film a series of glass plates, each one showing one level deeper into the background, and moving them independently of each other. The resulting effect was, and still is, pretty startling stuff, considering that it was done 50 years before computer animation was even thought of as a serious basis for a movie. It’s truly almost like watching a 3D movie, although it’s only good for establishing shots and not for any kind of prolonged animation with moving characters. And in fact, DVD’s clarity almost shows too MUCH detail, as the painted plates become too prominent as plates instead of blending into the background as they’re supposed to do.
So onto the movie itself.
Basically putting out the same story as the Lion King would happily rip off years later (in fact, Lion King was originally pitched as “Bambi in Africa”), Bambi is your basic archetypal Disney “circle of life” movie. But the difference is, this one did it FIRST. Based on an unlikely best-selling novel by a bored Austrian pencil-pusher, it was originally scheduled to be developed into a live-action animal movie (!?) before MGM smartly optioned it to Walt Disney.
Beginning with the birth of “little prince” Bambi, who is apparently the offspring of a very manly buck, we immediately see Daddy the Great Prince running away from his responsibilities while mom and a bunch of rabbits get to raise baby. Sorry, getting a little Freudian there, back to the review. Anyway, although the world is inhabited by realistic animals, they can talk and many have personalities, specifically Bambi, a verbose rabbit named Thumper, and a bashful skunk named Flower. While the world within the movie moves at a very fast pace (We progress throughout years of Bambi’s life in 70 minutes, as he learns to talk, grows up, fights, etc), the movie itself moves at a very slow pace, essentially serving up several 10 minute episodes in the life of the forest. It allows for lots of beautiful, lingering shots of the animators’ imaginative view of the woods, and it’s the kind of unhurried storytelling you just don’t see anymore. Not that it’s either good or bad in that regard, it just is.
We see a thunderstorm translated into a literal symphony, in a moment right out of Fantasia, and acts as a celebration of color animation as Bambi moves into winter (and Disney shows off state-of-the-art snow animation, of course!) giving us the famous ice-skating scene with Thumper. And it’s here that we meet the only real villain of the movie — Man. Except that we never actually see any men, they’re just portrayed by an evil chord progression on the soundtrack and various gunshot effects in the distance. It’s an interesting and powerful choice that Disney made here, making the unseen hunters seem all the more threatening because it’s entirely left to the imagination.
The big moment in the movie, and the end of the portion that everyone remembers as “Bambi”, is of course when those unseen hunters shoot and kill his mother, off-screen. This allows us to meet adult Bambi, raised to manhood by his absent father and with mighty antlers growing, as well as adult versions of Thumper and Flower. What happened to Bambi in between that scene transition is actually the subject of a sequel, heavily promoted on this DVD, which actually looks like a decent movie instead of the usual made-for-video crap that Disney pumps out now. We also get a series of Meet Cutes, as each of the males is hypnotized into “twitterpation” by members of the opposite sex, moments after a dire warning by the crusty old Owl about exactly that sort of thing happening.
This moves us into the final act of the movie, as things get bad and the animators of course gleefully shift the pallette into greys and blacks, with hunters encroaching on the forest, and Bambi has to step up and defend his woman. The hunters of course cause their own downfall, as a campfire turns into a forest fire, and the animals survive the rebirth of their home while the hunters, it is implied, are not so lucky. In fact, sketches were even done of a hunter’s burned body in shadow, but that was decided to be a bit too intense for family viewing. And of course, the visuals of the forest fire tear the house down, with stunning reds everywhere and a very cool shimmering glass effect over the forest to end things. And as the forest rebuilds after the disaster, so do the animals therein, and a new offspring of Bambi is born to start the cycle again.
In short, it’s not as fast-paced as most animated fare is today, but each scene is like a work of art, and the technical wizardry that went into making this movie is nothing short of incredible when you consider what came before it. If you have kids, or even if you just appreciate great animation, it’s well worth checking out a classic again.
The Video
Nothing short of astonishing. If you’ve ever seen a previous version on home video or TV, your jaw will drop at the job Disney has done restoring this movie to pristine or better condition. Every speck of dust is gone, every color resonates like it was fresh off the paintbrush, and when intercut with clips of the upcoming sequel, I had a hard time telling which was which. Presented in its original full-screen, this is truly reference material for anyone wanting a primer on how to treat classic movie properties.
The Audio
Eh, not so much in the greatness area here. The box boasts a new “enhanced 5.1 surround mix” for home theater, but my surround speakers were dead silent all the way through and so was my subwoofer. I switched over to the original mono soundtrack just to make sure I picked the right one, and honestly there’s not a lot of difference. The mono has some extra hiss and noise that is absent from the “5.1” mix, but aside from the music sounding a lot louder in the new mix (and sometimes overpowering the dialogue) there’s not much new in the new version. Big disappointment here, especially after how great the Lion King sounded.
The Extras
Lots of very cool stuff here.
The centerpiece of the first disc, instead of a commentary, is an audio re-creation of the original planning sessions for the movie with Disney and the animators. Walt had someone take METICULOUS notes in case they needed to refer back to them later, and voice actors play the parts of everyone involved, which is then played back over the movie with original concept art and the like spliced in for effect. The result is very cool and so much better than a commentary from film experts would have been.
Onto the second disc…
The extras here are divided into three categories: Games and Activities, Behind the Scenes at Disney, and an hour-long documentary called, naturally, “The Making of Bambi”. It’s divided into 6 10-minute pieces covering the origins of the book, voice acting, the artwork, reproducing nature, and some other topics. Fantastic stuff, to be sure, and the delight in John Lassiter’s voice when he talks about the movie shows why Pixar is worth billions.
The games stuff I skipped, not being 5 years old, but I’m sure kids will enjoy it.
The behind the scenes stuff covers the restoration of the movie, with some cool split-screen views of the old and new versions of the movie, plus a look at the new sequel, a look at stuff happening in 1942, a quick explanation of the multiplane camera system hosted by Walt himself, “The Old Mill” cartoon short that pre-dated the movie and acted as a test run for it, and a look at the Disney archives, which contain every piece of artwork ever done for Disney movies. Oh, plus the original trailer, of course. If there’s anything missing here, you got me.
The Ratings
The Film: *****
The Video: *****
The Audio: **
The Extras: *****
