{"id":2121,"date":"2015-04-09T13:51:40","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T11:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/?p=2121"},"modified":"2020-05-23T15:14:31","modified_gmt":"2020-05-23T13:14:31","slug":"the-bizarreness-of-snow-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/2015\/04\/the-bizarreness-of-snow-white\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bizarreness of Snow White<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"058-00_snow_white\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The animated version of Snow White<\/em>, produced by Fleischer Studios in 1933, possesses a richly multifaceted oddness. The film barely coheres, leaving for anyone who studies it precious few graspable outcroppings. And perhaps that is the film\u2019s chief strangeness: that, while its various components are already plenty strange in and of themselves, those components interact in such arbitrary and baffling ways as to make the film\u2019s bizarreness quotient greater than the sum of its peculiar parts.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

While Snow White <\/em>is strange in many ways, its unusual approach to narration may provide the best starting point to discuss the film\u2019s weirdness. Before that, though, a narrative summary is in order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film\u2019s opening titles themselves introduce an element of narrative uncertainty by indicating that the picture will feature a \u201cvocal chorus\u201d \u2014 namely, Cab Calloway singing his famous tune \u201cSaint James Infirmary Blues.\u201d Viewers will be forgiven for wondering what the song has to do with the fairy tale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 1: Snow White<\/em>, produced by Fleischer Studios in 1933, is wonderfully bizarre \u2013 full of digressions and inconsistencies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The story opens in the castle\u2019s royal chamber, where a queen receives confirmation from her magic mirror that she is, in fact, \u201cthe fairest in the land\u201d (cf. fig. 2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 2: The queen and her magic mirror \u2013 a recognizable element in an otherwise unrecognizable version of Show White<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Snow White (fig. 3) visits the castle and announces that she wants to visit her \u201cstepmama the queen\u201d; armor-clad guards (here played by Fleischer regulars Koko the Clown and the faintly doglike character Bimbo) escort her to the royal chamber. When the mirror confirms that Snow White is, in fact, fairer than the queen, the latter orders the former beheaded. The two knights, who apparently agree with the mirror, reluctantly lead Snow White outside, where they weepingly prepare the chopping block.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 3: Betty Boop as Snow White<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The knights fall down a vertical chasm, which deposits them at the base of a snowy mountain. Snow White is set free by the very tree to which she is tied, then trips and falls into a huge snowball that rolls down the mountain. The snowball, with Snow White inside, passes through a wooden fence, an action that reshapes the ball into a lidded snow coffin. The coffin plunges into a lake, turning to ice, then slides into the many-windowed home of the seven dwarfs. For some reason, these dwarfs take it upon themselves to carry the coffin, via large skis, to the \u201cMystery Cave\u201d (cf. fig. 4-7).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 4-7: A musical and odd sequence from Fleischer\u2019s Snow White<\/em> (1933).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 5.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 6.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 7.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the queen, upon learning from the mirror that Snow White yet lives, turns herself into a witch and rides her flying mirror down the chasm, landing on and awakening the unconscious knights. The queen stomps off toward the Mystery Cave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, the film is interrupted by a curious musical number, which I shall later address. When the number ends, the queen (who has dewitchified herself), is somehow now turned into a dragon when a cloud of magic smoke passes over her. The same smoke frees Snow White from her coffin and reanimates the knights, who\u2019d been turned into statues. The dragon-queen chases the protagonists through the cave. Then, Bimbo stops, turns around, and yanks the dragon\u2019s tongue. This action turns the dragon inside-out: She now wears her bones on the outside. The dragon scampers away, and Koko, Bimbo and Snow White dance a jig in the snow for a few seconds before the film ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In sum: Very few of the actions in this film\u2019s story occur for any sort of reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humorous Riffs on Classic Fairytales<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most films released to a wide audience, such as the cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios in the 1930s, use narrative as their chief structuring principle. In this regard, the makers of Snow White<\/em>, in ostensibly retelling a familiar fairy tale, had a certain advantage: Its makers could rely on an audience\u2019s near-guaranteed grasp of the film\u2019s key plot points. Because most viewers would already know the story of Snow White, the filmmakers had an occasion to use the core of that story as a point of departure for a new variation on it. The fact that the film \u201cstars\u201d the saucy animated flapper Betty Boop in the title role is perhaps the first sign that this film is a far cry from the Brothers Grimm. Indeed, the Fleischer version of \u201cSnow White\u201d is nigh-unrecognizable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other animation studios in the early 1930s often employed a narrative approach generally similar to that in Snow White<\/em>, creating films that humorously \u201criff on\u201d classic fairytales. A good example, also from 1933, is Warner Bros.\u2019s \u201cMerrie Melodies\u201d film The Dish Ran away with the Spoon<\/em>, directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising (cf. fig. 8). This film, which takes its name and premise from the nursery rhyme \u201cHey Diddle Diddle,\u201d is, for its first five-and-a-half minutes, little more than a series of gags that play loosely with the notion of kitchen implements coming to life. There\u2019s no narrative proper for the first three-quarters of the film; rather, we see sentient silverware showering with seltzer spray, teacups dancing in a conga line, and the like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dish Ran away with the Spoon<\/em> uses the audience\u2019s familiarity with the (loose) narrative of the source nursery rhyme as a kind of substitute for narrative coherence. \u201cHey Diddle Diddle\u201d imparts a protonarrative premise \u2014 namely, in this case, the idea that kitchenware can fancifully come to life \u2014 that provides all the context we need to understand the actions of the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 8: Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising\u2019s The Dish Ran away with the Spoon<\/em> from 1933.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the film\u2019s last 90 seconds, a mass of bread dough, after ingesting yeast and water, inflates and transforms into a malevolent ogre. He roars and runs around the counter, no particular objective in his glutinous mind, and is quickly dispatched by quick-thinking spatulas and saucers wielding weaponized popcorn and waffle irons; at this, the film ends. This extremely thin mini-narrative has nothing to do with the preceding cutlery antics, and seemingly exists solely to grant a sense of closure to the film, which would otherwise be a catalog of themed blackout gags [cf. note].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disconnected Signposts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In a seven-minute film, there is precious little time for complex narrative exposition, which is why the use of established, familiar stories offered an advantage. Fairy tales, folktales, and the like provided already-understood narrative frameworks that, to an extent, freed the filmmakers from the narrative burden. They could devote their energies to the sight gags that are the stuff of early studio animation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But few films take this liberty to such extremes as the 1933 Snow White<\/em>. Rather than use the central premise of the familiar folk tale, the film selectively uses isolated tropes and devices from the story, yet deploys them in a nearly arbitrary manner (cf. fig. 9-10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the viewer sees a number of disconnected, iconic \u201csignposts\u201d from the familiar story of Snow White, but cannot use them to navigate a path through the film\u2019s story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fleischers\u2019 Snow White <\/em>refers to, for instance, the evil queen and her magic mirror, the seven dwarfs, and the glass coffin in which Snow White is imprisoned in suspended animation (no pun intended). But the film omits just as many familiar plot points as it includes; missing are, for instance, the poisoned apple, the huntsman, and the prince who rescues Snow White. In The Dish Ran away with the Spoon<\/em>, for example, the source tale\u2019s narrative is rendered so generally as to allow easy embellishment. In Snow White<\/em>, enough of the story is present as to suggest that the tale will be told in full, yet so many narrative elements are absent as to make comprehension of the film\u2019s story quite difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, those familiar elements from \u201cSnow White\u201d that do appear in the Fleischer version are used in ways that render them unfamiliar. The main example here is the presence of the seven dwarfs, who, in the Fleischer film, are not only undifferentiated but who appear in and disappear from the film without reason. As a result, these dwarfs, who are so strongly associated for most viewers with the story of Snow White, are reduced to mere references to themselves. They are drawn into the film solely to provide a kind of evidence that, yes, this movie does indeed tell the story of Snow White. Ironically, the effect of their very presence is to demonstrate just how few of the story\u2019s central narrative elements the Fleischer film does, in fact, employ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 9-10: Fleischer selectively combines recognizable elements from the original fairytale about Snow White<\/em> and some arbitrary, self-invented gags.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 10.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Musical Digressions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Beyond its narrational incompleteness, Snow White<\/em> also contains an unusual and unexpected digression that renders its story all the more confused. This is the musical number referred to above, and it is the moment at which, I would argue, the film heads down the potholed road to Strangetown, a detour from which it cannot possibly recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moments after the witchy, flying queen lands atop the unconscious knights, they arise. Bimbo and the queen head to the Mystery Cave, but Koko (no longer wearing a knight\u2019s armor but his familiar clown costume) turns to address the audience and commences singing, in Cab Calloway\u2019s unmistakable voice, \u201cSaint James Infirmary Blues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This musical number is so bizarre because it is inconsistent on both a macro and a micro level. Structurally, the number brings to a halt the film\u2019s already tenuous narrative. So committed are the animators to the presentation of this song (perhaps for contractual reasons) that, when it ends at about the six-minute mark, precious little time remains in this short film to wrap up the story\u2019s many loose ends. The ending of the story is handled very cursorily, and without recourse to cause-and-effect logic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a way, this cursory ending is akin to that of The Dish Ran away with the Spoon<\/em> (and many other cartoons of this time), in which the last minute or so of running time is given over to a simple \u201cchase\u201d story. In Snow White<\/em>, though, the film\u2019s story is already so incomplete and confusing that the rushed conclusion feels all the more perfunctory (cf. fig. 11).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 11: The cursory ending of Snow White<\/em> includes a strange chase sequence and the queen\/dragon directly looking at the audience.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At a more granular level, the musical number is peculiar in a number of ways. For one thing, Koko has not even really appeared in the film before this point: previously, he was \u201cplaying\u201d a knight in a way that does not refer to Koko\u2019s own familiar character. Yet in the musical scene, he becomes the center of attention. (It should be noted that Betty Boop, ostensibly the star of the picture, utters her last line \u2014 save an occasional nonverbal exclamation \u2014 at about midway through the film.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The animation used to present Koko\u2019s performance of the song is unusual in several ways. For one thing, its staging is markedly different from that of the rest of the film. Koko \u2014 who, by the way, is transformed at this point by the queen\u2019s magic mirror into a long-legged, raggedy ghost \u2014 wails as he walks across what is effectively a proscenium, playing directly to the audience in a series of long shots. At no other point in the film is the staging so directly presentational as in this scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the \u201cupstage\u201d area of Koko\u2019s proscenium extends back pretty deeply \u2014 all the more space to clog with curiosities. Ghost-Koko strides in front of a background filled with morbid scenes that evoke the lyrics of the song he sings. The line \u201cLet her go, let her go, oh, bless her\u201d is, for instance, illustrated by a tableau of a skeleton traffic cop, standing in a barrel marked \u201cGO,\u201d waving on a skeleton motorist. When Koko sings lines about dying while holding a good hand of cards, the background image is a large, prostrate skeleton that holds out a hand with five aces. Sometimes these background illustrations are literal and sometimes they seize on a single lyrical element: the word \u201cworld,\u201d for instance, occasions the inclusion of a large globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Surrealism to Realism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These images\u2019 lyrical connections are not immediately apparent, in part because there is so much going on in the midground and foreground. The midground teems with skeletal birds and odd, top-hatted skull-faced wraiths that swoop around in all directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s in the foreground where the weirdest stuff happens \u2014 to Koko himself. In at least two ways, the character animation in this scene creates inconsistencies that are difficult to reconcile with the rest of the film; it is, in some ways, the seat of the movie\u2019s instability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most fanciful animation in the whole film \u2014 which is saying something: This is a film in which even icicles come to life, twist themselves into knots, and sing \u2014 occurs during the musical number. Here, ghost-Koko does some really strange things, such as transforming himself into a singing gold necklace (again, a graphical version of a line from the song). Stranger still is when Koko\u2019s head turns into a liquor bottle and he pours himself a glass of head-booze, the contents of which he then tosses into his neckhole before the bottle becomes his head once again. This is surrealism of a kind that would please Andr\u00e9 Breton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what\u2019s really<\/em> strange about the animation in this scene is that all of its most extravagant qualities \u201crest\u201d on a foundation of rigorous realism. This is the only scene in the film that employs the technique of rotoscoping, in which animators would create character animation by effectively \u201ctracing over\u201d live-action footage of a living being \u2014 in this case, Cab Calloway himself. Ghost-Koko\u2019s movements are animated versions of Calloway\u2019s famed dance moves; as a result, Koko moves with a realistic grace and uncanny humanness that is strongly at odds with his character \u2014 and indeed with the narrative itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fleischer animators relied often on rotoscoping, a controversial decision for which some other animators branded them as \u201ccheaters.\u201d I don\u2019t wish to delve into that issue, but will suggest that the tension between realism and far-out whimsy is the chief source of this scene\u2019s strangeness. It is both<\/em> fantastical and<\/em> authentic, a combination made all the more curious by the fact that the musical number is the sole site of such \u201coppositional\u201d stylistic blending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inconsistency<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yet more oddness lurks inside this short film, though not all of it can here be explored. Most notable are the film\u2019s many one-off \u201cjokes\u201d that fail to pay off: A flower pot falls off of Snow White\u2019s ice-coffin, and then jumps back on top of it; the queen\u2019s long-nosed, big-eyed face turns, for an instant, into a frying pan with two sizzling eggs in it; Koko and Bimbo briefly find themselves in the eye sockets of a round-headed snow creature. There are more. None of them make any particular sense, and thus render the film all the more inconsistent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And inconsistency<\/em> really is at the core of Snow White<\/em>\u2019s bizarreness. It\u2019s inconsistent in its retelling of the \u201cSnow White\u201d story, in its characterizations, its staging, its cause-and-effect logic, its styles of animation, and its overall tone. The film represents a strange confluence of top-notch (even groundbreaking) animation and a curiously lackadaisical attitude toward making sure the film was at least somewhat sensible. One gets the idea that the filmmakers made many of their stylistic and narrative choices simply because they could<\/em>, not because they adhered to any sort of logic. Such an approach is in many ways commendable, not least because it yielded a film of surpassingly rich weirdness that, eighty years later, still has the power to instill wonder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IN ENGLISH. The animated version of Snow White<\/em>, produced by Fleischer Studios in 1933, possesses a richly multifaceted oddness. It is a bizarre film full of digressions and inconsistencies, humorously riffing on the original fairytale. Ethan de Seife analyses this wonderfully bizarre film, which combines musical digressions with elements of both surrealism and realism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":2131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}