by Joel Bocko
“Fixing a Hole” is a series whose purpose is to review films that have not yet been covered on Wonders in the Dark. The theme for November is “Animated Animals.”
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The Story: One spring, a little fawn is born into a world of sunshine and flowers – but as the seasons pass, and the young deer comes of age, neither he nor the world around him will remain so innocent.
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“You’d be forgiven for picturing cute, wide-eyed little critters wandering through daisy fields and singing happy songs,” I wrote when introducing this month’s theme, adding pointedly, “Not so.” And I meant it – yet here we are! Well, let this prove that clichés obscure more than they illuminate. The cute, wide-eyed little critters of Bambi inhabit a violence- and sex-filled world of tragedy, stoicism, and carnage. Despite frequent light and happy moments, this is ultimately a very dark forest indeed. Why? To unearth Bambi‘s roots, I dug up the book that gave it birth.
Felix Salten’s Bambi was published in 1923, and it shares the qualities of much classic children’s literature: quiet, thoughtful, with a delicate playfulness, yet fundamentally somber, elementally instructional and subtly allegorical – simple yet deep. Walt Disney more scrupulously balances the dark and light, yet much of the book’s mood and atmosphere is effectively conveyed. Those majestic moments when Bambi and his mother cautiously approach a meadow, or tiptoe through the snow to hunt for food, admirably capture Salten’s spirit. Even those prototypical Disney elements – anthropomorphized chattering forest critters, resembling gossipy housewives or restless schoolkids – have their source in Salten, who devotes many pages to the silly conversations of little birds.
Most notably, the film delivers and even expands on the death of Bambi’s mother – more sentimental than the book perhaps, but also far more shocking and disturbing. In the original story, the little deer is distracted by other adults, and the chapter ends plainly, if chillingly: “Bambi never saw his mother again.” The film is more forceful, less forgiving – the thick snowfall, gorgeously animated, evokes a feeling of confused and anguished distress while Bambi calls for his mother. His mysterious, forbidding father emerges abruptly, silencing the score, and effectively repeats Salten’s sentence, but now to Bambi’s face. It’s a harsh, gripping moment: one of the most powerful, and most honest, in any “family movie.”
The movie departs more from the book in its portrayal of the old stag, and its depiction of Man. On the surface, these features are consistent with Salten’s story – both film and book make Bambi’s father an aloof, imposing figure, and mostly keep the hunters out of the picture. However, Salten allows us into the old stag’s mind, “humanizing” him so to speak, and giving him a more central role in Bambi’s education and survival. The burden and necessity of his isolation – and eventually Bambi’s as well – are also fleshed out and meditated upon in the book. The figure in the film intervenes when necessary, but we never get a sense of how he thinks and feels, or why Bambi should necessarily follow in his footsteps. As for Man, Salten calls him only “He” or “Him.” The Biblical connotations are clear, and indeed the animals regard this mysterious and deadly force as a (false) god, attributing to it mythical powers while also craving His acceptance and approval in certain circumstances.
The book has no Thumper or Flower, offering a tragic figure in lieu of comic relief: a hapless deer companion named Gobo, captured by a hunter as a fawn and presumed dead, only to reappear in the forest with a collar and tales of mankind’s beneficence. This newfound faith is rewarded when he is brutally slaughtered by a hunter – and a later foxhunt scene, in which animals accost the hound as “traitor,” “spy,” and “turncoat,” further underscores the notion that He is a manipulator as well as an executioner. Near the end of the book, the old stag shows Bambi a human corpse, revealing that He is not immortal – powerful perhaps, but made of flesh and blood like the other animals, and that there is Another above them all. The message is clear, and made even clearer when we learn that Salten was a Viennese Jew writing between the wars. The Nazis got it, and banned the book in 1938 – one wonders why it took so long. Bambi is clearly an allegory illustrating the fear, and condemning the faith, of persecuted groups toward their oppressors.
Movies have a way of literalizing allegory, so the antifascist/anti-imperialist element was bound to be diminished, if not lost, in translation. Disney’s Bambi streamlines the narrative, simplifies the character of the old stag, and undertakes that subtle semantic shift away from “Him” (a literary conceit difficult to translate onscreen). As such Salten’s anti-authoritarian subtext evaporates; the animals’ terror is at once more literal (Man, not Him) and more abstract (we never see Man’s face – admittedly a great cinematic device, because descriptions are more malleable than depictions). Additionally, the film softens or broadens the source material in several ways. The animals do not viciously attack and eat one another, as they do in the book (even as they unite in sympathy against the greater threat of man). The comic relief is far more pronounced and silly in the movie, and the depiction of animals in heat is outright cartoonish, veering into Tex Avery territory as Thumper and Flower hilariously turn colors and stiffen up (wink, wink) while wooed by sultry females – the film even takes a flight of fancy, as Bambi leaps among the clouds in an ecstasy of first love.
However, aside from the mother’s death, there is one respect in which the film is more brutal than the book. And timelier as well; the movie concludes with a massive Manmade forest fire. As the flames consume the entire woodlands, a few survivors gather on a tiny island in the midst of the now-orange river, watching as their homes are destroyed by a fearsome and all-powerful enemy. No revenge or resistance is possible, only grim, desperate survival: the metaphorical hunters of Salten’s book had become far more destructive and deadly over the course of twenty years and in this light, the gigantic bonfire resembles a natural blitzkrieg. With the birth of Faline’s twins, and an already greening (if noticeably damaged) forest, the film ends on a brighter note (albeit ambiguously, as we see Bambi take his father’s place on the cliff, far from his happy family). Yet the moment is short, almost perfunctory and indeed, upon reflection, many Disney classics make the cheerful conclusion almost an afterthought following the dark climax. Think Snow White and Fantasia as well as Bambi – when each movie ends, we’re still a bit shaken by the darkness that came before. The characters may live happily ever after, but the stories make sure they earn it…
Author’s Note: “Bambi” is easily one of the most visually impressive animated films of all time, utilizing rich technique and incredible skill to create a world at once naturalistic and impressionistic. However, I focused more on story than style in this piece – because I want to adhere to the short-form discipline of Fixing a Hole, because the adaptation aspect was what most interested me at this time, and most of all because I knew the animation aspect will get thorough, admirable and enthusiastic coverage in the commentary no matter what. So take it away, Dennis!
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Bambi (1942/United States/directed by James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, David Hand, Graham Heid, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Norman Wright)
stars the voices of Donnie Dunagan, Peter Behn, Hardie Alrbight, Paula Winslowe
written by Perce Pearce, Larry Morey, Vernon Stallings, Melvin Shaw, Carl Fallberg, Chuck Couch, Ralph Wright from the book Felix Salten • music by Frank Churchill, Edward H. Plumb • animation department: Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, Eric Larson, Frank Thomas, and others • produced by Walt Disney
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Last week’s entry: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
It’s good to have a better picture of where “Bambi” is coming from, and the harder takes both versions have on the material. I have to admit, I’ve never cared terribly about this film– a very beautiful aesthetic piece of animation, yes, but even as a child, it never really moved me. The death of Bambi’s mother is not something that ever affected me as a kid. Maybe it’s because I was already hit by other children’s films that had more of a draw for me, in the late 80’s– the death/ressurection in “E.T.” or the tragic demise of Littlefoot’s mother in “The Land Before Time” hit me harder than anything in the forest of Bambi, Thumper and Flower. Hell, watching the “Babar” cartoons on HBO gave me almost the exact same story as the “Bambi” motif of a hunter shooting down the mother, but I was much more affected there than in the Disney film. Maybe it was the odd world that Babar lived in, with its royal/imperialist trappings, but Bambi? I dunno, I just never got into that one.
Sign of the times, perhaps.
I don’t know, but both the Littlefoot’s Mama death and the Petrie fake-out had an indelible effect on me as a 4-year-old…
My dad is a lifelong hunter who has shot down a good number of deer in his life. Lets just say that Bambi’s mom getting gunned down hit very close to home lol. The actual movie is not one of my favorites either, but that pivotal moment surly registers on a personal level.
Yeah, I can imagine that being traumatizing if your dad’s a hunter, haha. Like everytime he loads up the gun you go running towards your mom and stand in front screaming “Don’t shoot!” If I was a sportsman I don’t think I’d let my kids watch this lol…
I think it has to do with the age of you guys and how and where you first saw this film. You guys were raised on movies like this being shown on TV through the advent of VHS tapes and Disney channel presentations. However, for me as a kid growing up in the late ’60’s and early “70’s, the presentation of BAMBI and its themes were a big and bold as the 70mm screen that is weas blasted on in the theatre of my youth. BAMBI, like all of Disney’s features, were presented to my generation as an event. You put on your coat and held onto your Grandmothers hand as she lead you down the aisles and chose a seat and marveled at the pictures in the dark as they told their tales. This is the way they were meant to be experienced and I think this really has something to do when it comes to the power of a moment like the death of the young prince’s mother.
It’s like seeing 2001 or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or STAR WARS on a TV screen for the first time. It just doesn’t have the same impact…
Back then you were there only for what was on the screen and sans any outside intrusions that could take the attention away.
I really think you guys are deprived for not seeing these films on the giant theatre screens as I did.
It’s a mixture. Videos were just coming in, but Disney was still guarding its catalog jealously. Titles would come out on VHS (I’m pretty sure, but not 100%, I first saw Bambi on the small screen) but only after they had a big theatrical re-release. And they’d usually disappear from video after a little bit (an annoying practice Disney still keeps up) – I didn’t see Snow White until its big ’93 re-release, when I was almost 10. So I ended up seeing quite a few on the big screen for the first time, although I think most of the Big 5 I saw on video first.
This is a fascinating piece by JOEL and I’m so glad I’m the only one here that has read Salten’s book. Fascinated by Disney Animation as a kid, studying it in college (along with book and comic book illustration) and a life-long fan of this film, I did as Joel did and sought out the source.
Yes, the differences are there. But, like Nabokov’s LOLITA versus Kubrick’s LOLITA, the changes and additions are necessary to bring the story to the screen. What is important is that the tone of the novel transfers to film quite well and, although every parallel is not addressed, the essence of nature and natures hand on life is there for us all to see. Yes, there are moments I think Disney falters in this film (the “love bug” moments that Joel brings up are one of a few that really annoy me-too cartoony), but they are minor in comparison to the overall awe you are left in from the beauty and grace of this film.
As for the additions of characters for Bambi to converse with and learn from? Well, I think Disney was right to break the logic slightly. Say what you want about the Old Owl or Flower and other busy-bodies that populate Bambi’s hometown, but THUMPER is a character of genius. Like the main character, Thumper exudes a familiarity we all know in the miscieviousness of children and it’s this innocence, that will eventually be scarred and corrupted, that we immediately connect with. This is important because without Thumper, we feel a distance between us and the film. We would look at Bambi as a series of beautiful imagery and nothing more. With Thumper at Bambi’s side, we are yanked in and forced to believe that what we are seeing is the real deal.
The ice “skating” sequence is one of such precise, intricate and delicate beauty that it could reduce a person to tears. It is a perfect combination of images, music and character and it rings true to basest elements of friendship. It’s about shared experiences that shape a life forever after and, for the viewer, rings a chord of familiarity that was experienced in our own lives not too long ago. Frankly, this sequence has never failed to make me cry from shere joy of the beauty of it all.
As for the animation, this is where the perfection of natural movement is displayed by the Disney artists and, to this day, has never been matched. The painstaking attention to detail brings a fluidity to the characters that is absolutely uncanny in its dead-on portrayal of animals walking and prancing and running and jumping. Disney’s NINE OLD MEN studied there live models religiously and the study paid off in droves as the movement in this film is as close to a rival for PINOCCHIO if there ever was one. Where Disney scores better than PINOCCHIO is that his subjects are real animals and at no time are we ever thinking we’re watching cartoons. The moment in the beginning of the film that sees the young prince stand and walk for the first time is a masterpiece of motion detail that is astonishing and the legs jumble in discovery of sure footing
I recently purchased the BLU RAY of BAMBI and was struck all over again by its precision and majesty. Say what you want about the films that come after BAMBI (this was the last of the BIG FIVE early features), but along with SNOW WHITE, PINOCCHIO, FANTASIA and DUMBO, Disney showed us that perfection was not impossible.
BAMBI is an unforgettable classic for a reason…
It is a great, GREAT film.
Dennis great comment and Joel wonderful review. I really love this film and one of my favorite Disney pictures. I showed this to my daughter a year ago and was reminded how terrifying the “kill” scene is and the forest fire. I got chills myself and no wonder my daughter buried her head in my chest. I too think that the Thumper character allows the audience to settle in and come to grips with the film. I also do like how there are juvenile or cartoonish elements, but more serious elements for older ages. It’s a timeless film.
That’s a tremendous comment from you Jon! I couldn’t agree more on every point.
Great comment, Dennis. I agree wholeheartedly. I would actually put Bambi above Pinocchio–better pacing, I think, more beautiful animation, and a more intoxicating and enveloping atmosphere.
I meant to say in my first sentence that “I’m glad to see im NOT the only one here that has read Salten’s book”…
Typos on BLACKBERRY again…
I need an IPAD….
Great study, Joel.
I think the animation most powerfully captures the range of personal gentleness and public harshness that humans, too, have to somehow reconcile. As such it’s a remarkable labor of love, something we tend not to credit the Disney Corporation with.
“the range of personal gentleness and public harshness”. Well-put. I think it makes an interesting contrast with The Lion King, here the “prince” title is basically honorary, whereas there the lions seem to have real power over the other animals. Also, there’s nobody over them whereas here they’re all at the mercy of Man. As such, Bambi has a sense of fatalism and balance I think better represents the reality of human (as well as animal) existence – while I don’t think a kids’ film need have moral instruction, Bambi’s is the one I’d more fully trust (although it ain’t much for family values, haha).
I agree somewhat that not seeing this theatrically has an effect. VHS can be a diminished experience, but on its own it can’t account for the complete lack of enthusiasm I’ve always felt for this film. There’s countless things I only saw on television for years as a kid, Star Wars among them– it wasn’t until 1997 that I saw those movies on a big screen, but I think we all know my interest in those movies predates that by a wee little bit, yes? For a better example, because they’re comparable in theme, E.T. is something I’ve only ever seen on the television screen, just like Bambi, and from a comparable age. Maybe it’s just the fact that the rest of my childhood entertainment was filled with aliens, dinosaurs, robots and other things like that, and I was able to form an emotional bond with them easier than mere talking animals. By and large, it’s a generational thing, more than a difference in the mediums (although that plays into the generational angle).
In a way though, it’s surprising since you’re such a big Heaven’s Gate fan – Bambi is visually the richest of the early Disneys, and certainly the most pictorial (although it’s got some great kinetic moments like when all the deer shoot their head up in response to the approach of Man – the hunting sequences are almost Eisensteinian, although the obvious connection is to a director not usually celebrated for montage: Renoir; I’d say I wonder if the animators watched Rules of the Game while creating the final hunt, but I don’t think the film was widely available abroad and know it disappeared for quite a while during and after the war, so probably not.)
Well, I’m not a big fan of Disney to begin with, and not really the early Disneys much at all, so it could be the most pictorial thing in the world, but I’m just not going to be emotionally invested. Again, it’s a generational thing (we all know my animation preferences, and they’ve been in root for a good while, even though at the age I’d be in the target-range for Disney those preferences would’ve been mostly unconscious, probably).
This is really an accomplished, commanding piece of writing in an area that you’ve always exhibited marked expertise in consideration of. I know this was Disney favorite film, and it’s usually regarded as one of the four essential masterpieces (With SNOW WHITE, PINOCCHIO and FANTASIA) But concentrating on the source material and the story you offer up the basis for why the film has resonated on an emotional level with so many. Kudos to you on your fascinating discussion of allegory and theme here, and of the film’s arresting imagery.
Thank you, Sam. Have you read Bambi, and if so what are your thoughts? It seems like one you might have encountered as an English teacher over the years…
Sad to say Joel, and it’s really inexplicable, but I never sat down to read Salten’s book, even having completed two undergrad courses in children’s literature and teaching the lower grades for about a dozen years. I was at least able to connect to Kenneth Grahame posts with having read the source material, but hopefully I can reverse that with Salten’s book. But your examination here was excellent, as an alternate route!
Bambi is probably my pick for greatest animated film of all time (it only competes with My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away for that honor, and I change my mind on which is greatest regularly). Truly a profound masterpiece, not only of animation, but of cinema.
I think Bambi, like certain other movies–E.T. comes to mind–is one of those films that everyone sees repeatedly in childhood and sees advertised so often and hears referenced so much, that it loses its magic for most people. Everyone just talks about it so naturally that it loses the reverence we naturally have for other great films. Bambi becomes a Disney character like Mickey Mouse or Tinker Bell, little more than an advertising decal used to sell overpriced products (the same thing has happened to Winnie the Pooh). All anybody remembers is it’s supposed to be cute. In reality, though, if you go back and watch the film with fresh eyes, you’ll find a beautiful, delicately told story that uses images as well as any of the old masters, full of wondrous moments and easy-to-miss little details. There are dark, terrifying sequences and looney, comical sequences, all mixed in with some of the most remarkable animation ever done. It’s a story of the stages of life dramatized through the stages/seasons of the year; a story of discovering the world around you and growing up. It’s themes are universal, but if you mentioned them to the average teenager they’d probably be oblivious that such themes are actually there.
Good essay, Joel. I knew there was a book, but I didn’t know anything about it. Interesting to here the other allegorical details.
Thanks, Stephen. I actually think Bambi is a movie people do talk about and reference a lot, but I’m not sure how often they really revisit it. Of the Big 5, I would speculate that it’s the most overlooked; probably even Dumbo gets watched/talked about more. It just kind of sits there as an icon and is usually brushed aside by Snow White for being first, Fantasia for being more ambitious, and Pinnochio for being probably the most entertaining. But Bambi is pretty much the culmination of this period, and it really shows.