Smartorhypo
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Taraparain
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
Ella-May O'Brien
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
MisterWhiplash
The Walt Disney American Experience PBS documentary is a good profile of a box of contradictions: a wholesome 'family' man and a rabid anti-communist conservative who was one of the heads of the Alliance that made things horrible for people in Hollywood for years (and what a speech he gives to his workers that made them organize *more* to strike in 1941); someone who claimed he wanted things simple and wasn't "literary" while creating one of the great abstract experimental films (Fantasia) and changing an artistic medium through his "fairy tales" and silly symphonies and Disneyland and so on.This is a very fair document of a man who created many of the films that made children around the world cry and laugh and (occasionally, as in part of the forest sequence in Snow White) pee themselves, while also being "hard-driving" while being inspirational for his workers (or those who stuck around).It's chock-a-block of great clips and somewhat obvious but nevertheless enlightening analyses of the "Big Five" first films (Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi and Fantasia), and on to things from television like Walt Disneyland TV and the park itself. Here's a man who could do anything and for the better part of his later life got obsessed with trains and led on to making THE amusement park of the world (or as one interviewee calls it "a living animation"). From a portrait like this it's somewhat easy to call him difficult (he likely was), but it's rare to get someone in America who was a genuine entertainer - whether it connected with everyone, as he aimed for whether it was a Donald Duck cartoon or the blades of grass in the park, he had to make it just so - while being so, uh, 'wholesome' (depending on who you talk to of course).He's a wonderful bunch of contradictions, which is something we can relate to even as we're not all "visionaries" and such.
mberliner1
This biographical study of Disney certainly captured the man as a brilliant innovator and dedicated producer of wonderful things. But it was not honest in its treatment of the strikes that almost brought down his studio. It suggested that the strikes were merely the honest reactions to a company that callously underpaid its employees and wanted power over them and that Disney, along with other studio owners blamed their troubles on Communists ("imaginary antagonists"). The viewer is left with the belief that Communists didn't have the slightest influence in Hollywood, when in fact there is significant evidence from Soviet archives (released after the fall of the USSR) that many union leaders (including Herbert Sorrell, who led the strike against Disney) were Party members and that the strikes were financed by the Kremlin. Even if the show's producers didn't accept these claims, it was unconscionable not to even to mention the possibility.
Ed-Shullivan
10/10If the world had been blessed with more great visionaries as Walt Disney we would be living in a much kinder and forgiving world, as his world is closest to Utopia. This two-part, four hour documentary focuses on the legacy that Walt Disney left behind for the world to remember the man and his vision. To this day almost 100 years ago since his first animated production in the year 1922, the six (6) minute animated short Little Red Riding Hood was released Walt Disney persevered through all the naysayers and endless string of penny pinching bankers to build his empire and the sheer vastness of his rich colored cinematography decade after decade and with an imagination of what the present (not the future) should include like no other person before him. Disneyland and Disneyworld are just two examples of his vision of Utopia.I especially liked that this documentary provides fair credit towards Walt's older brother Roy O. Disney for helping build the Walt Disney brand and empire to what we know exists today. No doubt Walt was the visionary and driving force behind the Disney's creative and extensive brand but it was Roy who was the reliable older brother who made Walt's dreams come true through shrewd financing and brokering mega million dollar deals with heavy financiers who were hungrier than a pack of wolves to take over the business if it floundered. This film also outlines how during the evolution of labor unions first being formed in the 1940's on the outskirts of the Disney lots, Walt literally escaped the turmoil of bargaining with organized labor as he travelled to far away countries and left the labor resolution issues to his big brother Roy who is credited with resolving the labor unrest which allowed the Disney studios to forge ahead with so many historic and successful feature animated films, and never before seen world class amusement parks.The documentary is well paced and extremely insightful on how Walt's endless drive and high energy began with his own superior artistic talents to draw characters and develop a short animated feature. Walt's fortitude to draw idyllic characters expanded over his early years to the unheard of venture of the very first full feature animated film, the 1937 release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released in 1937, it is as popular today if not more so than it was almost 80 years later when it was first released. Ironically, Walt Disney has won more Academy Awards than any other single person but the most prestigious Academy Award for the Best Picture category had always eluded Walt. The Academy members have always snubbed the art form of animation (as well as comedy themed films) in the elusive Best Picture category. Instead the Academy created specific categories for animated feature films to win their own category of Oscars and thus excluded them from the "Best Picture" category. What the Academy could not take away from Walt Disney and his production company though was his fan base and their loyalty. Walt's expansive fan base has rewarded Walt Disney with billions of satisfied customers around the entire world and with billions of dollars in revenues which have allowed Walt Disney productions to continue producing state of the art films and a host of related Disney themed products that have warmed the hearts of children and parents around the world.I loved the insight this documentary provides on Walt's personal life with his wife and two daughters (one who was adopted) and there is an endless supply of Walt's ear to ear grin which personifies how much he loved what he was building both with his family as well as with his Walt Disney Empire. Sadly the film touches briefly on the distance held between Walt and his father Elias until his father's death at the age of 82. Walt and Roy did purchase their parents a home in North Hollywood California upon their business success with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. After moving in to their beautiful new home Walt's mother Flora complained about their new gas furnace which the repairmen supposedly fixed. Unfortunately Flora died a month after moving in to their new home of asphyxiation caused by the gas furnace fumes at the age of 70. Walt never would discuss the circumstances of his mother's unexpected and unnatural death.Central to the Disney history is the vision and subsequent construction of Disneyland. A good chunk of this worthy documentary is spent with actual footage of the gradual construction of Disneyland with Walt being front row and center throughout the building -phase and the eventual grand opening on July 17, 1955, on a hot and sweltering day after many of the work crews said it would never be ready for the pre-announced day of Disneyland's grand opening. Walt's perseverance again paid off and with the many dignitaries present, television crews and tens of thousands of visitors the grand opening proceeded as originally planned. Near the end of the documentary there is an unknown person who is mentioned as having irritated Walt by stating that if Walt had chosen to run for the presidency of the United States, he would have won. To which Walt retorted, "Why would I want be President of the United States when I am already King of Disneyland?" Thank you Walt and Roy Disney for such an abundance of fine feature family films, documentaries, and not only the epitome of what an Amusement Park (Disneyland, Disneyworld, family resorts, cruise ships and Epcot Center) and family centric vacation should encompass, but what literally billions of happy paying customers have grown up with through the family generations. The Disney legacy can be summed up in two words…FAMILY VALUES.Scores a 10 out of 10
Michael Johnston (ambrose)
I was anxious to see a two-part program on the life of Walt Disney. This one shown on American Experience was a disappointment. Bits of his early life were tossed in as though you knew about them. Elias was presented as a one-dimensional authoritarian figure without much love for his sons. Both Walt and Roy have disabused us of this. There are so many hundreds of hours of interviews from people who knew Walt from the early days, and these were not chosen to be included. Instead, we got the "talking heads" approach from those who have read about Walt's life.Now, I was not expecting the Bob Thomas approach, but the first program wasted so much time with analyzing things that the facts of his life were jumbled and difficult to follow. Did Walt ever draw? When and why did he leave this and go to Laugh-O-grams? What was Elias 's attitude about this? Was Flora, his mother, supportive or critical? These things are knowable. Instead, we got more and more analysis. Then, Part One ended at a good dividing spot, but we were not prepared for the remainder of his life in the second program.It's true, as has written another writer, that one might tell the story of Walt's life in a five part Ken Burns style mini-series and get all the interesting and necessary facts included. Given a bit less than four hours, things must be omitted. We didn't see and hear any of the Nine Old Men, or Roy E or Roy O Disney, or Diane or Sharon, or Lillian. Lillian was responsible, pretty much by herself, for *Walt* Disney Concert Hall, and Roy was responsible for the name *Walt* Disney World and not Disney World. Why was Walt interested in creating EPCOT? Did he suddenly become preoccupied with future building? We heard that Hazel was with Walt at the end but we never heard from the person who spent more time with Walt than anyone else. Of course, many of the primary sources are long dead, but video of them exists, and some of it should have been included in order to tell Walt's life story, at the expense of the some of the commentary and analysis.
