Having students learning about architecture and stained glass(rose windows) watch The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Repeated viewing of this movie brings about the contradiction this movie has to live by. In it's soul it is a sweet story about finding your place. It tackles themes of struggling with ones inner self, sex, murder, corruption, emotional abuse, and morality. Not things that come to mind when people say Disney but honestly it's because of the other side of the story elements. Comic relief...sidekicks....in and of themselves these elements are not bad. A drama with no humor is too heavy. And movies aimed at all ages need this to hold the interest of children. This movie was brave and acknowledged that animation does not have to be flowers, buttercups, and low brow humor(though it has some pretty low brow humor).
But WHY did the sidekicks have to be gargoyles?
WHY!
It is one of the few Disney movies without real "magic" occurrences and the only way to rationalize(and I use the term loosely) them is that Quasi is in truth quite mad....I mean you can't blame him...and the voice actors do a marvelous job but they really take me out of the film.
It is said in literature the audience needs a willing suspension of disbelief. Of course this is true for film, theater...all things of this type really.
But this really tests my suspension. Why are they there? Disney formula? But this movie isn't high on formula.
Really they're there to lighten things, to appeal to the part of the audience that the dark themes would alienate. I just wish they'd handled it better.
But this also brings about the factor of the latest useless Disney sidekick. Louis the trumpet playing alligator. Being from Louisiana I see what they wanted to do...I know why he's there. But while watching the film and more so while listening to the commentary you just get the feeling that the story would have been fine...maybe even better, without him.
Originally he was also a human turned animal. They threw that out in the intrest of streamlining the plot the and the speed of the film. They mention that alot, speeding up the film...maybe I'll talk about that in another post.
Then they comment about how originally you met Ray, then Louis and it caused Louis's presence to be kind of...unimportant. I think that should have been an indicator to them right there...He was unimportant. He serves no REAL purpose in the movie, he's not even really comic relief, he's just kind of annoying. By the end of the film he's seriously testing my suspension.
The inclusion of a useless character takes time away from ones who could have used more screen-time. Mama Odie and Dr. Facilier were both built up significantly in promotional material and interviews and yet we know nothing about them.. I give the Shadow Man the benefit of the doubt but honestly I seem to be the only person I've talked to who saw him as a worthwhile villain....again something to expand upon later. Maybe this week I'll write a review of the movie/DVD release.
These characters are essential to the plot but get little to no coverage, while Louis gets significant screen coverage and a song(they too get songs but Louis' song is just as useless as he is)
Once again a movie sacrifices substance for sidekicks. Anyone else have an example? These are just two.
Well...just something to think about...
See ya Real soon!
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