Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Boy, was this one a pleasant surprise! I always remembered thinking Sleeping Beauty was one of the most boring of the early Disney movies, that the whole prince and princess falling in love fairy tale shtick was just too tired. Indeed, so did many audiences at the time, it seems, as Sleeping Beauty was a financial and critical disappointment that led Disney to stop producing features based on fairy tales for thirty years. Imagine my surprise then, when I not only enjoyed this movie but, actually, really, really enjoyed it!Sleeping Beauty is not a perfect film by any means and the wear and tear in the familiar fairy tale format was certainly becoming apparent, but a sea of wonderful imagery, combined with beautiful music and a surprisingly captivating plot makes it an enjoyable and unforgettable experience.

Artistically, the film is stunning – while the animation is generally simplistic and careful, rather than energetic or outlandish, it is still very well done and, when the scene calls for it, the animation can become very big and elaborate with an impressive level of creativity and a fantastic level of detail. There are so many nice little touches, one of the most prominent being the sparkles (I guess it’s supposed to be fairy dust or something?) that surround the fairies’ wands, constantly leaving a sparkling trail wherever they move them; as we’ve seen before in films like Pinocchio, it’s these little details in the animation that really give the film a sense of life and heart. The character designs are a bit hit and miss, on the one hand Disney try something different with the designs here, making them more sharp and angular in comparison to their more rounded designs in the past; it’s nice to see them do something new and with some characters it works, particularly Maleficent, whose design is so great and iconic there’s not really much I need to say about it and to a lesser extent, the other fairies. However, other designs either go too far or not far enough – Aurora looks a little too sharp and jagged to me, while Prince Philip looks all too similar to the princes from Cinderella and especially Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; in fact, Philip’s father Hubert has pretty much an identical design to Prince Charming’s Father, showing that Disney unfortunately didn’t go all the way with this new style, leaving some characters looking a little out of a place in the film.

Fortunately, the backgrounds are absolutely breathtaking and the film blends a number of different artistic styles effectively, in order to create different settings: the castle has an elaborate and detailed design, with loads of different patterns, colours and interesting uses of light and shading in order to create a place with a sense of size, history and community. There is very little empty space, almost every part of the frame has something to look at, from detailed rugs and banners to huge crowd shots, with an impressively large amount of background characters populating the screen. In comparison, the forest has a lot of bold, solid colours, interesting shapes and wide open space. Maleficent’s castle is very dark and ornate, with everything tinged with an otherworldy green, a colour strongly associated with Maleficent and her character; unlike the castle of Aurora’s parents, which is teeming with life and populated with many props and characters, this one feels empty, worn out and dead.

What we need is a great big melting pot

The general artistry of the film really is spectacular; the use of colour in particularly is always incredibly striking, especially when it comes to the aforementioned otherworldly greens associated with Maleficent. One of the most impressive sequences occurs in the climax, as Philip races to escape from Maleficent and reach Aurora; the energy and pacing of the scene is so high and fast, there is so much going on at once and it never slows down. The animation of the battle scenes between Philip, Maleficent and her minions are fantastic and reminded me of Jason and the Argonauts, which would be released five years later and very possibly took inspiration from Sleeping Beauty – the way Philip swings his sword back and forth as Dragon Maleficent snaps at him is especially reminiscent of Jason’s battle with the Hydra, it’s really great animation. The creativity present throughout the sequence is just so fantastic, at one point Maleficent rushes to get ahead of Philip, but instead of simply flying after him or rising up in front of him, she transforms into a Catherine Wheel-like ball of energy, sparkling and spitting like a firework as she whirls through the sky and explodes in a burst of bright, green fire which forms back into her original appearance. The level of imagination and effort put into this scene is truly admirable, the animators really put thought into how visually striking and powerful they could make each moment and never settle for the bare minimum, always putting in the maximum amount of thought and effort into every moment; I was truly blown away by these spectacular visuals and the truly epic scale and scope of the film.

Conversely, the story is nothing we haven’t seen already, a beautiful young princess hides away in a cottage in the middle of a forest to escape the wrath of an evil woman who wants to kill her for an incredibly petty reason, the princess is protected by a group of fantasy beings before she is tricked and put into a deep sleep by the villain before finally being awoken by a kiss from a dashing prince and living happily ever after. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s Snow White pretty much note for note, with a little bit of Cinderellathrown in for good measure, pretty much nothing original whatsoever. Despite this, somehow the story of Sleeping Beauty not only works, but in my opinion, outdoes bothSnow White and Cinderella quite comfortably; this is partially because the film chooses not to focus on the tired fairy tale of a princess and a prince meeting and falling in love and more on the struggles and feelings of the fairies who have taken Aurora in, the anxiety and cautious excitement of the King and his friend and fellow King, Hubert, who await her return and the schemes of Maleficent, who constantly searches for Aurora. By seeing the admittedly generic story from the perspectives of these side characters, the film manages to have some semblance of a fresh take on the traditional fairy tale and keeps things pretty interesting all the way through. The plot is clichéd to be sure and the film is definitely stronger stylistically and artistically than it is in its narrative, but the story works well enough to sustain the film and works in tandem with the amazing visuals to keep you interested all the way through – though the general foundation of the plot has become pretty tedious by this point, Sleeping Beauty never really has a dull moment.

‘Are you pondering what I’m pondering?’

‘I think so Philip, but I don’t know how to play the banjo’

The characters are mostly pretty dull, though – Aurora is another typical stereotype of the passive, sweet princess who lacks any drive or personality, she is pretty much identical to Snow White and Cinderella and really has no unique characteristics. Thankfully, as I said, she’s not really the focus of the movie and is actually not really in it very much at all; she doesn’t appear for the first quarter of the film, then appears sporadically for a while until she falls asleep, which she remains for the last third or so. Though having your apparent protagonist be mostly absent can be seen as a failure, compared to having the film centre around Aurora, a character type that had already been greatly overused by Disney, I think pushing her out of the limelight is the lesser of two evils. Prince Philip is also pretty generic, just as Aurora resembles Snow White and Cinderella, so does Philip resemble their counterparts, the two nameless Princes; though to be fair, Philip at least gets a name, more than a couple of lines of dialogue and a decent amount of screen time. He is relatively active and the climax focuses around his escape from Maleficent’s castle in order to awaken Aurora; though he is greatly assisted by the fairies, who pretty much do all the work for him, he is at least a prominent figure who actually appears in more than two scenes. Philip is much more important and developed than the Princes of Snow Whiteand Cinderella, but really, that isn’t saying much.

Philip’s father Hubert is also a clone of Prince Charming’s father from Cinderella, both in design and personality – they are both bumbling, but well-intentioned Kings who want their son to settle down and marry and are rather pushy about it, with little regard for their son’s feelings and both act as comic relief. Hubert is a little more likeable and fun to watch though and he at least comes around and decides to let his son choose who he wants to marry; he can also be pretty funny, such as when he uses a fish as a sword, a harmless but not too funny joke, only to then put it away in his belt like he’s sheathing an actual sword, which for some reason is so much funnier to me. He’s not hugely entertaining, but his scenes with Aurora’s father are nice enough. The most prominent characters are the fairies, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather and the film spends a great deal of time with them; they are a little goofy, but harmless enough and they have a fun dynamic – Flora is responsible but a little bossy, Fauna is kind but absent-minded, Merryweather is a little irritable and argumentative, but has a good heart. They work well together as a group and never get too silly or slapstick with their humour, things always remain calm and grounded, which suits the tone of the film well; there’s nothing wrong with over-the-top, physical humour, but too often Disney inserts it where it doesn’t belong, so it’s nice to see they didn’t try to force it in here.

LIGHTNING BOLT! LIGHTNING BOLT! LIGHTNING BOLT! SLEEP!

Of course the best character in the film is Maleficent, frequently lauded as one of Disney’s greatest villains and rightly so, she is intimidating, powerful, threatening and totally badass. Beyond her design, which is so wonderfully dark and villainous, her personality is effectively a mix of a bunch of different kinds of villain – she can be calm and refined, but also loud and bombastic, she can be charming and witty, but also cruel and terrifying; her voice constantly switches from cold and slow to loud and angry, conveying the sudden shifts in her personality very effectively. She is obviously inspired by the Evil Queen fromSnow White, you can see that her design comes from the same basic foundation and like the Evil Queen, she is so ridiculously evil for such a petty reason (She wants to kill Aurora because she didn’t get invited to her birthday, come on) that you can’t help but find her a blast. Unlike Lady Tremaine however, who actually shares Maleficent’s voice actor and takes similar inspiration from the Evil Queen, but waters her personality down, Maleficent is fun because she takes the Evil Queen’s initial attitude and ramps it up even further, becoming so insanely and inherently villainous that she refers to herself as ‘the mistress of all evil’ and commands ‘all the powers of hell’, summoning black thorns, green fire and transforming into an enormous dragon. Maleficent is the very incarnation of evil; though this and her extremely weak motivation hardly make for a complex and multi-faceted antagonist, they serve the purpose of a fairy tale villain appropriately – she doesn’t need to be realistic or layered, she’s just evil. She doesn’t need a sympathetic back story or a reasonable motivation or a hint of any good qualities, you enjoy watching her be evil so much that you don’t want her to be anything else, least of all a tragic, justified anti-hero played by Angelina Jolie but whatever that’s a discussion for another time. (Seriously though, what are they thinking?)

The music is fantastic, though that’s pretty much a given considering that most of it is based on Tchaikovsky’s ballet of the same name; while Disney’s compositions are understandably not quite as complex or grandiose as Tchaikovsky’s, they are still a joy to listen to and really make it feel like you’re watching a ballet, at times – the scene where the fairies shrink down into bright balls of colour and fly across the lake to their cottage is one of the best examples. This draws forth comparisons with Fantasia and, in my opinion, the animated ballet style of Sleeping Beauty captures the feeling and spirit of Fantasiabetter than any of the other musical themed package films which so desperately struggled to recreate that sense of magic. The only problem with the music is when it is made into songs, “Once Upon a Dream” is a beautiful piece of music and matches the style of Tchaikovsky’s original composition very well, but the generic and formulaic lyrics fail to truly match its beauty. They reek of another attempt to recapture the magic of “When You Wish Upon A Star”, an attempt we have already seen in Cinderella with “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”; again, “Once Upon a Dream” throws out a lot of empty words about dreams, love, wishes and belief that have no real meaning and completely fail to disguise the lazy and manipulative rehashing of a familiar song. Setting lyrics to pre-existing music is always a difficult task, but that doesn’t mean Disney should be excused for failing; they should have either used Tchaikovsky’s music as it was or written their own music and lyrics, they can’t have it both ways. Still, this doesn’t ruin the music or anything, it’s just a shame that Disney felt the need to taint such wonderful classical pieces with schmaltzy, hollow words.

It aint’ easy being green

Sleeping Beauty is a stylistic masterpiece, the artistry of the film is about as impressive as anything we’ve seen from Disney so far, even coming close to the level of Fantasia with its beautiful, detailed backgrounds, mesmerising use of colour and high level of creativity and imagination. The music is wonderful, transposing and repurposing Tchaivoksy’s score almost flawlessly, despite some hiccups in regards to the added lyrics. Maleficent is a powerful and unforgettable villain whose relatively two-dimensional character never stops her from being fun to watch and the animators clearly had a great time designing and animating her, because there is so much joy and creativity put into her character. Unfortunately, while it would be unfair to call the film all style and no substance, the story and characters are unfortunately a little lacking; while the story does its best and manages to be much more interesting than it really has any right to be, it is still rooted in a fundamentally tired and boring concept. Though the equally boring heroes are thankfully kept out of the limelight, it can leave the film feeling a little aimless as it seems unsure who it wants its protagonist to be and none of the side characters are really strong enough to fill the role. Despite these problems, Sleeping Beauty is a film of such strong creativity and gorgeous visuals that it ultimately comes together as a legitimately great film; it’s a real shame that a film as detailed and imaginative as this initially did so poorly, while something as lazy and empty of any originality as Cinderella was so successful. Sleeping Beauty is a real triumph for Disney and, while it still doesn’t quite reach the level of Bambi or Fantasia, it can thankfully be said that, for the first time in years, Disney cast off stagnation and took another step forward.

Other Thoughts

Okay, so the scene where some animals dress an owl up like Prince Philip to dance with Aurora is just that scene from Snow White where Dumbo dresses up like a normal sized guy to dance with Snow White.