Rewatch: Hunchback of Notre Dame
Apr. 24th, 2020 12:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orangerfulOh a random whim (because it somehow came up in conversation last night and I don't remember how) I decided to watch Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Yes, it was a problematic adaptation and a strange story for Disney to turn into an animated feature, but I have always loved it. The hand-drawn animation is still gorgeous. But it is the soundtrack that somehow manages to both lift me up and break my heart at the same time.
From the opening song, where Clopin, the head of the gypsies, gives us Quasimodo's backstory, I get goosebumps and my chest tightens. When the choir goes from a quiet moan to almost a screech while Frollo dangles the baby over the well, I can't breath and I get tears in my eyes. The raw EMOTION of that music is just something you never heard before and I don't think we have heard again in a Disney movie.
And then Quasimodo's "wanting" song, a key moment in every Disney movie, Tom Hulce's voice sounds so fragile as Quasi carefully runs around the top of the cathedral, looking down at Paris, dreaming and wishing...
Of course, there is the beautiful centerpiece that is Esmerelda's God Help the Outcasts which is just underrated and it is a crime. First, the animation as she walks through Notre Dame is just stunning. The sequence with the candles and, of course, that final moment in the window's reflection on the ground.
But it is the lyrics. I can't even imagine this movie coming out today, I wonder if people were upset with the religious elements. I mean, it's not attacking religion, but the privileged people that pray for their privilege to increase rather than helping others.
The lyric "I ask for love...I can posses" hits it all home - not just love or to love or be loved, but to turn love into a THING that can be OWNED.
Speaking of lyrics and imagery, I can't NOT mention Hellfire, another song that I doubt would ever appear in a Disney movie today, with Frollo lusting after Esmerelda, claiming she is sent by the devil, vowing to burn her alive. Yeah, wow, Disney makes KIDS movies, right?
And it's downright FREAKY! Her outline dancing in the flames, the way he caresses the scarf, the Judges appearing around him chanting "Mea Culpa" and that final scene as the flames envelope him and swirl back into the fireplace. IT IS BEAUTIFUL AND TERRIFYING.
This really was a Broadway production that just happened to get turned into a Disney movie. Searching for the videos, I found several clips from a production that exists now, but when the movie came out, I remember thinking it was the least expensive way to see a Broadway show. The musical production values, the themes, the mature story hiding underneath the Gargoyle's goofball humor.
A part of me wishes that Disney would see this niche of making Broadway cartoons and return to it. 1997's Hercules had a fun gospel/pop song style. Mulan felt more like a musical but after that we go into the Tarzan era of pop stars hired to write pop music. Again, I like Phil Collins (I have two ears and a heart, don't I?) but "Strangers Like Me" is not "Heaven's Light". I enjoyed the music from Frozen, but compared to this, it feels watered down. (I haven't seen Frozen 2 yet, but I'm doubting there are any moments Hellfire dark in there).
Anyway, that was me rambling about a twenty year old cartoon. If you have Disney+, give it a watch, it's only 90 minutes and it flies by. (Kevin Kline as Phoebus is an extra bonus for me since I've had a soft spot for him because of Pirates of Penzance...but that's another musical story).
Yes, it was a problematic adaptation and a strange story for Disney to turn into an animated feature, but I have always loved it. The hand-drawn animation is still gorgeous. But it is the soundtrack that somehow manages to both lift me up and break my heart at the same time.
From the opening song, where Clopin, the head of the gypsies, gives us Quasimodo's backstory, I get goosebumps and my chest tightens. When the choir goes from a quiet moan to almost a screech while Frollo dangles the baby over the well, I can't breath and I get tears in my eyes. The raw EMOTION of that music is just something you never heard before and I don't think we have heard again in a Disney movie.
And then Quasimodo's "wanting" song, a key moment in every Disney movie, Tom Hulce's voice sounds so fragile as Quasi carefully runs around the top of the cathedral, looking down at Paris, dreaming and wishing...
Of course, there is the beautiful centerpiece that is Esmerelda's God Help the Outcasts which is just underrated and it is a crime. First, the animation as she walks through Notre Dame is just stunning. The sequence with the candles and, of course, that final moment in the window's reflection on the ground.
But it is the lyrics. I can't even imagine this movie coming out today, I wonder if people were upset with the religious elements. I mean, it's not attacking religion, but the privileged people that pray for their privilege to increase rather than helping others.
The lyric "I ask for love...I can posses" hits it all home - not just love or to love or be loved, but to turn love into a THING that can be OWNED.
Speaking of lyrics and imagery, I can't NOT mention Hellfire, another song that I doubt would ever appear in a Disney movie today, with Frollo lusting after Esmerelda, claiming she is sent by the devil, vowing to burn her alive. Yeah, wow, Disney makes KIDS movies, right?
And it's downright FREAKY! Her outline dancing in the flames, the way he caresses the scarf, the Judges appearing around him chanting "Mea Culpa" and that final scene as the flames envelope him and swirl back into the fireplace. IT IS BEAUTIFUL AND TERRIFYING.
This really was a Broadway production that just happened to get turned into a Disney movie. Searching for the videos, I found several clips from a production that exists now, but when the movie came out, I remember thinking it was the least expensive way to see a Broadway show. The musical production values, the themes, the mature story hiding underneath the Gargoyle's goofball humor.
A part of me wishes that Disney would see this niche of making Broadway cartoons and return to it. 1997's Hercules had a fun gospel/pop song style. Mulan felt more like a musical but after that we go into the Tarzan era of pop stars hired to write pop music. Again, I like Phil Collins (I have two ears and a heart, don't I?) but "Strangers Like Me" is not "Heaven's Light". I enjoyed the music from Frozen, but compared to this, it feels watered down. (I haven't seen Frozen 2 yet, but I'm doubting there are any moments Hellfire dark in there).
Anyway, that was me rambling about a twenty year old cartoon. If you have Disney+, give it a watch, it's only 90 minutes and it flies by. (Kevin Kline as Phoebus is an extra bonus for me since I've had a soft spot for him because of Pirates of Penzance...but that's another musical story).
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-24 07:03 am (UTC)I did listen to the Broadway cast recording (the one that used the Disney music but was not technically a Disney production), and it definitely hewed more towards the original book with its ending.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-24 04:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-25 06:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-24 03:47 pm (UTC)I say that as someone who did like Frozen, a lot. (Haven't seen the second one yet either.) And I love the songs in it, but it has a different feel.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-24 04:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-25 02:08 am (UTC)Also, I had an Esmerelda doll! I didn't have any other Disney dolls as a kid (besides Ariel, obviously, because mermaid) but I really wanted an Esmerelda.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-25 05:13 am (UTC)I saw Frozen two twice and I liked the music better then the first movie.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-26 06:10 am (UTC)To be fair to Disney, Hollywood has been giving The Hunchback more of a happy ending than the book has since the silents. The 1923 Lon Chaney version may kill off Quismodo but it has Phoebus and Esmeralda happily together at the end. In the 1939 version, that was my favorite before the Disney one, Quismodo lives, but Gringoire gets the girl. I don't know if there's ever been a film version truly faithful to the book, but according to Wikipedia The Daily Mail at the time called the Disney animated version, "the best version yet of Hugo's novel."
I can't even imagine this movie coming out today, I wonder if people were upset with the religious elements.
I remembered on my own that it did much better overseas than it did domestically but not with the detail there is at Wikipedia. It only made $100.1 million domestically, but it made $225.2 internationally. Americans had more trouble with it not being their idea of what a Disney animated film should be than other parts of the world.
A part of me wishes that Disney would see this niche of making Broadway cartoons and return to it.
Get no argument from me. My Top Five Disney animated films are mostly from Alan Menken's original run from The Little Mermaid (my absolute favorite) in 1989 to Hercules in 1997. My full Top Five is--
1. The Little Mermaid
2. Sleeping Beauty
3. Beauty and the Beast
4. Mulan
5. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Not surprisingly, to me, when I looked Alan Menken up I found that the more recent Disney animated feature that sits just off the bottom of my Top Five--Tangled--was also worked on by Alan.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-26 03:52 pm (UTC)We rewatched Hercules last night and sheesh, people give Hunchback crap for not being faithful to the story but Hercules isn't even close to the real myths!
I do want to rewatch Mulan though, it's been a long time. Maybe that will happen soon as I seem to have fallen down a Disney rabbit hole with the ease of Disney+