Top Ten Animated Films with Guest Writer Tucker Meijer: #4
If you want to read the introduction from Tucker and myself, please go to our choices for the #10 best animated film. Here are our selections for #4.
Tucker’s #4: The Iron Giant
It took me a while to figure out what movie I wanted to eek into my top 5 animated movies. I watched a bunch of Pixar movies, I watched a few Miyazaki movies and even, in a fit of desperation, thought about putting Coraline in here (before I realized that, while Coraline is a fine movie, it doesn’t deserve to be on my list of top 10 animated movies, much less in the top 5). But there was one movie that kept coming back to me, even while I watching everything else. It was a movie that Jeremy and I have already written about, but I think deserves to be high on my list: The Iron Giant.
I think that Jeremy and I both covered a lot of ground when we both first wrote about The Iron Giant but I want to explore the reasons why I keep coming back to it. One of these reasons is deeply personal; in a really tumultuous time in my life (and in fact, in the world), this movie reminds of the power of unconditional love.
Jeremy and I talked about the Giant as being like a big, mechanical pet. I still believe that this is an apt comparison, especially since dogs are known for the deep love they hold for their owners. This is a love that transcends conflict and is incredibly pure; no matter what, the dog, though unable to verbally communicate, demonstrates its love through action: a tail wag, a happy yip. This is how the Giant communicates with Hogarth; his verbal skills are limited, but his actions demonstrate the strength of his feelings.
I firmly believe that it matters to show this kind of love on screen. Our world is filled with loud talkers who say one thing and act in a completely different way. The Iron Giant demonstrates that actions truly do speak louder than words. The verbal barrier between the Giant and Hogarth does not hinder their ability to form a meaningful and loving relationship, which culminates in the Giant making the absolute sacrifice.
The unconditional love between a boy and his best friend is why I keep coming back to this movie. I think that we can all learn from Hogarth and the Giant, focusing on how our actions of love can be just as loud as our words.
Jeremy’s #4: TIE!
“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.” - Margot Channing (All About Eve) [I mean that about this review]
Okay, hear me out. Yes, my choice this time is a TIE. Yes, I am cheating hence citing All About Eve, but hear me out. Walt Disney Studios is one of the undisputed producers of great animation, and Walt Disney himself is one of the great animators. I will honor Walt in one of my upcoming choices, but with these two films, I honor Walt Disney Studios. After Walt’s passing, Disney somewhat lost its way, especially in the 1980s producing good, but not great films. Then, in 1989, Disney Studios released The Little Mermaid which spawned the Disney Renaissance. In a matter of seven years Disney released The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). With the exception of Pocahontas (which ironically may have some of Disney’s best music, even though it is has one of their worst scripts), I could see any of these films making a top ten animated film list. For myself, I have chosen two of them to represent them all: the first, The Little Mermaid, and the last, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
#4 TIE: The Little Mermaid & The Hunchback of Notre Dame
In 1989, I was six years old. I had all of the classic animated Disney films on VHS and watched them religiously. But, while classic Disney films made appearances in theaters, nothing Disney made during my lifetime lived up to those past works. Great Mouse Detective enjoyable, but not brilliant. The Rescuers Down Under, great villain, not one of Disney’s best. Then, I went to see The Little Mermaid. Seeing The Little Mermaid in theaters was one of the most magical experiences of my life. I have always loved the sea. Being fortunate enough to grow up near Monterrey Bay Aquarium, we were members and went several times a year. There’s something about the mystery of the depths of the ocean where animals live in a world that is the mirror of our own. Floating instead of held down. The sea in The Little Mermaid may not be “realistic” in that it is clear, but the world created under the ocean is indeed the one of my imagination. This is what it is like to live under the sea.
One of the amazing insights in The Little Mermaid is that each world dreams of the other. The sailors in the opening song sing about the “mysterious fathoms below”, causing the young Prince Eric to ask “King Triton?” with a demanding curiosity. That is juxtaposed against a concert in Triton’s underwater castle, led by the greatest of Disney sidekicks, Sebastian. Sebastian wrote a musical piece for Triton’s youngest daughter, Ariel, whose voice is angelic, but, when her big solo begins, she is not there. She is off on an adventure. Just as in love I am with the ocean, Ariel is in love with the surface world. She collects pieces that fall to the ocean depths, just as I collected seashells that wash up on the shore. When she sings “Part of Your World”, her imagination and dreams soar in a way that I have not felt done better since Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz or Luke Skywalker walking out on the dunes to watch the setting suns. On a quick side note: Ariel was also my first crush in my life, followed by Jennifer Connelly when I saw Labyrinth. So yes, the first girl I ever had a crush on was animated.
However, a force ends up standing in the way of Ariel’s dream: her father. So often parents are loving, but demanding that children not engage in flights of fantasy, but, stay in reality. Why? Flights of fantasy are what fuel our imagination and creativity that can later in life be applied to the real world. Immediately after Triton destroys Ariel’s cove of wonders, he regrets it. You see it in his face as his daughter begins to cry. Thankfully, Triton is a loving and fallible father.
After the destruction of Ariel’s cave of wonders, all the pieces are in place for the masterstroke of the movie: the introduction of Ursula, the sea-witch, one of the great villainesses of all time, on par with Maleficent and Scar, Darth Vader and HAL, Hannibal Lecter and Nurse Ratched. Ursula exudes temptation, a seductress who in reality is Mephistopheles. Using her powers to capture people’s souls, she tempts them with contracts that are binding before collecting. The Little Mermaid is one of the great Faust/Mephistopheles stories. Her song “Poor Souls” is the best Disney-villain themed anthem in their catalog. It soars, it has a sense of humor, and a darkness beneath it as she manipulates a little girl into agreeing to a contract she cannot possibly understand.
Finally, the film takes shape. Ariel is sent to the surface for three days to get Prince Eric to fall in love with her. What happens, though, is that we, the audience, fall in love with our own world. Seeing the surface world through Ariel’s eyes is to be amazed by the simplest of things: a bubble floating in the air, a dog giving you a lick on the face, a fork with its prongs, horseshoes on a horse, dancing for the first time. Seeing our world through Ariel’s eyes is to realize that as Sebastian sings “the seaweed is always greener / In someone’s lake / You dream of going up there / but that is a big mistake”. We, like Ariel, take what we have for granted instead of wonder and gratitude. It is a brilliant message.
In 1996, I was in fifth or sixth grade, and I was done with animated films. Those were kid movies. I wanted to be an adult. So, I started seeing 90’s rated-R action films with my father and friends and did not turn back. Yes, I certainly saw from great films: Speed, Terminator 2, Point Break, Face/off. Then, two of my female friends dragged me almost kicking and screaming to see The Hunchback of Notre Dame. After all, Disney movies are for kids. Seeing Hunchback of Notre Dame changed my entire perspective on my childhood.
The first realization came when I realized that The Hunchback of Notre Dame was not a typical Disney film. Based on the novel by Victor Hugo, I was amazed that Disney did not Disney-fy this movie as much as they had other stories. Hunchback begins with the death of Quasimodo’s mother and the introduction of the great villain Judge Frollo, who “longed / To purge the world / Of vice and sin / And he saw corruption / Ev'rywhere / Except within.” Follo kills Quasimodo’s mother, and then, almost kills the infant Quasimodo, before a Bishop stops him by threatening the wrath of God upon him. I admit being shocked that Disney was talking on religion as a subject matter. Furthermore, Judge Frollo’s song “Hellfire” explains his fantasy of raping Esmeralda, playing into the conceit that has existed for far too long in conservative religious circles that women are objects of temptation. During the final battle at Notre Dame, there is an incredible realization when one of Quasimodo’s gargoyle friends informs him, “Ok, ok, Quasi… we’ll leave you alone. After all, we’re only made of stone. We just thought you were made of something stronger.” Disney’s sidekicks have long been a childish flight for me, getting almost worse with each new film, yet, in Hunchback there is the suggestion that the gargoyles are simply stone and that Quasimodo in his loneliness imagines friends. I was blown away by this idea.
Finally, there is the idea of the Disney-fication of the ending of the story, so that Disney can have a “happily ever after” ending. I worried watching Hunchback that Esmeralda would end up with Quasimodo despite it being so unrealistic. Imagine my surprise when Esmeralda ends up with Phoebes, not Quasimodo. Mind blown.
But even more mind blowing was the second revelation I had… the Disney films I loved as a child, were not in fact kids’ movies. Movies like Fantasia and Snow White, Bambi and Jungle Book were great movies in their own right, not merely great children’s films. It was at this point in my life that I found my way back to animation, back to Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service. I found my way back to Don Bluth’s films including An American Tail. They were certainly able to be watched as children, but they are enduring well told stories and I was being foolish in my young adolescents to dismiss them so easily. I am so grateful to all of the films I’ve listed so far, but to all the Disney films that I grew up with that made me who I am today.
