Today’s review is "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", which is Disney’s first princess movie and the Walt Disney Company’s first animated feature film . "Snow White" was released in 1937, but its picture quality has no traces of years that are close to a century ago. Even if it is placed at the end of the last century compared with contemporary works, it does not appear outdated and old. Whether it is the reflection of the water surface in the forest scene where small animals gather at the beginning of the movie, or the candlelight effect of Snow White who accidentally breaks into the dwarf's residence, it can reflect the production attitude of the Disney craftsmen back then.
However, because it is the pioneering and testing work of the Disney animated feature film, the film is still slightly naive in terms of the plot and characterization of the movie. In terms of shaping the image of the princess, compared with the next two "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty", who are also the three elders of the princess series, the Snow White in this film is far better than the appearance time and the amount of lines. The sleeping beauty is countable, but the fullness and likability of the characters are far inferior to Cinderella, who has been bombarded by feminism in modern times.
In terms of plot, at this time, Disney was not able to perfectly balance singing, dancing and narration in the movie as it did in the 1990s . With the uncontrollable interspersed of song and dance clips, the plot structure of "Snow White" seemed very loose and lacking in tension. It can also explain why the follow-up "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty" temporarily broke the Disney princess film must be interspersed with a large number of songs and dances or even become a half-musical tradition, but conservative in the use of song and dance clips. It wasn't until the joining of Alan Menken that the Little Mermaid showed a half-musical level that "musical dramatization" became a tradition that all subsequent princess movies must follow.
In fairness, "Snow White" was a very good pioneering work in the historical background of the time. The reason why I am so picky here is that Disney's subsequent more and more powerful ability to adapt fairy tales allows us to The taste is used to make it more tricky, so that it will criticize the first fairy tale adaptation in Disney's history. Therefore, before analyzing the characters and plot of the film, we first need to affirm the pioneering contribution of this film to the entire Disney film history.
The next criticism is not a denial of this movie, but a review of "Snow White" from the perspective of God who has seen many outstanding follow-up works of Disney in advance, leaving it to its descendants to learn from and complement. In this way, the historical status of the "Snow White" movie itself and the first Disney princess image created in the timeline is restored more three-dimensionally on the timeline.
Procrastination and loose plot
The plot part of the film can be summarized as follows: the plot is procrastinated and the rhythm is loose . Since the overall plot structure was born out of fairy tales, and Disney at the time was not as brave as it is now to make drastic improvements to the original fairy tales. Therefore, after basically restoring the original fairy tales of Snow White, fill in the length of time to make the film reach one The task of the multi-hour theater film fell on the song and dance fragments.
At this time, Disney's setting of the song and dance segment was still a little immature compared to the later craftsmanship that turned the entire movie into a musically sound. The song and dance fragments in this film are arranged in the scenes where Snow White finds the dwarves' residence in the forest and then meets and gets along with the dwarfs, and these fragments are actually occupied in a 79-minute movie. It took up to 30 minutes. In the 1930s, the technical strength embodied in the singing and dancing clips of this kind of large-scale sound and color animation characters may be the same as the Avatar that set off the IMAX trend at the beginning of this century. As a child-oriented film, it is a very flattering way to use some gag characters, funny scenes and music to attract the attention of children in the film, but the song and dance fragments in this film are almost useless to the narrative, which makes the narrative The rhythm is more procrastinated. Even though these singing and dancing scenes portray the seven dwarfs vividly in terms of characterization, they still make the image of Snow White's silly white sweet girl even thinner.
In addition to the rhythm issue, the suspense setting of the film also has some points that are debatable. Perhaps it is to allow the children to watch the hard-working performances of the dwarfs more concentratedly. Most of the appearances of the queen as the villain are concentrated around the beginning and climax of the film. When Snow White escaped from the hunter and entered the dwarf's residence, the tension created by the vicious image of the queen in this film disappeared with the dense singing and dancing clips of Snow White and the dwarf. I personally think that if the queen finds that the hunter is lying in the military through the magic mirror and Snow White is still hiding in the forest, it may increase the tension of the plot after Snow White falls asleep in the dwarf’s residence and create a crisis of shadows. Sense and the audience's sense of expectation about how Snow White will escape with the help of the dwarfs.
Monotonous but bright princess image
Disney's first three veteran princesses have been criticized by feminists in contemporary times: lack of autonomy, and hardly think about anything in their minds except for the illusion of being rescued by the prince . These characteristics are even more vividly reflected in Snow White. In the film, Snow White’s only behavioral motive is “waiting to be taken to his castle by the prince”. When she was driven into the forest by the queen somehow, she did not show the slightest resistance. When the hunter gave up on assassinating her, she didn’t show any resistance. Without asking, I ran into the deep forest in a panic. I almost lost my temper. The only time I got angry was when I was teaching the dwarves to wash their hands by pretending to be angry...
In fact, as mentioned above, we cannot criticize the image of the princess in the first half of the last century too much from the current affirmative perspective. But apart from these stereotyped images of traditional princesses, Snow White’s biggest problem is actually the lack of role arcs .
Throughout the film, from the beginning to the end, Snow White is always the little princess who "imagines that the prince will come to love me". Failing to show the growth of Snow White to the audience, the tribulations she experienced seem to have nothing to do with her ultimate happy end- as if even if she did not experience all of this, and grew up in the palace peacefully, there will be something in the end. The prince took her back to his castle to live happily .
In contrast, the most growing characters in this film are the seven dwarfs, especially Grumpy. From the beginning, Grumpy was disdainful of the many changes Snow White brought to their lifestyles. Later, she was influenced by Snow White’s love and became her loyal fan. The character change of this character brought the highlights of the film. And the enlightenment meaning to the children-the meticulous love can influence others-is far greater than "Snow White has been calling for the prince to come to me one day, and then the prince will really come, and the end of the play".
Therefore, as far as I am concerned, Snow White, whose personality traits are not distinctive in the film—and the subsequent Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty—are all princesses who I am relatively insensitive in all Disney princess images. This is mainly reflected in the fact that in Disneyland, I am not even willing to line up for a 10-minute group photo with them (although these three have their own two-hour queue buff every time they appear). Among these three princesses, Snow White is the most insensitive of me among the three princesses. In addition to the reasons for the personality of the above-mentioned characters, the slightly plain costume of Snow White is also a small point of deduction. Compared with the princesses with big panties and crowns in most of the subsequent princess series, Snow White's costumes are in style (lack of panties), color matching (red and blue with beige?) or accessories (bow?) All lack a sense of princess. Although the costumes of Pocahontas, Mulan, and Merida are less princess-like than Snow White, at least those three do not rely on the external image of the princess to eat but with their sturdy personality. Snow White, who has a soft personality, does not wear a beautiful princess dress to match the princess's image . You can imagine the likability of her role .
Nevertheless, the image of Snow White is not useless. In the film, she showed a very important personality trait- easy going, optimistic and uplifting . Although the film did not show us at the beginning of this solitary person in the palace dreaming of a prince to love me, my little princess has received how abused by the queen as a stepmother, but from the empress’s inflexibility in the film, she has to follow Judging from the behavior tendency of Snow White to fight to death and to let the seven dwarfs be crushed to death under the boulder, I am afraid Snow White’s childhood was no better than Harry Potter. But we don't see the slightest bit of pessimism and complaints from Snow White about life in the film. After being frightened by the hunter and strayed into the depths of the forest, Snow White did not fall into anxiety about her personal safety, but immediately talked with the small animals around her and tried to find a place where she could stay. In contrast, the subsequent princesses (just to name a few: Moana, Aisha, Le Pei, Mulan, Aurora) tended to feel sorry for themselves after encountering difficulties. Snow White was at the most desperate moment in her life (falling into the forest, seemingly unable to find hope for the future), but she was still optimistic to see the bright spots in her life, and chatted happily with the bird. Therefore, although Snow White has not grown up and always dreamed of "there will be a prince to save me", the perseverance, optimistic and uplifting character she showed through this thin character in the film is indeed full and complete. . I hope that the children now can learn this side of Snow White when they see this movie and not just imagine that their life will be saved by a so-called prince.
In addition, the kiss that the prince rescues Snow White is collectively called True Love's Kiss in subsequent works (such as Frozen, Enchanted Romance, Sleeping Beauty), but in its original origin, "Snow White" Its full name is Love's First Kiss. Therefore, in the initial setting, only virgins who have not been in love can obtain the magic of the first kiss, while the majority of older young women are basically out of luck. . In subsequent works, perhaps to expand the target market from a children’s market composed of little girls to a mass market that includes the majority of young married women, this setting has been changed to those that do not require age, love experience, but only gender. "The Kiss of True Love". From this point of view, the popularity of Snow White far exceeds Walt Disney’s original vision of such a long-form animation with a princess as the subject. This princess image has also been developed into a series, which gave birth to the later The 13 princesses were successfully ranked as one of Disney's ace marketing projects, and they have maintained their vigorous vitality to this day.
Live-action Outlook
Since Disney has tasted the sweetness of live-action remakes in recent years, the momentum of remakes of past classics has been out of control. In terms of the princess series alone, as of the ten 2D animations of "The Princess and the Frog", three have been remakes (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast). There are also two that are ready to go (Aladdin and Hua Mulan). As the pioneer of the princess series, Snow White will probably not escape the remake.
Although most Disney fans believe that remakes ruin the classics and ruin childhood, they do not reject remakes. The reason is that there are often problems of lack of setting and incomplete worldview in the older animation works. Remakes can provide a way for the original work. With a full worldview and an opportunity to make the characters (especially the supporting roles) three-dimensional, as a fan, is it not a pleasure to see these classics that accompany one's childhood being reinfused with new nourishment?
For "Snow White", the remake can remedy many confusing setting problems in the film:
First of all, why did Snow White's parents agree to others? How did the stepmother come to power? How did Snow White spend her childhood? If the live-action remake can complement Snow White's childhood experience, then the character's growth in the later period and the arc of the character missing in the original version can be displayed smoothly.
Second, the background setting of the seven dwarfs. Generally speaking, in various myths and legends, dwarves always exist as a unique race that is good at mining and hand-made crafts. In the original version of "Snow White", there is no explanation of where the seven dwarves came from and why. The background story of the seven snails living in a hut deep in the forest. Moreover, although according to the description of the film, the seven dwarves have a certain understanding of the current political situation (knowing the existence of Snow White and the vicious stepmother queen), there is no trace of the dwarves communicating with the outside world in the film. . Therefore, the remake version has considerable supplementary space in the setting of the dwarf.
In the end, it is the prince who exists as a mechanical descendant. Of course, in the early Disney princess movies, the prince in "Sleeping Beauty" also had the problem of "the prince is a brick, where does it need to move". Both appearances in "Snow White" were too coincidental, lacking cause and effect. Lack of both the background explanation of the prince’s identity and the deep expression of the prince’s behavioral motives and psychological activities, it seems that the prince is just a stage prop concocted to promote the development of the plot. I hope that in the live-action remake, the prince can get more opportunities to shape, so that the ending Happily Ever After is not so abrupt. If we don’t even know what kind of person the prince is, how can we be convinced that Snow White is married back by the prince. Didn't you become the little wife with blue beard?
All in all, the movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a wonderful start to Disney's subsequent princess series and all subsequent animated films. Although there are blind spots in Snow White's personality that are limited by the vision of the times, it is worth moving that the optimistic spirit that Snow White conveys to always see the good side of life is still reflective to this day.
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