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Title: Waking Sleeping Beauty
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, outside of some mild language this is safe for kids. Recommended for ages 7 and up. |
One of the great things about “Waking Sleeping Beauty” is that it gives you reasons to both root and condemn the studio it’s about. Rarely will you see a documentary that is more insightful then political, but it just goes to prove that insightful documentaries are always going to be better then political ones. The movie was directed by Don Hahn, producer to some of Disney’s biggest hits including “Beauty & The Beast,” which for the longest time was the only animated film to be nominated for Best Picture (until Pixar’s “Up” came along). Hahn took a break from the studio so that he could work on other projects, and this is the first time we’ve seen him in the directors chair. Turns out he can direct a pretty effective documentary.
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Granted, I’m sure it helps when you have access to home videos and audio recordings that most people only wish they could see. An early video we see is of Don documenting his new job. We see young animators like Glenn Kean, John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, and even a young Tim Burton all working for the studio. Except for Burton all these kids look happy and eager to be working for Disney. The movie then documents that despite the eagerness this was actually the worst time to be working for Disney, when animation was bleeding money from the company, the animation staff was moved out of their offices into trailer, and everyone was just waiting for their pink slips to be tapped to their new cubicles.
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Then a studio shakeup brings in Michael Eisner, Jeffery Katzenberg, and Frank Wells into the company. Though there are some riffs to be had with the fear that Hollywood is invading the magical company Walt built, under new leadership Disney eventually makes movies that would bring animation back to the world in a big way. Under this leadership the studio produces “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty & The Beast,” “Aladdin,” and “The Lion King.” The studio finds it’s footing again but egos flair and animators are still overworked. A telling scene happens later on when - during the world premier of a new movie - Michael Eisner announces a new animation studio being built in Burbank.
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As the head of the animation department, this is news to Jeffery Katzenberg, who now questions his importance to the company. We hear from the animators, studio heads, and even Roy E. Disney about the state of things at various points in the game. Movie history buffs will eat all this information up because it’s interesting and unbiased. No one is the good guy or the bad guy. They are all people who fell to the same human desires for recognition that most of us do. Disney fans will eat this up for the all the behind the scenes footage that we’d never thought we’d see. In fact this movie gives us the first glimpse of some of the deleted footage that was removed from “The Black Cauldron” and never seen by the public.
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If there is a major complaint I have against the film is that it’s so interesting and exciting to watch that when the movie ends it comes all too soon. The movie ends just as the troubles for the animation department are really starting, and it doesn’t get into the fall of the division after Katzenberg leaves. Hopefully Hahn has a sequel in mind to fill us in on the rest of the Eisner era and what went wrong, but it doesn’t cripple what is otherwise a great film. Right now the film is in limited release and it’s well worth checking out. For those who can’t find it hopefully it will find it’s way to DVD, and Disney won’t banish it to the vaults like they did “The Sweatbox” and “The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story.”
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