Week 4: Dumbo (1941)

Someday soon we will get out of this early era of Disney films, where my leading paragraphs describe how long it has been since I have seen (blank), but we're not quite there yet. And I promise, there are a great many Disney films that I have watched with regularity over the years. I would also add that growing up my mom only kept our house stocked with Disney movies she liked (with good reason - we were known to watch the same movie for weeks at a time... until it disappeared under mysterious circumstances) and that many of the early animated features were not among that crowd.

In that vein, Dumbo is the first Disney movie that I have watched so far that was not nearly as dark as I had remembered it. It's actually a rather heartwarming film and maybe the first to really capture the essence of what Disney films were to one day become. I mean, who doesn't get a little choked up by the reunion between Dumbo and his mom, who can only comfort him with her trunk? To me, this is what Disney movies are all about.

Did you know Dumbo's run-time is only a short 64 minutes? Me neither. As a kid, this movie somehow seemed so much longer. But really the movie follows a rather simple narrative and isn't comprised of all that many scenes. Similarly, the animation is far more cartoon-y and straightforward than that of its predecessors, especially following Fantasia, which though dark and frightening was nothing short of an amazing feat in animation given its age.

Having observed the above factors, I had to check in with my close consultant along this journey, Wikipedia. It turns out that in the wake of back-to-back box office flops (Pinocchio and Fantasia) affected by war in Europe, the studio was in bad financial shape, prompting Walt Disney to cut back the budgets of upcoming films. Hence, the notable shift in story and animation. On the plus side, this gave animators an opportunity to focus on characters and acting, never a bad thing.

The brevity of the story is less surprising, though, when one considers that Dumbo was based on a short storybook consisting of only eight images. Reasonably so, the film was originally intended to be a short, before Walt realized that there was more than enough material to create something full-length. So, no it's not the longest animated film in the canon, but it's a story with heart.

I might add that during my first visit to the Tufts University campus as a junior in high school, I was told that Jumbo (Tufts' mascot) served as the basis for Dumbo. Whether this is true or not, it endeared me a little more to the film and school, which for those of you who know me, is now my alma mater.

Moving back to my experience of the film itself, I must not have paid a great deal of attention to the plot as a kid, because everything seemed new to me. About halfway through the film it actually got to the point where I was convinced that I had only ever imagined Dumbo flying around a circus tent. In retrospect, this was crazy, because I've been on the Dumbo ride at DisneyWorld. The one where you sit inside a FLYING elephant. I digress.

Apparently, the only moment in the film that really made any sort of lasting impression on me (aside from Dumbo being cradled in his mother's trunk) was seeing Dumbo fly around a circus tent. So, I foolishly assumed that the whole movie was about his ability to fly, when he probably only flies for a grand total of about thirty seconds. My bad. Even worse was that I thought the film was about Dumbo coming of age and growing up. He doesn't. At the end, he's still pretty much a baby. To top it off, I was certain Dumbo could talk, but alas, no.

Overall, the plot is more straightforward than most Disney movies and has comparatively less external conflict. That is to say that there's not exactly a villain. Sure, there are antagonists, but they're imagined in a fairly realistic light. The other elephants are judgmental of Dumbo and make fun of him, but they don't work overtime to sabotage him. His ears do that on their own. So, in many ways, the film is about Dumbo overcoming an internal conflict, which feels very modern. Society is there only to remind him of his own abnormality.

Wrapping up, I can't help but wonder if it was the clowns that really put me off of this movie as a kid, because clowns are terrifying! Even if I had a clown mirror in my room for most of my youth. Somehow I overlooked the fact that it was clown, because years later I was horrified when my mom told me I owned clown paraphernalia. Plus, there was more child drunkeness in this film. Why?! And can we talk about how Dumbo's drunken adventure leads him to discover his hidden skill: flying? Seems a bit odd to me. Different times, I suppose.

Next week we arrive at Bambi, which I mistakenly said was the fourth animated classic in my Pinocchio blog, but remember that originally it was to have been the second, making the fact that it became the fifth pretty interesting. Wikipedia will surely have something exciting to tell next week.