Ciné-Miroir

Walt Disney was strongly discouraged from making his second major film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but this was to misunderstand the creator of Mickey Mouse: just try to stop him from doing something, and he’ll immediately make it. When he was twenty, some good friends had cried “daredevil” to him when he wanted to set up on his own; he didn’t listen to them, and he was right, for ten years later, he was making his famous Mickeys, which, far from having the short-lived life predicted for them, conquered a worldwide audience that has only grown in popularity.

When he talked about making color films, he was again told that it was a risky and costly venture, and that he’d better refrain. He responded by making The Three Little Pigs, whose fortunes are well known. Now, after three years’ work, he has brought us Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a magnificent success.

In creating this marvelous fairy tale, Walt Disney remained as faithful as possible to Grimm’s famous tale; however, he showed great taste in toning down the terrifying elements found in the original story. In his work, Princess Snow White does not endure all the tortures inflicted on her by her abominable stepmother. She is not choked half to death by the vixen, and the terrible poison comb found in the fairy tale has been removed; it does not penetrate her magnificent ebony hair. Only one of the Evil Queen’s misdeeds remains: she persuades the unfortunate Snow White to bite the enchanted apple that will plunge her into eternal sleep.

In the fairy tale, the death of the Evil Queen is followed by great rejoicing in honor of the princess’ wedding. This cruelty, which might seem out of harmony with Snow White’s beautiful character, does not appear in the film. The princess does not witness the Queen’s death, which is much quicker. Chased up the mountain by the seven dwarfs, the wicked old woman falls into a precipice. Similar changes are common in Walt Disney productions inspired by legends. In the true story of the Three Little Pigs, the wolf eats the first two and boils the third; in the Disney film, the little pigs escape and the wolf is humorously punished. Always, the great cartoon director shows more kindness and humanity than the storyteller – he wants the audience to take away a smiling impression of his films, and he’s right. We have no idea how much trouble Walt Disney goes to, how much hard work he puts into making his films. In Hollywood, we like to think of Walt Disney’s studios as the ideal studio, a studio where all the stars are easy to live with. You have to listen to a journalist who has seen Walt Disney at work to understand the extraordinary effort he has put in.

Anyone who believes that Walt Disney’s staff are working without a hitch need only ask the animators. These animators are the young people who draw the series of images in rapid succession that show Snow White living the diverse adventures that have endeared her to children the world over, from the age of eight to eighty.

The animators claim that their unreal characters pose as many problems as any human actor in their dealings with their producer, director, dresser and partners.

The animators who drew the dwarfs in Walt Disney’s first major motion picture, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, found it extremely difficult, as the seven little men were entirely new characters who had to be created from scratch, without any documentation from previous films. The creation of Dopey, in particular, was fraught with difficulties. Dopey may be the least ingenious and the least lively of the seven companions, but he’s by no means different, and we had to create a personality for him that was a little crude yet charming. His clothes were another cause for concern. The script indicates that Dopey’s clothes are always infinitely too big for him, so the animators and their assistants drew him some that were trailing behind him, and the assistant draftsmen were tasked with shrinking them until they reached sufficient dimensions.

There were other difficulties, such as Grumpy’s nose, which is the most characteristic feature of the dwarf’s figure, but it was often over-dimensioned during production, and the swelling had to be reduced to just the right proportions, which was no easy task. As for Doc’s glasses, they often fell too low on his nose, causing real drama. In fact, the director could go as crazy as he would in any studio. “Doc never quite knows what to do with his hands,” said one of the designers, “but he’s always waving them around. We had to make sure he didn’t exaggerate his tic, because the hands of the most nervous of our heroes could perhaps end up exasperating the audience. As for Sleepy, we had a hard time translating his reactions to certain facts without making him lose his naturally sleepy air. There was a time when he seemed far too awake when an unforeseen event occurred, and we had to work hard to get him to strike the right balance. For Sneezy, it was his hay fever that nearly drove us mad. It was obviously very cruel for him, but also devilishly difficult for us to make him look like he had a cold throughout the film! Merry, on the other hand, is the only one of the seven dwarfs with bushy white eyebrows, and those eyebrows caused us the most trouble, though we couldn’t figure out why. We were drawing, and when we projected, we noticed that his eyebrows were constantly moving. We had the hardest time in the world getting them to move in a plausible way. But, in spite of all these difficulties, the pleasure our seven dwarfs gave us when we saw the finished film more than made up for our troubles.”

As can be seen from these confidences, the effort expended by Walt Disney Studios in adapting Grimm’s old fairy tale for the screen was considerable, not only because of the length of the film, but also because of the processes that had to be invented to produce it. Indeed, one of the reasons for the huge success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the special animation effects. At Disney Studios, a special animation department was created two years ago, comprising 25 artists, whose considerable role is to animate rain, a shadow, the sparkle of a diamond, boiling water and so on. In Snow White, they even go so far as to show us the breath of wind! Months were spent on testing, creating effects that had never been attempted before in the field of cartooning, and above all had to look real. In Snow White, the most difficult scene to realize was the transformation of the Evil Queen into an old hag, during the composition and absorption of the magic potion. The beverage is seen bubbling away in the cauldron.