Can you name the seven dwarfs, as in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs?
It's time to refresh the memory of that trivia. This Sunday, the World's Classic Cinema programme at Scala, organised by the Thai Film Archive, will screen the 1937 classic cartoon Walt Disney's Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.
The story is familiar and repeatedly told, and families are expected to turn out to experience on the big screen the hand-drawn magic of Disney's pioneering cartoon (they call them "animated movies" these days). The film, as in the Grimm fairy tale, tells the story of princess Snow White and her malicious stepmother who keeps asking the Magic Mirror "who's the fairest of them all" -- and kaboom, it's Snow White!
The princess flees and ends up with the seven dwarfs in a cottage deep in the woods -- the dwarfs are Grumpy, Doc, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy and Dopey. The stepmother pursues her disguised as a crone, and then comes the poisoned apples, the bite, the coma, the kiss and the happy ending.
After nearly 80 years, Disney's first feature-length cartoon remains a captivating display of lyrical drawing and engaging storytelling. It was revolutionary during its day, a technical as well as artistic achievement that brought a new era of cinema, illustration and animation. It was also a big success at the box office.
From there, anything seemed possible on the screen. Disney would follow Snow White with Pinocchio in 1940, Fantasia in the same year, then Dumbo, Bambi, and 50 more over the decades. As hand-drawn cartoons gave way to computer-generated animated movies, Disney spent a few years languishing in the 1990s then made a stunning turnaround with the acquisition of Pixar (which today is a separate studio from Walt Disney Animations, though under the same umbrella).
Disney's latest animated films include Moana and Coco (the latter by Pixar). The screening of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs will show us where it all began.
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, showing Sunday at noon, Scala. Tickets are 100 baht (50 for children).
