Post by petrolino on Jul 20, 2018 23:42:02 GMT
In 'Dumbo', a stork working for the heavenly postal service delivers a baby elephant to his mother who's performing in a travelling circus in Florida in the Southeastern United States. Young pup Dumbo must quickly learn to fend for himself when his mother is indefinitely caged following a major incident. Dumbo regains some of his confidence through an emerging companionship with rodent Timothy Q. Mouse.
'They Always Pick On Me' - Alice Faye
The animated fantasy 'Dumbo' is based upon a storyline written by Helen Aberson and illustrated by Harold Pearl for the prototype of a novelty toy called "Roll-A-Book". It was originally intended as a short subject film but expanded to feature length, finally clocking in just past the hour mark. There are several songs set to simple, elegant choreography that showcases the dexterity of one of the world's largest land mammals, the elephant. One of the film's most endearing features is its size-weight ratio plays, like the sight of a skinny old stork postman struggling to deliver a baby elephant, or a huffing, puffing steam engine struggling to climb mountain railway tracks.
"Dumbo was for Disney what The Old Man and the Sea was for Hemingway: a simple but powerful story that's brilliantly rendered and succeeds precisely because it is so simple, archetypal, and true."
- James Plath, Movie Metropolis
"Though an animators’ strike (profiled in the January/February 2013 issue of Celebrations) would shutter Disney Studios for more than a month in the spring of 1941, work on 'Dumbo' was completed mere days before the strike occurred, so the film was not affected. Like 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', watercolor paint was used to create the backgrounds. Though the technique was regularly used in Disney cartoon shorts, 'Dumbo' and 'Snow White' are the only two classic Disney features to use the technique. (Lilo & Stitch, released in 2002, also made use of watercolor backgrounds, as well as oil paint and gouache.)"
- Tim Foster, Celebrations
'Dumbo'
'Dumbo' by Dennis Cornetta
The narrative in 'Dumbo' captures the ignorance of circus traders and projects the arrogance of trophy hunters while exposing the pack mentality of common garden bullies. There's some sly social commentary thrown in and it works quite well as a study of growing pains. The preachiness and sermonising is a touch heavy-handed, leading to a dubious moral conclusion in which triumph leads to privelege and exclusivity, but have you ever seen an elephant fly?
"The characters, Betty Boop and Popeye continue to shine after 80 years, but the man behind them has been largely in their shadows. Max Fleischer was one the the three major animation pioneers of the 20th Century, preceding Walt Disney. Fleischer’s Out of the Inkwell series (1919-1927) was a landmark in its interactive use of animation and the real world. This influenced Disney in his first commercial success, The Alice Comedies (1923-1927), which reversed Fleischer’s concept by placing a live action girl into a cartoon environment. As in all pioneering enterprises, things had to be invented to make the product possible. And Max was largely an inventor of processes and mechanisms that advanced the commercial production and appreciation of animated cartoons."
- Jerry Beck, Animation Scoop
"When most people are asked to think of cartoon history icons, they’ll most likely conjure up Walt Disney & Mickey Mouse—or, if their memories are a bit shorter, perhaps Warner Brothers & Bugs Bunny. This is not to imply that the work of the final culprits, Max Fleischer and his famous jazz-baby Betty Boop, have gone forgotten, but rather that, like Gimbles, Betamax, and Sega, their limelight was dimmed and finally snuffed out with Fleischer Studios’ abrupt acquisition by Paramount in 1942. Meanwhile, Disney and Warner Brothers went on to dominate the big screen and television, respectively, entrenching themselves firmly in the post-war American consciousness.
The Jazz Age, however, sported different values than, say, Warner Brothers’ perpetual celebration of mischief or Disney’s later foray into “high art”—traits which their music reflected. The Jazz Age often valued absurdity for the sake of it, and therefore drew influence from the surrealist shapes and mannerisms of another contemporary art movement: expressionism. In both its visual form and its music form, expressionism was intended as a means to provoke intense feelings by distorting reality. It was especially used to provoke feelings of horror, lust, despair, and madness. Tim Burton and Danny Elfman would later utilize the same tools in their own endeavors.
Of course, Max Fleischer, not wishing to overly-perturb his audiences, strove to entertain them first and foremost in the 6-8 minutes he was allotted. So, in good humor (and an artistic flair for juxtaposition), he resolved that while exploring the more surrealistic side of his studio’s art, his cartoons’ music would reflect a more uplifting tone, befitting what one would expect from the still novel “moving comic strip.” For this, he began with 1920s pop tunes, but eventually moved on to the most modern genres of his day. Scat-infused Jazz and Swing—precursors to the “Big Band” era—were the types of music being heard in popular nightclubs of the time, i.e. the same music that would accompany a raucous night of dancing, boozing, and schmoozing). The loose and freewheeling medleys were usually led by prominent bandleaders, many of whom attained national acclaim by garnering favorable reviews the from newspaper & magazine editors who frequented their clubs. The most ostentatious and celebrated of these bandleaders was Cab Calloway."
The Jazz Age, however, sported different values than, say, Warner Brothers’ perpetual celebration of mischief or Disney’s later foray into “high art”—traits which their music reflected. The Jazz Age often valued absurdity for the sake of it, and therefore drew influence from the surrealist shapes and mannerisms of another contemporary art movement: expressionism. In both its visual form and its music form, expressionism was intended as a means to provoke intense feelings by distorting reality. It was especially used to provoke feelings of horror, lust, despair, and madness. Tim Burton and Danny Elfman would later utilize the same tools in their own endeavors.
Of course, Max Fleischer, not wishing to overly-perturb his audiences, strove to entertain them first and foremost in the 6-8 minutes he was allotted. So, in good humor (and an artistic flair for juxtaposition), he resolved that while exploring the more surrealistic side of his studio’s art, his cartoons’ music would reflect a more uplifting tone, befitting what one would expect from the still novel “moving comic strip.” For this, he began with 1920s pop tunes, but eventually moved on to the most modern genres of his day. Scat-infused Jazz and Swing—precursors to the “Big Band” era—were the types of music being heard in popular nightclubs of the time, i.e. the same music that would accompany a raucous night of dancing, boozing, and schmoozing). The loose and freewheeling medleys were usually led by prominent bandleaders, many of whom attained national acclaim by garnering favorable reviews the from newspaper & magazine editors who frequented their clubs. The most ostentatious and celebrated of these bandleaders was Cab Calloway."
- Steve Nagel, Crash Chords
'Don't Pick On Me' - The Muffs
A sequence in 'Dumbo' featuring a pack of crows draws a degree of inspiration from the cartoon 'Minnie The Moocher' (1932) which has also inspired fantasy filmmakers Tim Burton, John Landis, Richard Elfman and Matthew Bright. Former Disney animator Tim Burton is currently preparing a live-action version of 'Dumbo' scheduled for release in March, 2019. In 2017, the original 'Dumbo' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
