Disney has presented many fantastical worlds that I have longed to
enter. I’ve wanted to soar over the island of Neverland with Peter Pan
and ride a carousel horse through the countryside in Bert’s chalk
drawing, and I always thought the Hundred-Acre Wood would be a mighty
nice place to settle down. However, one place I never particularly
wanted to visit was Wonderland.
Yes, the Lewis Carroll story
is richly imaginative. Yes, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel became friends
after appearing together in an elementary school adaptation of the
classic. Yes, it was a major influence on LOST. However, none of
that changes the fact that it Freaks. Me. Out. If I’m going to go
tumbling off into a magical realm, I’d prefer one that feels a little
less antagonistic.
Alice in Wonderland is a weird story. Jon Scieszka, the prolific author of such skewered tales as The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales,
seems an inspired choice to retell it for the recent picture book
edition of the Disney version, which is illustrated with concept art
created by iconic Disney artist Mary Blair when the movie was being
developed. Like the comparable editions of Cinderella and Peter Pan,
this is missing a couple of characters, but the main ones are accounted
for, from the big-grinned Cheshire Cat and the terrifying Queen of
Hearts to the dopey Tweedledee and Tweedledum and the batty Mad Hatter.
Scieszka writes with a rambly style here, capturing Alice’s confusion
and the way that her mind darts from one subject to the next. He also
frequently directly addresses the reader, encouraging identification
with Alice. In fact, the book begins with a question, and it’s one that I
imagine countless children could answer in the affirmative: “Have you
ever tried to listen to a long, boring schoolbook on a warm, lazy day?”
The look of the book is very eye-catching, with different colors
serving as the backdrops for each page of text. Shades of pink, green,
yellow, blue and purple alternate, sometimes with illustrations creeping
toward the text, sometimes with nothing but the words on the page. Most
paintings take up a full page, however, and these are very vibrant and
sometimes a bit alarming. The Walrus looks downright malevolent as he
marches a line of curious oysters off to their doom, and fierce flowers
appear on several pages. On the other hand, the small painting of Alice
and the White Rabbit standing side by side against a pale pink backdrop
is thoroughly charming.
While I don’t like it quite as much as the other two picture books featuring Blair’s concept art, Alice in Wonderland
certainly allows readers to feel that they have fallen into a
dreamscape just like Alice, who, Scieszka notes, spends such a long time
in the air during her descent through the rabbit hole that she is able
to mentally do all the homework she was avoiding under the tree (though
most of it is incorrect).
“You know how it is with some
people,” Scieszka writes toward the end of his tale. “Sometimes they get
too grown up to understand.” Alice in Wonderland is a tale about
holding onto the gifts of a vivid imagination. That is a notion I can
certainly get behind, even if Alice’s mind happens to be a pretty scary
place.
Showing posts with label Mary Blair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mary Blair. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Celebrating Mary Blair's Centennial With Walt Disney's Peter Pan
Today would have been the hundredth birthday of Mary Blair, one of
Disney’s most celebrated artists. Her many contributions to the company
include helping to design the figures for the ride it’s a small world and the characters for the films Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan.
In recent years, Disney has released lavish picture book editions of
each of those three stories written by prominent children’s book authors
and illustrated with concept art by Blair. In light of this milestone, I
picked up Peter Pan, hoping to get lost in the magic.
It’s a rather curious thing that while I’ve always been drawn to the character of Peter Pan, strongly resonating with his reluctance to grow up, the Disney version of J. M. Barrie’s tale ranks pretty low in my hierarchy of the company’s animated classics. Aside from the exhilarating You Can Fly sequence, I tend to prefer the made-for-TV Mary Martin version, though part of my problem may be that I haven’t seen the Disney movie in years. Reading this book, I realized there are whole segments of which I have no memory, including the entire interlude with the seductive mermaids. I really ought to watch it again soon. In the meantime, I found myself transported by the enchantment of Blair’s paintings and the wry storyteller quality of the writing by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, who have co-written several intermediate novels about Peter and his friends.
This is a handsome full-sized picture book just over 50 pages in length. It contains 29 of Blair’s paintings, most of which take up one full page and spill over onto the opposite page about a fifth of the way. The text never is printed over top of the painting. Instead, it rests against a white background sometimes augmented by a simple stylized silhouette of a shape such as a skull or the rigging of a pirate ship. These designs are next to or below the words but never directly behind them, giving the book a very clean and easy-to-read appearance.
The print is fairly large, and on most pages, several words are printed in a bigger font and a different color. For instance, on one page, the word “nasty” – referring to a plan concocted by the nefarious Captain Hook – is printed in red; on another, “Indian Chief” is in blue. Additionally, the words are laid out in such a way that it resembles free verse poetry, though the narrative style is not as poetic as Cynthia Rylant’s in the comparable Cinderella storybook.
While I’ve never read the Barry-Pearson books – an oversight I’ve been meaning to correct – I am familiar with Barry from his humor columns. At his best, he’s left me in stitches, so I was curious to hear his narrative voice here. Of course, as this is a collaborative effort, I’m not entirely sure who wrote what, but in any case, the humor is present but nowhere near the level of outright wackiness that marks much of Barry’s writing. The subtle wit works well, not pulling us out of the story but every once in a while winking at the audience before moving on to the next phase of the adventure. My two favorite instances of this are as follows.
“The leader of the pirates was a particularly nasty man known as Captain Hook. He was called that because he had a hook in place of one of his hands. His first mate was a man known as Smee. He was called that because he looked like a Smee.”
“Unfortunately, Tink was a jealous sort of fairy. She did not care for Wendy. So she flew ahead and told the Lost Boys to shoot Wendy down with their slingshots. Being boys, they thought this was a fine idea.”
Never Land is a dangerous place, especially for Peter’s special guest Wendy, since those who wish him harm capture her to lure Peter in and those who want Peter all to themselves keep attempting to inflict bodily injury on her to get her out of the way. There’s virtually no dialogue in the book; Peter only speaks a couple of times, and he doesn’t say much, and frankly, that makes him easier to take here. As much fun as he is, Peter is a rather arrogant young man, and all his boasting can get a bit tiresome. The narrative style doesn’t allow us to get too close to the characters (many of whom are omitted or not specifically named), so when it ends, I’m not left with the sense of malaise I usually get when Wendy returns to London to resume the mundane course of ordinary life and Peter flies off to his eternal childhood, soon to forget her almost entirely. “This story has happened before, and it will happen again,” our narrators tell us, and somehow, that seems okay.
While I enjoy the writing very much, the illustrations seem to have been the main purpose for this book, and they are wonderful. Culled from the Disney archives and the private collection of Howard Lowery, they are richly imaginative, with the emphasis on this remarkable world rather than the characters that populate it. Most of the paintings keep Peter, Wendy and others at arm’s length; rarely are we allowed a glimpse of any significant facial features, so their emotions remain largely hidden. Instead, we see them against magnificent backdrops saturated with color. Our first glimpse of Never Land allows us to see the entire island. It seems to exist in a space outside of time; stars swirl around the verdant expanse as the purplish mist rises off the mountains and the pirate ship makes for the shore through waters reflecting the pink of a blossoming sunrise.
While some paintings seem to incorporate practically every hue in the palette, others are almost monochromatic. The two-page spread in the middle of the book in which the boys march along the beach toward the Indian settlement atop a high plateau is sepia but for the pale yellow sun and the red of the cliffside rock. Several of the paintings depict nighttime scenes and are so dark that it’s a struggle to pick out details. That’s not really the case, though, in my favorite nighttime painting, a depiction of the Lost Boys’ multi-level underground lair, which is lit by several candles. It’s a fairly simple structure, but it looks absolutely glorious.
The pictures that do give us close-ups of the characters are revealing. John leads with gusto, shaking his umbrella as he shouts a command to the other boys, whose reaction is ambiguous because they are so shrouded in shadow. Peter looks cocky as can be as he stands amongst the adoring mermaids but softly perplexed as he holds a dying Tink in his hands after she tries to save him from Hook’s latest evil plot. Hook, too, has his moment, with just a wide grin and his huge hooked nose visible under his plumed red hat as he contemplates Peter’s demise.
It’s fascinating to peruse these paintings and ponder the progression from these to what we saw in the movie. Blair’s artistry is immediately apparent; it’s little wonder that this woman is so highly regarded. If you want to familiarize yourself with her distinctive style and get a sense for how Disney characters and settings are crafted, this beautiful edition of Peter Pan will set you on the right course.
It’s a rather curious thing that while I’ve always been drawn to the character of Peter Pan, strongly resonating with his reluctance to grow up, the Disney version of J. M. Barrie’s tale ranks pretty low in my hierarchy of the company’s animated classics. Aside from the exhilarating You Can Fly sequence, I tend to prefer the made-for-TV Mary Martin version, though part of my problem may be that I haven’t seen the Disney movie in years. Reading this book, I realized there are whole segments of which I have no memory, including the entire interlude with the seductive mermaids. I really ought to watch it again soon. In the meantime, I found myself transported by the enchantment of Blair’s paintings and the wry storyteller quality of the writing by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, who have co-written several intermediate novels about Peter and his friends.
This is a handsome full-sized picture book just over 50 pages in length. It contains 29 of Blair’s paintings, most of which take up one full page and spill over onto the opposite page about a fifth of the way. The text never is printed over top of the painting. Instead, it rests against a white background sometimes augmented by a simple stylized silhouette of a shape such as a skull or the rigging of a pirate ship. These designs are next to or below the words but never directly behind them, giving the book a very clean and easy-to-read appearance.
The print is fairly large, and on most pages, several words are printed in a bigger font and a different color. For instance, on one page, the word “nasty” – referring to a plan concocted by the nefarious Captain Hook – is printed in red; on another, “Indian Chief” is in blue. Additionally, the words are laid out in such a way that it resembles free verse poetry, though the narrative style is not as poetic as Cynthia Rylant’s in the comparable Cinderella storybook.
While I’ve never read the Barry-Pearson books – an oversight I’ve been meaning to correct – I am familiar with Barry from his humor columns. At his best, he’s left me in stitches, so I was curious to hear his narrative voice here. Of course, as this is a collaborative effort, I’m not entirely sure who wrote what, but in any case, the humor is present but nowhere near the level of outright wackiness that marks much of Barry’s writing. The subtle wit works well, not pulling us out of the story but every once in a while winking at the audience before moving on to the next phase of the adventure. My two favorite instances of this are as follows.
“The leader of the pirates was a particularly nasty man known as Captain Hook. He was called that because he had a hook in place of one of his hands. His first mate was a man known as Smee. He was called that because he looked like a Smee.”
“Unfortunately, Tink was a jealous sort of fairy. She did not care for Wendy. So she flew ahead and told the Lost Boys to shoot Wendy down with their slingshots. Being boys, they thought this was a fine idea.”
Never Land is a dangerous place, especially for Peter’s special guest Wendy, since those who wish him harm capture her to lure Peter in and those who want Peter all to themselves keep attempting to inflict bodily injury on her to get her out of the way. There’s virtually no dialogue in the book; Peter only speaks a couple of times, and he doesn’t say much, and frankly, that makes him easier to take here. As much fun as he is, Peter is a rather arrogant young man, and all his boasting can get a bit tiresome. The narrative style doesn’t allow us to get too close to the characters (many of whom are omitted or not specifically named), so when it ends, I’m not left with the sense of malaise I usually get when Wendy returns to London to resume the mundane course of ordinary life and Peter flies off to his eternal childhood, soon to forget her almost entirely. “This story has happened before, and it will happen again,” our narrators tell us, and somehow, that seems okay.
While I enjoy the writing very much, the illustrations seem to have been the main purpose for this book, and they are wonderful. Culled from the Disney archives and the private collection of Howard Lowery, they are richly imaginative, with the emphasis on this remarkable world rather than the characters that populate it. Most of the paintings keep Peter, Wendy and others at arm’s length; rarely are we allowed a glimpse of any significant facial features, so their emotions remain largely hidden. Instead, we see them against magnificent backdrops saturated with color. Our first glimpse of Never Land allows us to see the entire island. It seems to exist in a space outside of time; stars swirl around the verdant expanse as the purplish mist rises off the mountains and the pirate ship makes for the shore through waters reflecting the pink of a blossoming sunrise.
While some paintings seem to incorporate practically every hue in the palette, others are almost monochromatic. The two-page spread in the middle of the book in which the boys march along the beach toward the Indian settlement atop a high plateau is sepia but for the pale yellow sun and the red of the cliffside rock. Several of the paintings depict nighttime scenes and are so dark that it’s a struggle to pick out details. That’s not really the case, though, in my favorite nighttime painting, a depiction of the Lost Boys’ multi-level underground lair, which is lit by several candles. It’s a fairly simple structure, but it looks absolutely glorious.
The pictures that do give us close-ups of the characters are revealing. John leads with gusto, shaking his umbrella as he shouts a command to the other boys, whose reaction is ambiguous because they are so shrouded in shadow. Peter looks cocky as can be as he stands amongst the adoring mermaids but softly perplexed as he holds a dying Tink in his hands after she tries to save him from Hook’s latest evil plot. Hook, too, has his moment, with just a wide grin and his huge hooked nose visible under his plumed red hat as he contemplates Peter’s demise.
It’s fascinating to peruse these paintings and ponder the progression from these to what we saw in the movie. Blair’s artistry is immediately apparent; it’s little wonder that this woman is so highly regarded. If you want to familiarize yourself with her distinctive style and get a sense for how Disney characters and settings are crafted, this beautiful edition of Peter Pan will set you on the right course.
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