Walt Disney From Reader To Storyteller

Walt Disney, best known as a filmmaker, had perhaps a greater skill as a reader. While many would have regarded Felix Salten’s Bambi and Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio as too somber for family-oriented films, he saw their possibilities. He appealed to his audience by selecting but then transforming familiar stories. Many of the tales he chose to adapt to film became some of the most read books in America. Although much published research has addressed his adaptation process—often criticizing his films for being too saccharine or not true to their literary sources—little has been written on him as a reader: what he read, what he liked, his reading experiences and the books that influenced him. This collection of 15 fresh essays and one classic addresses Disney as a reader and shows how his responses to literature fueled his success. Essays discuss the books he read, the ones he adapted to film and the ways in which he demonstrated his narrative ability. Exploring his literary connections to films, nature documentaries, theme park creations and overall creative vision, the contributors provide insight into Walt Disney’s relationships with authors, his animation staff and his audience.

Walt Disney, best known as a filmmaker, had perhaps a greater skill as a reader. While many would have regarded Felix Salten's Bambi and Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio as too somber for family-oriented films, he saw their possibilities. He appealed to his audience by selecting but then transforming familiar stories. Many of the tales he chose to adapt to film became some of the most read books in America. Although much published research has addressed his adaptation process--often criticizing his films for being too saccharine or not true to their literary sources--little has been written on him as a reader: what he read, what he liked, his reading experiences and the books that influenced him. This collection of 15 fresh essays and one classic addresses Disney as a reader and shows how his responses to literature fueled his success. Essays discuss the books he read, the ones he adapted to film and the ways in which he demonstrated his narrative ability. Exploring his literary connections to films, nature documentaries, theme park creations and overall creative vision, the contributors provide insight into Walt Disney's relationships with authors, his animation staff and his audience.

Over the past century, Disney has grown from a small American animation studio into a multipronged global media giant. Today, the company’s annual revenue exceeds the GDP of over 100 countries, and its portfolio has grown to include Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, ABC, and ESPN. With a company so diversified, is it still possible to identify a coherent Disney vision or message? Disney Culture proposes that there is still a unifying Disney ethos, one that can be traced back to the corporate philosophy that Walt Disney himself developed back in the 1920s. Yet, as cultural historian John Wills demonstrates, Disney’s values have also adapted to changing social climates. At the same time, the world of Disney has profoundly shaped how Americans view the world. Wills offers a nuanced take on the corporate ideologies running through animated and live-action Disney movies from Frozen to Fantasia, from Mary Poppins to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But Disney Culture encompasses much more than just movies as it explores the intersections between Disney’s business practices and its cultural mythmaking. Welcome to “the Disney Way.”

This work demonstrates that not everything that Disney touched turned to gold. In its first 100 years, the company had major successes that transformed filmmaking and culture, but it also had its share of unfinished projects, unmet expectations, and box-office misses. Some works failed but nevertheless led to other more stunning and lucrative ones; others shed light on periods when the Disney Company was struggling to establish or re-establish its brand. In addition, many Disney properties, popular in their time but lost to modern audiences, emerge as forgotten gems. By exploring the studio's missteps, this book provides a more complex portrayal of the history of the company than one would gain from a simple recounting of its many hits. With essays by writers from across the globe, it also asserts that what endures or is forgotten varies from person to person, place to place, or generation to generation. What one dismisses, someone else recalls with deep fondness as a magical Disney memory.

Exploring cultural and social differences in defining a children's film / Becky Parry -- Screening innocence in children's film / Debbie Olson -- Screen adaptations of the Wizard of OZ and metafilmicity in children's film / Ryan Bunch -- Children's films and the avant-garde / Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer -- Intertextuality and 'adult' humour in children's film / Sam Summers -- Children's film and the problematic 'happy ending' / Noel Brown -- The cop and the kid in 1930s American film / Pamela Robertson-Wojcik -- History, forbidden games, children's play, and trauma theory / Ian Wojcik-Andrews -- Changing conceptions of childhood in the work of the Children's Film Foundation / Robert Shail -- Migrant children and the 'space between' in the films of Angelopoulos / Stephanie Hemelryk Donald -- Iranian cinema and a world through the eyes of a child / John Stephens -- The American tween and contemporary Hollywood cinema / Timothy Shary -- Growing up on Scandinavian screens / Anders Lysne -- Mary Pickford, Alma Taylor, and girlhood in Early Hollywood and British cinema / Matthew Smith -- Craft and play in Lotte Reiniger's fairy tale films / Caroline Ruddell -- Disney's musical landscapes / Daniel Batchelder -- Hayley Mills and the Disneyfication of childhood / David Buckingham -- Danny Kaye as children's film star / Bruce Babington -- Real animals and the problem of anthropomorphism in children's film / Claudia Alonso-Recarte and Ignacio Ramos-Gay -- Nation, identity, and the arrikin streak in Australian children's cinema / Adrian Schober -- Nationalism in Swedish Children's Film and the Case of Astrid Lindgren / Anders Wilhelm Åberg -- Unreality, Fantasy, and the Anti-Fascist Politics of the Children's Films of Satyajit Ray / Koel Banerjee -- Gender, Ideology, and Nationalism in Chinese Children's Cinema / Yuhan Huang -- Ethnic and racial difference in the Hungarian animated features Macskafogó/Cat City (1986) and Macskafogó 2/Cat City 2 (2007) / Gábor Gergely -- Negotiating East and West when representing childhood in Miyazaki's Spirited away / Katherine Whitehurst -- Coming of age in South Korean cinema / Sung-Ae Lee -- The Walt Disney Company, family entertainment, and global movie hits / Peter Krämer -- Reading Jason and the argonauts as a children's film / Susan Smith -- Hollywood and the baby boom audience in the 1950s and 1960s / James Russell -- Don Bluth and the Disney renaissance / Peter Kunze -- On 'love experts', evil princes, gullible princesses, and Frozen / Amy M. Davis -- Hollywood, regulation, and the 'disappearing' children's film / Filipa Antunes -- How children learn to 'read' movies / Cary Bazalgette -- Star Wars, children's film culture, and fan paratexts / Lincoln Geraghty -- Norwegian tween girls and everyday life through Disney tween franchises / Ingvild Kvale Sørenssen -- A multimethod study on contemporary young audiences and their film/cinema discourses and practices in Flanders, Belgium / Aleit Veenstra, Philippe Meers, and Daniël Biltereyst -- An empirical report on young people's responses to adult fantasy films / Martin Barker -- Disney's adult audiences / James R. Mason.

Walt Disney's name is synonymous with family entertainment. Mickey Mouse, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, Disneyland, and numerous other creations have inspired generations of children the world over. From his childhood in rural Missouri to his legendary stature as a film and television icon, Walt governed his life with imagination, ingenuity, and scrupulous attention to detail. Faced with both public failures and massive success, he revolutionized the art form of animation, always seeking innovative solutions, cutting edge technology, and new ways of storytelling. Devoted to perfection, Walt was not always easy to work with, but no one can deny his profound talent and impact. Charting Walt's progression from farm boy to actor to artist, animator, director, and entertainment celebrity, Walt's own words are presented and contextualized within Doreen Rappaport's signature compelling prose. Illustrated with vivid authenticity by animator/painter John Pomeroy, this stunning entry in the award-winning Big Words series reveals a man of deep and varied passions with a constantly evolving vision, and a storyteller above all.

Providing a detailed historical overview of animated film and television in the United States over more than a century, this book examines animation within the U.S. film and television industry as well as in the broader sociocultural context. From the early 1900s onwards, animated cartoons have always had a wide, enthusiastic audience. Not only did viewers delight in seeing drawn images come to life, tell fantastic stories, and depict impossible gags, but animation artists also relished working in a visual art form largely free from the constraints of the real world. This book takes a fresh look at the big picture of U.S. animation, both on and behind the screen. It reveals a range of fascinating animated cartoons and the colorful personalities, technological innovations, cultural influences and political agendas, and shifting audience expectations that shaped not only what appeared on screen but also how audiences reacted to thousands of productions. Animation and the American Imagination: A Brief History presents a concise, unified picture that brings together divergent strands of the story so readers can make sense of the flow of animation history in the United States. The book emphasizes the overall shape of animation history by identifying how key developments emerged from what came before and from the culture at large. It covers the major persons and studios of the various eras; identifies important social factors, including the Great Depression, World War II, the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, and the struggles for civil rights and women's rights; addresses the critical role of technological and aesthetic changes; and discusses major works of animation and the responses to them.

Most biographies of Walt Disney portray him as a creative genius who revolutionized the entertainment industry during the first half of the twentieth century. While he did transform the medium of animation, quickly becoming a household name during his late thirties, many biographies tell the story of Walt Disney’s development in a historical vacuum, separate from the historical events happening around him. However, while Walt Disney was certainly a history-influencer, historical events happening in America and the world also shaped the entertainment pioneer he would become. As the twentieth century began, a new form of entertainment, “motion pictures,” would emerge, capturing the imagination of a young boy from Missouri. Over the next several years, Walt Disney would begin to hone his art skills, overcoming a number of hurdles including numerous relocations, a brutal paper route, a deployment to Europe in the days after World War One, numerous bankruptcies, and even homelessness. It was these adversities, along with the historical events that surrounded him, that would influence the man he would become. For the first time ever, The Origins of Walt Disney tells some important stories that help to flesh out the Disney history. How instrumental was Elias Disney’s career as a carpenter in Chicago? Why did the Disneys really leave Chicago to move to Marceline, Missouri? What types of jobs did Walt perform in France in the days following World War One? How was Walt influenced by the budding industry of animation in America? In addition to answering these questions, The Origins of Walt Disney also includes a tour of the newly restored Walt Disney Birthplace, a new museum located in the childhood home of Walt Disney in Chicago, Illinois!