![]() In fact, its outgoing wonder has been better captured in Brad Bird's The Iron Giant (which also has a key scene with a deer) and Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbour Totoro, a cartoon that goes for exquisite detail rather than Bambi's rarefied impressionism.Įssentially Bambi is a one-off, something the studio seems to have forgotten with plugs for a bland-looking video sequel on the otherwise excellent Collector's Edition DVD. The Lion King, Disney's attempt to emulate Bambi 50 years on, can't reach such highs. The forest fire is a shivering yellow painting the screen brightens to a red-orange as the deer herd flees man Bambi's fight with a rival stag is all struggling silhouettes, livid golds and icy blues. ![]() Impressionism blends with expressionism in stunning bursts of colour. The backgrounds took their lead from Tyrus Wong, a lowly Chinese animator whose sketches encouraged other artists to soften and blur the branches and grasses of Bambi's world, putting the focus squarely on the beautifully drawn animals (just watch Thumper's little-boy mannerisms). Bambi, meanwhile, returned to the traditional animal cartoon and twisted it into negative space. Fantasia had presented full-blown diabolism with the topless witches and monster devil of the Night On Bald Mountain segment. Walt was suspicious of artiness - "Weíre selling corn and I like corn," he once said - but he was devoted to pushing into new territories. Yet Disney's film uses these cuddly moments as grounding for a natural-world opus that, in its own way, is almost as ambitious as Peter Jackson's Middle-earth epic. There are the cute bits everyone knows baby Bambi stuck on a fallen tree-trunk (actually one of the test animations that convinced Walt to make the film) and the seduction of Thumper by a girl bunny, his runaway libido physically displaced to one helplessly peddling paw. To say that Bambi is about frolicking woodland animals is like saying The Lord Of The Rings is about little men blowing smoke and combing their hairy feet.
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