Disney Commitment

Reading again "The Animated Man", by M Barrier, I come to the conclusion that it is Disney's best biography, so far. To begin with, Barrier contextualizes Disney's break down perfectly, emphasizing the gigantic change Walt had to brace at the time: "This was the time when his role in the studio changed decisively. His distress probably arouse from that circumstance, and it may have been building for years..." ..." After so many years of animating and then directing- and before that, years of other kinds of jobs that required working with his hands, and before that, years of manual labor, all the way back to his newspaper delivery days- Disney now had to persuade himself of the legitimacy of purely mental work", remarks Barrier.

This is a gigantic existential change; Disney had to re invent himself anew, to a point of almost becoming another person, and if he remained himself still, it is because Walt Disney's essence was the power of self- reinvention; it was creativity itself. With no education, ready made thoughts or any type of crutch to help, he had to face the enormity of standing at the most intimidating threshold: that of creating an art form... And creating it through words and guidance.

It makes one think of the courage and integrity Disney had to assume responsibility; to commit.

Disney's Response

    When you are hesitating to jump from the peak of a bungee jumping and finally make it; when you are indignant but afraid to react to an injustice, but in a moment of liberation from yourself you finally "hit" back, when you are shy to assert the truth against some authority that is affirming a lie, but in an untaught of, blissful moment, you come through... 
   Well, I think these instants of self-overcoming (and not recklessness) were the constant time in Walt Disney's life; the "motto perpetuo" of his eternal fight and productivity.

Disney: the Freedom of Reverence

Walt Disney's freedom was the absolute freedom, that which can infringe and even destroy in order to reach a higher degree of reality. As a re invention of the physical world in animation, it was, to begin with, a total liberation from the limits of conceptual thought, that is, the thought that categorizes everything into fixed definitions and roles.  In Disney animation, anything can not only have life, but turn into something else. Take, for instance, the episode of  "Melody Time" that is inspired in the music of Rimsky Korsakov.  The melody played by the piano is identified to the buzzing and movement of a cute little bee in such a way  that the sight of the bee, its buzzing flying and the sound are at one. Pretty soon, the keys of the piano themselves are moving around the bee, expressing the music equally well in visual form. Disney seemed to naturally identify the dimension of the visual and that of sound, (eventually that of touch, with the 3D real characters in Disneyland) as much as to transpose the roles of things and beings, to that of other things and beings. In that particular segment, the bee was buzzing sound; it was the melody  and also the physical and "visible" movement of that melody.  The keys of the piano broke the limits of their usual function and interacted with the dancing bee. They evoked the music as much as they made it sound and they moved to its rythm in interacting with the bee. Bee and piano keys became equally "characters", and equally music. Like the bee, they were what we see, what we hear and what we enjoy and are moved by all in one, as if our sight, hearing and emotion reverted to one single essence.  Disney respected no fixed limits because he had a reverential view of creation. As the overcoming of one's ego, reverence is all comprehensive. Maybe that is why Walt said that he had no problem imagining that animals and plants (and even objects) had feelings just like his own feelings. 

'Unbelievable" Walt Disney

Neal Gabler concludes about Walt, after a lot of sneering comments, that he was "opaque", but I think that if anybody thought that (I've heard terms like "elusive" etc) it is because people don't tolerate, or understand, freedom very well. People in general hold on to limits and labels in order to turn things more predictable (rather than magic and unexpected), except for real, true artists. Walt Disney's freedom was something so immense that it must have been scaring in itself and incomprehensible for most.

Disney Paradise

The world in the animation Walt Disney brought to fruition, is, in one goal, an extension of thought and body, like in the world of toddlerhood, in which both are one, and like in what should be "paradise".

Disney's Whisps of Being

Drawing by Eleonora Duvivier 

Sergei Eiseinstein asserted that Disney seemed to know all about feelings. He reached the essence. He reached that world in which everything is each and each is everything. The one soul of creation, as well as the individuality of each's soul. THe world of Disney is animated not just because it moves, but because, in it, things, sceneries, and beings, in preserving their individual soul, equally partake of the all-encompassing "änima". As if from the dawn of Being, Disney gave shape to his own created beings!

(Disneyssence)

Disney's Essence

Disney's essence is Disney's oneness with creation,
Disney's Nirvana is Disney's surrender to his own heart,
Disney's heart is Disney's absolution,
Disney's absolution is Disney's inspiration,
Disney's inspiration is the Will of God for
Disney

(Drawing by Eleonora Duvivier)

Intense Walt Disney

   Walt Disney was reported to be always in the grip of passion. Hegel, the German Philosopher, as much as a rationalist as one could ever be, asserted that great things are always done with passion.  I guess it was through and with passion that Hegel gave rationality a divine status. And of course, it was also through and with passion that Walt Disney gave fantasy the truth of spirit.









 (Sketch of Walt Disney by Eleonora Duvivier)

Disney Birthday

    One of the nice things about being a Disney fan, with friends like one on FB, is that one gets birthday cards and wishes from all the Disney character's family. And when that was such a pungent reality at the beginning of one's childhood, that works like a soothing and healing root throughout one's life, it makes one's birthday, literally and metaphorically "magic". It reverts you to that genuine  part of your being that happens also to be your foundation, as if cradling and reasserting it. I will thus post this lovely mandala that one of these friends made for me!

(image by Mark Vitek)

Disney Inspiration

     As always, Walt was the simplest and the most complex, when saying: "When you believe in something, believe it all the way, implicity and unquestionably"

     One cannot "make" oneself believe in this way,

     One cannot simply pick something in which to believe,

     One cannot force oneself to believe in anything,

     One cannot have such fervor just on advice,

For, to believe at all takes intuition,

To believe so strongly requires single mindedness,

To believe unquestionably involves purity,

To believe implicitly (non verbally ) involves integrity, and, finally,

To have all these qualities results from imperative inspiration!

-Disneyssence- (drawing by Eleonora Duvivier)