Film Studies 2159A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Bill Justice, Diplopia, Tyrus Wong
28 Jun 2018
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Screening 5, Lecture 5
Wednesday, February 7, 2018 11:17 AM
Screening: Bambi
*Print reviews
Bambi:
•Was the 5th animated feature released
•Disney's Golden Age
•August 9, 1942 was London Premier
•Took 5 years to make
○Was supposed to be the second animated film but strike and World War II
happened
•Bambi did not do well in box office
•Film's review were lukewarm
•Film provoked controversy due to hunting
Lecture 5:
Quiz:
•Fill in the blank identification
○Terms and names
•Multiplane camera, Ube Iwerks
•Multiple choice
○Each question is worth 2 points
•Short answer
○Worth 15%
○Look at Luckett's reading for Fantasia
○Look closely at first PowerPoint
○Look at introductory notes to screenings
○Does not include Bambi
•With early cartoons, review dates of features and early cartoons
Pinocchio
•Psychoanalytic
○Phallic imagery (Pinocchio's nose)
○Role reversal
○Pleasure and pain
•Time
○Father is a clockmaker
○Linear, day and time
•Live time
•Structure time
•Chronos
•Chronological time
•Clock time
•Time sheet at studio
•Fixed and structured
• Aeon
•Associated with pleasure
•Irregular
•Exciting and eventful
•Interrupts time
Opening of Pinocchio
•Has books in opening with "Alice and Wonderland" and "Peter Pan" hinting at later
productions
•Books show that the stories come from fairy tales
•Multiplane shot (night sky) took $50,000 to make
•Started through flat book, entered the cartoon word
○Disney star can offer us far more dimensionality
Bambi:
•Important role background artists played in shaping this natural world.
•Character model sheets (characters with emotional appeal, expressive)
•Disney and natural history/use of live animal models to study animal motion
•How to read the opening shot? Does the film represent ecological complexity? Or is
a reductive view of nature? How is nature represented in the film? What is
Disnature? What is the reception history of the film? Creatures, co-habition, time,
intrusion
Sentimental Modernism
•As discussed during last lecture, “sentimental modernism” is a term coined by
Steven Watts to depict Disney’s hybridity, his blend of real and unreal, naturalism
and fantasy and his manipulation of each “to illuminate the other.”
•Watts argues that Pinocchio’s “divided consciousness,” Bambi’s “impressionistic
views of the forest” and Dumbo’s surrealist vision in the Pink Elephants on Parade
sequence are all touches of modernism that are used to embellish and enhance
Disney’s filmmaking.
Bambi… Uncredited Art Director
•Tyrus Wong (1910-2016), a Chinese-American artist known for his
“impressionistic” paintings, was appointed background designer of Bambi. He
became a Disney Legend in 2001.
Tyrus Wong
•He was nine years old when he joined his father in Los Angeles.
•Father encouraged him to practice calligraphy every evening at bedtime. He
received a scholarship to attend Otis College of Art and Design (was the youngest
student at the institute).
•Started as an inbetweener at Disney in the late 1930s. Wong was fired in 1941 as a
result of the strike. He joined Warner Brothers in 1942.
•During the Great Depression, Tyrus Wong participated in the Work Progress
Administration's Federal Art Project- a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in
the United States. His work was also shown in several group exhibitions in the
1930s, including a show at the Chicago Art Institute that also featured the work of
Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee and Matisse.
Tyrus Wong, Bambi
•Other artists like Tenggren working on the film had been painting too “realistically.”
But everything changed when they saw Wong’s subdued “soft-edged, oriental
paintings of a mystical forest” and “realized instantly that this was just what was
needed to make Bambi a different, artistic picture.”
•Bambi: Story of the Film (Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston)
Gustav Tenggreen
•Swedish-American painter who worked in the tradition of Scandinavian
romanticism did early background sketches for Bambi, but they were rejected. He
gave a richly-detailed “illustrated look” and “Old World” feel to Disney early
features. In Tengreen’s drawings, nature is often detailed, dark, “heavy”, somber,
shadowy, twisted, angular – a dark backdrop that could ensnare characters.
•He created background art for Snow White (evil forest) and Pinocchio (village
exteriors, interiors)
Bambi's Art Design: East meets West
•It is useful to consider Wong’s own artist statements about why he created
impressionistic, ethereal renderings of the forest with less detail and more
mood.
•When asked about his style, Wong said, “Halfway between the West and the East
—but I can’t help that, I’m born with it.” –Bambi: Story of the Film (Frank Thomas
and Ollie Johnston)
•Animators Johnston and Thomas wrote: “In contrast to the paintings that showed
every detail of tiny flowers, broken branches, and fallen logs, Ty had a different
approach and certainly one that had never been seen in an animated film before. He
explained, "Too much detail! I tried to keep the thing very, very simple and create
the atmosphere, the feeling of the forest." His grasses were a shadowy refuge with
just a few streaks of the actual blades; his thickets were soft suggestions of deep
woods and patches of light that brought out the rich detail in the trunk of a tree or a
log. Groups of delicate trees were shown in silhouette against the mists of early
morning rising from the meadow. Every time of day and each mood of the forest
was portrayed in a breathtaking manner. An ethereal quality was there. Best of all,
Walt was enthusiastic. ‘I like that indefinite effect in the background—it’s effective.
I like it better than a bunch of junk behind them.’”
Marc Davis (credited), giving Bambi "motion and emotion"
•Marc Davis gave Bambi more human characteristics … larger eyes, larger head
(Bambi now resembled a smiling infant – Davis studied children’s faces in a book
on baby behavior that he used to draw a “mask of this young deer”)
•Bambi was cute!! His eyes and head may have been exaggerated, boosting his
emotional appeal, but animators spent years in the studio studying live deer trying
to accurately capture the animals’ movements.
Disney Character Model Department
•The Character Department had many “tricks” up their sleeve in the Disney studio
Document Summary
Bambi: was the 5th animated feature released, disney"s golden age, august 9, 1942 was london premier, took 5 years to make. Was supposed to be the second animated film but strike and world war ii happened: bambi did not do well in box office, film"s review were lukewarm, film provoked controversy due to hunting. Terms and names: multiplane camera, ube iwerks, multiple choice. Each question is worth 2 points: short answer. Does not include bambi: with early cartoons, review dates of features and early cartoons. Linear, day and time: live time, structure time, chronos, chronological time, clock time, time sheet at studio, fixed and structured. Disney star can offer us far more dimensionality. Sentimental modernism: as discussed during last lecture, sentimental modernism is a term coined by. Bambi uncredited art director: tyrus wong (1910-2016), a chinese-american artist known for his. Impressionistic paintings, was appointed background designer of bambi.
