Bambi on DVD, when? (1 Viewer)

[Andrew Priest]

Well, the deer in Bambi are anthromorphic which complicates things just a little. Since they have human traits blended into their character, as well as human intelligence, they wouldn't necessarily follow the dictates of deer instinct. Not to mention people relate to them more like they do to humans than to deer.

I'm just saying that Ebert's view is valid since the movie is a 100% artistic creation not a wildlife film.

Plus, an absentee father in a Disney feature animation. Now that's a real shock.

 

[Brandon Conway]

True. However, how many of the other absentee fathers in the other films show up in the distance as a sort of mocking "even though I could just walk down and be with you, I won't, damn it!"?

 

[Ernest Rister]

"Well, the deer in Bambi are anthromorphic which complicates things just a little. Since they have human traits blended into their character, as well as human intelligence, they wouldn't necessarily follow the dictates of deer instinct. Not to mention people relate to them more like they do to humans than to deer."

Not just the deer, but all of the animals, and in the book, this is taken even futher -- even the plant life have "anthropomorphic" philosophical discussions about life and death. In fact, Walt was particularly taken with a passage in Felix Salten's Bambi in which two leaves discuss the possibility of death, and how they both wind up dying and then dropping to the ground. Walt had this sequence storyboarded, and the dialogue was even recorded (to much controversey and consternation back at the Hyperion studio - "What was Walt doing?!? Two leaves talking about death?!?). In the final film, we do indeed see the two leaves wither and drop, but no dialogue is heard, the moment is expressed purely through music and animation.

The point of the movie is not to present a photograph of the natural world, it is a caricature, it is a poem, it is an idea of life. It is not to be taken literally, but because it is about nature, it has to walk a tightrope between caricature and hyper-realism. Salten's book was a philosophy of life in the forest, and Disney's film is a somewhat simplified version of that philosophy -- Walt pared away the social strata and inter-species conflicts and, instead, inspired by Sydney Franklin, he focused on the eternal life cycle of birth, growth, adulthood, and death (an idea later recycled by 1994's more kid-friendly The Lion King).

 

[Andrew Priest]

That sounds close to animism. Now I will have to read the book. I do have a copy; I've just not gotten around to it. Still, the book is just the book.

I wonder though if the loss of the dead hunter scene wasn't actually a loss to the film. Without it the humans never really seem part of the natural world but instead come across as being above it. Greek gods of sorts come to wreak havoc in the mortal world. Showing the humans as mortal and bound by the same natural laws would bring them into the cycle.

Oh, BTW, I just checked and Ebert didn't actually say it was a parable of absentee parenting. Well, not exactly. He said:

""Bambi" is a parable of sexism, nihilism and despair, portraying absentee fathers and passive mothers in a world of death and violence."

Which is close I admit. Though he makes it sound even harsher. I can see where he's coming from though.

 

[Ernest Rister]

"I wonder though if the loss of the dead hunter scene wasn't actually a loss to the film. Without it the humans never really seem part of the natural world but instead come across as being above it. Greek gods of sorts come to wreak havoc in the mortal world. Showing the humans as mortal and bound by the same natural laws would bring them into the cycle."

You've nailed the point of the scene -- that is exactly what the Bambi team was trying to bring out. I think one of the lines in that sequence was even "there is a power over Him".

The book is great - here's an excerpt:

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A hunting dog has trapped a wounded, exhausted fox. Bambi, the Great Stag, and the other animals of the forest look on.

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Presently the fox sat down on his haunches. He could go no furhter. Raising his mangled forepaw pitifully, with his jaws open and his lips drawn back, he snarled at the dog.

But the dog was never silent for a minute. His high, rasping bark only grew fuller and depper. "Here," he yapped, "here he is! Here! Here! Here!" He was not abusing the fox. He was not even speaking to him, but was urging on someone who was still far behind.

Bambi knew as well as the old stag did that it was He the dog was calling.

The fox knew it, too. The blood was streaming down from him and fell from his breast into the snow, making a fiery red spot on the icy white surface, and steaming slowly.

A weakness overcame the fox. His crushed foot sank down helpless, but a burning pain shot through it when he touched the cold snow. He lifted it again with an effort and held it quiveringly in front of him.

"Let me go," said the fox beginning to speak, "let me go." He spoke softly and beseechingly. He was quite weak and despondent.

"No! No! No!" the dog howled.

The fox pleaded still more insistently. "We're relations," he pleaded, "we're brothers almost. Let me go home. Let me die with my family at least. We're brothers almost, you and I."

"No! No! No!" the dog raged.

Then the fox rose so that he was sitting perfectly erect. He dropped his handsome pointed muzzle on his bleeding breast, raised his eyes and looked the dog straight in the face. In a completely altered voice, restrained and embittered, he growled, "Aren't you ashamed, you traitor!"

"No! No! No!" yelped the dog.

But the fox went on, "You turncoat, you renegade." His maimed body was taut with contempt and hatred. "You spy," he hissed, "you blackguard, you track us where He could never find us. You betray us, your own relations, me who am almost your brother. And you stand there and aren't ashamed!"

Instantly many other voices sounded loudly about.

"Traitor!" cried the magpie from the tree.

"Spy!" shrieked the jay.

"Blackguard!" the weasel hissed.

"Renegade!" snarled the ferret.

From every tree and bush came chirpings, peepings, shrill cries, while overhead the crows cawed, "Spy! Spy!" Everyone had rushed u, and from the trees or from safe hiding places on the ground, they watched the contest. The fury that had burst from the fox released an embittered anger in them all. And the blood spilt on the snow, that steamed before their eyes, maddened them and made them forget all caution.

The dog stared around him. "Who are you?" he yelped. "What do you want? What do you know about it? What are you talking about? Everything belongs to Him, just as I do. But I, I love Him. I worship Him, I serve Him. Do you think you can oppose Him, poor creatures like you? He's all-powerful. He's above all of you. Everything we have comes from Him. Everything that lives or grows comes from Him." The dog was quivering with exaltation.

"Traitor!" cried the squirrel shrilly.

"Yes, traitor!" hissed the fox. "Nobody is a traitor but you, only you."

The dog was dancing about in a frenzy of devotion. "Only me?" he cried, "you lie. Aren't there many many others on His side? The horse, the cow, the sheep, the chicken, many, many of you and your kind are on His side and worship Him and serve Him."

"They're rabble!" snarled the fox, full of a boumdless contempt.

Then the dog could contain himself no longer and sprang at the fox's throat. Growling, spitting, and yelping, they rolled in the snow, a writhing, savagely snapping mass from which fur flew. The snow rose in clouds and was spattered with fine drops of blood. At last the fox could not fight any more. In a few seconds he was lying on his back, his white belly uppermost. He twitched and stiffened and died.

The dog shook him a few times, then let him fall on the trampled snow. He stood beside him, his legs planted, calling in a deep, loud voice, "Here! Here! He's here!"

The others were horrorstruck and fled in all directions.

"Dreadful," said Bambi softly to the old stag in the hollow.

"The most dreadful part of all," the old stag answered, "is that the dogs believe what the hound just said. They believe it, they pass their lives in fear, they hate Him and themselves and yet they'd die for His sake."
-- Felix Salten, Bambi: A Life in the Woods, 1st Editon, pgs. 273-277

 

[Ernest Rister]

This Bambi discussion is good stuff, but it's in the wrong thread. Going to request a mod move it to the Bambi thread.

 

[Cees Alons]

...and it's here now.


Cees

 

[Brian Kidd]

Wow. That Bambi selection was chilling. Reminds me of Richard Adams, in a way. I agree that the film has been mismarketed, almost since its first release. I think the truth is that, after FANTASIA, Walt felt out of touch with the public pulse. BAMBI was the last of the "classic" Disney films and was begun before the disappointment from FANTASIA set in. It's unique in that it straddles two stylistic periods in the life of the studio. It was conceived and animated with an eye for the artistic but was marketed with an eye for mass acceptance. I think that's why it's often overlooked. People don't know how to take it. They go into it thinking it's going to be all fuzzy, large-eyed animals because that's what the marketing has made it out to be. Had the film been sold as an artistic rumination of the forces of nature, then perhaps it still wouldn't have gained mass popularity, but it almost certainly wouldn't have the false reputation of cloying cuteness that it holds today.

Ernest, I look forward to your book. I always enjoy your postings here.