Sleeping Beauty (1959)

I thought it rather appropriate to start my movie journey with a Disney film. It's where I, and probably most children, began watching movies. Some of the first films I remember seeing in a theater were through Disney, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "The Rescuers" are the first two that come to mind. This was pre-video days when the only way you could see a Disney film was when they would create a new one, re-release one of the older films which seemed to be in a 7 year rotation, or broadcast one on Sunday's "Wonderful World of Disney." But "Sleeping Beauty" never struck much of a chord with me. I truly don't remember seeing this film as a child, but that doesn't mean I didn't. I did eventually pick it up on video, but it was more to fill out my Disney collection. When I was in a "Disney" mood, it was never one I choose.

When it was released on DVD, a few times, I always passed it by. In 2008, it became the first "classic" Disney animated film to be released on Blu-Ray. A friend wanted me to pick up a DVD copy for her kids and I came across a great package deal that contained a Blu-Ray and DVD copy for just $10 more than the DVD copy alone. I decided it must be worth the extra $10, and off I went with my first Disney Blu-Ray.

My overall opinion was one of amazement. The story is still rather simple, but this truly is an absolutely beautiful film to watch. As close to an "art masterpiece" that I've seen. If drawings of daVinci's or Rapheal's could move, this might be what they would look like. From a technical standpoint, this was the first feature film released in Super Technirama 70. It was shot on a 35mm Technirama double-frame negative (the frame is as big as two regular Academy frames joined together) running horizontally through the stop motion camera, with each frame photographed three times (once with a red filter, once with a blue filter, and once with a green filter). This negative was then printed to both CinemaScope-compatible anamorphic film and Super Technirama 70mm film. Even with the Widescreen DVD release of this film, I don't believe the entire frame was shown until now. And with the precise clarity of the High Definition picture, this may be the best presentation of this film since it's first release in 1959.

Part of the splendor of this film is the art direction, especially in the backgrounds. For the first time on a Disney animated feature, one man was in charge of the color styling, background design, and the overall look of the film. Eyvind Earle, inspired by European medieval painting and architecture, created a bold and unique art style different from any Disney film up to this point. Although it is said that many of his colleagues did not care for his production methods and art style at the time. Eyvind actually painted the great majority of the production backgrounds for this film, which is an amazing feat when you think about all of the backgrounds used, along with the extreme width of the 70mm screen. So much detail was put into the backgrounds on this film that many of the character artists were worried it would take away from their work, and in some cases it does, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Your eyes just continue to take in so much, and you find new things with each viewing.

This was also the last Disney feature to have cels inked completely by hand. This process takes such a great amount of time and money. This particular film was in active production from 1951 until the end of 1958, making it one of the longest animated films to be produced. There was no way the Disney company could continue creating such high quality animated films in this same way.

Character design was also at its peak. Maleficent, the fairy/witch is one of the most prefectly created symbol of evil in all of motion picture history. Her metamorphosis into the dragon is also among the most memorable. Sleeping Beauty on the otherhand, is taken from the usual cookie-cutter princess design, but she really doesn't play a huge role in the film, and has very few lines of actual dialogue. The story is actually centered around the three fairies who protect her, not about the Sleeping Beauty herself. Rose/Aurora is only featured in a few scenes and hardly ever says a word. She doesn't utter a single word in the second half of the film, neither before or after she falls under the spell. Her first line comes 19 minutes into the film and her last line comes 39 minutes into the film. However, she does sing two songs during that time. The Prince of the story is one of the few Disney "men" that actually does something worthy of the princess. Risking his life battling the witch/dragon in the rousing climatic battle. Of course Disney changed the original story around to make it more "happy ever after", but you should expect that by now.

And let me not forget about the music. Much of the musical score is based on Peter Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" ballet, a personal favorite composer of mine. The lovely melodies and drawings are so prefectly matched it truly seems as if the music was specifically written from this film. The Disney artists must have learned quite a bit from "Fantasia" when it comes to combining classical music with animation.

My final thoughts on the movie are that although the story still doesn't tug at my heart the way many of the other Disney films do, it truly is a beautiful film to look at and listen to. I also really enjoyed the film commentary and extras that the Blu-Ray offered. It is overloaded, with many of the usual fair, but the "making of" documentary was very good, as well as a look inside the Sleeping Beauty walk-through housed in the castle at Disneyland. An attraction that has been closed for decades. The overall presentation helped make me a believer in the HD format.