Disney's Golden Age Was SICK!

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Old Disney animation gets me pumped! The early shorts lack the complexity and elegance of the epic fairy tale feature-lengths, but I think they achieve a level of earnest energy and mischief that stays uniquely appealing. Look at the mermaids with their pearls from 6:30! This was made in 1932, when color animation first hit the mainstream. Imagine how exciting it must have been to see such bright, dynamic images on a big screen for the first time.

 

The forest scene from Snow White (1937) is perfect -- the dark, rich textures, all those shadows and sharp edges, and the rising tone of panic as we're dragged into a picture book nightmare. Like all the great illustration and animation from the 1930s through the 1960s, this scene is at once intensely sinister and sensual. I've been loyal to that particular aesthetic blend since I was old enough to care what I looked at.

 

Fantasia, Night on Bald Mountain (1940), the heavy metal spectacular! This mesmerized me when I first saw it at age seven or eight, when it struck me as profoundly scandalous: The undulating fire groupies! The red-nippled banshees! And Chernabog with his gleaming Mr. Universe muscles, hedonistic brutality blasting from his loins! What the fuck, Disney?

Other animated sequences I remember good and sharp:
Sleeping Beauty (1959). Prince Philip hacking through black thorns and fucking up a dragon.

 

Pinocchio (1940). THE METAMORPHOSIS! CATASTROPHIC! It's enough to make a bitch quit smoking!

 

Mary Poppins (1964). I know it's not an animated film for the most part, and it's a little quaint even for its time, but the haunting songs and melancholy family themes make it one of my absolute favorite films ever. Throughout the film the visual effects take unexpected turns for the moody and romantic, from the foggy twilight backgrounds and lonely silhouettes to the ink-black smoke that carries them over the rooftops of London. I wish that part was included in this clip!

 

I guess this post is sort of like my own glittery Princess pencil case. I can live with that. I wish artful 2D animation would have another season in the sun. Maybe when organs make a comeback in popular rock.