Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Disney Edge

Walt Disney said that he obviously knew life was made of light and shadows. Did he know it... According to Frank and Ollie, all his impersonations of evilness and aggression in the villains was first hand experienced from the attitude of his own father. He experienced that pain, of being the target of it. He knew what cruelty was, and, yet, the soothingness of pure sugar. Because, by his own admission, there wasn't a grain of cynicism in him, he also knew the pungency of simplicity, like expressed in the Hollywood landmarks his movies achieved. Death of Bambi's mother is one, the moment Snow White is to be sacrificed by the hunter is another, to mention two. In the confrontation of innocence with the sharpness of the knife, the redemption of the hunter with his fearful obedience to authority, the scene has everything. Like he himself declared his awareness of light and shadows, I would say that a "marked in fire" Disney fan knows that life may also be composed of torture and sugar. I think he knew it too. Having so often drawn Walt, I noticed that his expression is often on the fine line between leadership and tears...