DIFF REVIEW: ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’
As a child of the early ’90s, my memories are full of Disney. I remember seeing the animated cartoons on the big screen, which were some of the first movies I saw in theaters, and being absolutely captivated by their stories. After all the movies, I always wanted the soundtrack, backpack and coloring books right away! I never wanted to leave those fairytale worlds. To many of us, Disney has always been an animation giant. However, as the documentary “Waking Sleeping Beauty” shows, the road toward their golden era of animation was long, arduous and bumpy.
In the late ’70s, there was a dividing line within the animator ranks at Disney. You had the classic animators who were about to retire, alongside fresh-faced kids full of bright ideas. Even though they had the talent, Disney was not thought of for their animation. The released an animated movie about every four years. This led to many, many fails at the box office culminating with the flop of “The Black Cauldron.” Throughout this period, there were constant power struggle between the head honchos: Roy Disney, Jeff Katzenberg, Mike Eisner, and Frank Wells. Through disagreements, power shifts, failed experiments and outside forces, an unbelievable chain of events led to some of the greatest and most successful animated movies ever made.
This documentary by Don Hahn is phenomenal. The archive footage and videos used give an insight to the lives and minds from the animators all the way up to Roy Disney. Also, there are a lot of people involved during this era, and Hahn does an amazing job of keeping the names of who we’re seeing or who’s talking on the screen, which makes this movie quite easy to follow. It also shows some hilarious archival caricatures of certain meetings and bosses, that accents the playful nature of the animators.
I was concerned that this documentary might tarnish notions I had about the Disney studios, but it just reinforced the fact that Disney at the end of the day is still just another business. Not everyone is going to agree or get along, but they still have to produce a product.
Now, I am a little biased because I do love Disney, but it was fascinating to see a back story from a company that had such a profound impact on my generation. If you’ve ever had any interest in Disney, seek this film out. (Also, they mention this little start-up company towards the end… called Pixar. Maybe a Pixar documentary could be in the works about changing the face of animation?)
