A review of PBS's “Walt Disney” movie

“We're not trying to entertain the critics … I'll take my chances with the public.”

– Walter Elias Disney

It's not often that you see art and commerce combined into one person. For whatever reason, most artists are lousy businessmen, and never really get the hang of the game of business. But Walter Elias Disney was an exception to this rule. He was a brilliant artist and a brilliant businessman. And by “art,” I don't just mean the visual arts, although Walt Disney had some helpful experience in hand-drawn animations that would be useful to him later on. All of movie-making is an art, it would seem, and Walt Disney excelled at this art. Although he started out drawing some of the animations himself, he quickly realized that there were others around him who were much better at this than he was, and he made sure to hire them. But his real talent was for directing, and he made one movie after another from very early on in his adulthood.

Walt Disney's brother Roy: The company's secret weapon

But his company would never have gotten off the ground, if it had not been for his brother Roy. Walt's brother Roy Disney was the company's secret weapon, because he had the head for many parts of the business that Walt didn't like to focus on. Walt was a creative person, while Roy was a down-to-earth businessman. Before the two of them co-founded the “Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio,” Roy had been selling vacuum cleaners for a living. He had urged his brother Walt to find a similarly sensible job – one that actually paid. Walt would eventually talk him into helping him to found the company; but when Roy joined up, Roy would provide a more sensible approach that his brother didn't always have (although Walt was practical in his own way, I should nonetheless make clear). While Walt could get almost carried away at times in the process of making a movie, Roy would often give him needed reminders about cutting costs and staying within their large (but still limited) budgets. When Walt was sometimes forced to go over-budget anyway, Roy was the one who handled the logistics of borrowing more money to pay for it, and also assuring their current creditors that they would be handsomely paid later on. Sometimes, the company failed to recover its production costs; but as time went on, the company would more than repay its creditors, and eventually end up with money to burn. Walt would later rename the company to the “Walt Disney Studio,” without even consulting with his brother Roy. This is one of the few genuine criticisms that this documentary hurls at Walt Disney. Many of the others would seem to be not so legitimate, as I will discuss in my next paragraph.

Roy Disney, Walt's brother and business partner

Comments on their coverage of “Song of the South” (and its alleged “racism”)

The documentary has a number of sympathetic things about Walt Disney himself, so their coverage is not entirely critical of him. Nonetheless, they do hurl a number of criticisms at him before their documentary concludes after nearly four hours. For example, they argue that the Americana that he presented was often “racist” and “sexist,” and criticize his film “Song of the South” in particular. For those who don't know, “Song of the South” dramatizes African American folklore in the Reconstruction period (read: the 1870's). Some – including the head of the NAACP at that time – actually criticized this movie for giving a “glorified” depiction of slavery, as though the movie had been set in the “slavery” days. It was not. Rather, it was set after the American Civil War, after slavery had already been abolished. The movie shows a clip of a white woman telling an elderly black gentleman (namely, Uncle Remus) not to see her young son anymore, giving an unpleasant (and unfortunately accurate) depiction of white-black relations at that time. What the documentary does not mention is that this woman's behavior is not depicted sympathetically in the movie. Later, she relents, and allows her son to see him and hear his beautiful folktales again. One thus gets the feeling that the movie is presenting this alternative behavior as an “ideal” to strive for. This seems to have been somewhat uncommon for a movie at that time. More to the point, it was probably not intended as a claim that this kind of behavior was “common” during the Reconstruction period in the way that it should have been (and it obviously wasn't – something that I discuss in another post).

The Disney theme park ride Splash Mountain, which is based on “Song of the South”

Comments on their coverage of the animators' unions, the worker strikes, and the Red Scare

The documentary's coverage of the business side is not always sympathetic, either. At times, they depict Walt as a greedy capitalist exploiting his workers, and opposing their “unionizing” activities. It is true that he didn't like the animators' unions; but frankly, it would seem that there were some real things not to like about them. They had a disproportionate number of communists, and Walt was right to dislike this aspect of many of the unions. The documentary presents this as a sort of “paranoia” on Walt's part, and thus has little regard for the way that Walt acted during certain parts of the Red Scare. For example, the documentary acts like Walt abandoned a few of those who were unjustly accused of communist infiltration. But Walt probably believed these accusations to be just in their cases, and would thus seem not to have done so knowingly. Thus, such criticisms would seem somewhat overblown to me. They are right to cover the strikes, of course, and to depict certain parts of his conduct towards them as unsympathetic. But to depict him as a “greedy capitalist” would seem somewhat overblown (and even bloated) to me, even if they do not use that particular phrase to describe him in their coverage there. There were undoubtedly unjust persecutions during the Red Scare, of course, but I have a hard time buying the claim that Walt participated in them knowingly.

Walter Elias Disney himself

Despite these harsh criticisms, this documentary does capture the Disney magic well …

Despite these harsh criticisms (which I seldom agree with), this documentary does capture the Disney “magic” that has so often drawn people to him and his films. For example, it captures the family values of his films, the unapologetic corniness that accompanied them, and the unshaking conviction that everything was going to turn out all right in the end. It captures his ability to “make-believe,” and his ability to make his audience make-believe as well – something that had not really happened with the primitive animations that came before him. Before Disney's debut into the cartooning world, the cartoons had been used for “gags” and “laughs,” but not for “serious” dramatic storytelling. They are still used to comedic effect today, of course (and rightfully so), but it was only after “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” came along that people really saw the dramatic potential of the medium. After the apparent death of Snow White on screen, for example, audiences were actually crying in the theaters – something that they had never really done with a “cartoon” before. After Disney's debut, animation was taken seriously as an art medium; and many of the techniques that Disney pioneered are still being used today. For example, companies still use their highest-ranking animators to draw the most critical frames of the movie, and assign virtually all of the shots between them to “in-betweeners,” who have near-exclusive responsibility for certain scenes that are assigned to them personally. This technique is today used with computer animation as well as traditional animation, as it turns out, and we owe its existence to people like Mr. Disney, who pioneered its development at this time.

Poster for “Steamboat Willie,” Walt's first animated cartoon to feature synchronized sound

… and helps to dramatize the construction of Disneyland, one of his greatest achievements

Another area that they cover well is Disneyland, which was the brainchild of Walt himself. Walt wanted to enable people to “walk into” his movies, in a way that could not be done by simply watching a movie screen (although there is much power in this as well). Thus, he created Disneyland for this very purpose, and altered the conception of American vacationing in the process. I should mention that amusement parks before Disneyland were often somewhat seedy affairs, and parents had reason to worry about taking their children there (let alone sending them there unsupervised). But Disneyland was a completely different kind of park from its predecessors. It was the kind of place where people could take their families safely, and experience the magic of great stories. This documentary also contains some fascinating footage of the construction of the park, which helps to dramatize it for a television audience. They also discuss how Walt assumed massive financial risks in making it, and in trying to sell it to the public. There was a real chance that it would be a flop, and would never get off the ground – throwing millions of dollars down the drain in a colossal failure. But the park drew massive crowds on its opening day, and has drawn massive crowds ever since. This is one of the highlights of the documentary for me, and seems to make up for the occasional bias that I noted earlier.

Disneyland aerial view, 1963 (three years before Walt's death)

Walt showed that animation is a serious art, and made true believers out of many …

From the beginning of Walt's professional life, there have been those who have dismissed his films as something less than serious. Because they seldom discuss “serious” issues like politics, war, and poverty (they say), his films thus lack “artistic merit.” But the family values portrayed in his films are timeless, and will thus always be relevant to the human race. In discussing family life, he also tackles some other complicated issues in the process – like dysfunctional families, alcoholic fathers, and (in at least one instance) divorce – problems that have gotten even greater today, as the family continues to disintegrate. He shows that there are unpleasant aspects of family life, but he also shows how these things can be overcome. The undiminished optimism of some of his films (notably “Pollyanna”) has long struck me as a timeless tribute to the human spirit, and its ability to allow people to find joy out of the harshest adversity. Despite my criticisms of some Disney films (on historical and other grounds), I still count myself a true believer in his work, and the “magic” present in so many of his films. Thus, I still greatly enjoyed watching this documentary despite the bias that I noted earlier, and would recommend it to others who are interested in either the man or his work. It is a great introduction to his life, and helps to show the massive impact that he had upon the culture of the twentieth century, inside and outside the United States. He is a worthy subject for a documentary.

Hayley Mills as Pollyanna, singing “America the Beautiful” with others in “Pollyanna” (1960)

“ ♪ When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you ♪

♪ If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do ♪ ”

– “When You Wish Upon a Star” (1940), now used as the theme song of The Walt Disney Company

If you liked this post, you might also like:

A review of Ken Burns’ “Mark Twain” (PBS)

A review of “The Men Who Built America” (History Channel)

A review of PBS's “Edison: The Father of Invention” (American Experience)

A review of PBS's “Henry Ford” (American Experience)

A review of PBS's “Silicon Valley” (American Experience)