WALT DINGY
Old-school Disney toons were full of hope, joy and color. Why are its live-action films so glum and gray?
HEY Disney, you don’t look so good. Maybe you should lie down, or get a new art director. Like the face of a fainting victim, a spate of liveaction films from the House of Mouse has been drained of vibrant color over the past 10 years, swapped instead for weepy blues, brooding grays and icky greens. They’re on the road to monochrome.
“Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” is the latest movie to cave to this depressing aesthetic, looking as though it’s been shot through an Instagram filter called “Swamp.” But the trend began nearly a decade ago, with none other than Tim Burton.
In 2010, the outré “Edward Scissorhands” director first entered the Disney-verse with “Alice in Wonderland,” his take on Lewis Carroll’s trippy story of a girl who falls down the rabbit hole and fights the Jabberwocky. He added his signature style: pale faces, striped clothes, cloudy skies and radioactive hair. Critics were ambivalent; it made $1 billion worldwide.
If there’s any studio that couldn’t care less if some movie reviewer enjoyed themselves, it’s Disney. It had a box office hit, and in rapid succession its other flicks followed suit.
Going through the recent list of films is like dimming the lights in a basement. “Oz the Great and Powerful” took us down the sepia brick road in 2013. The following year, “Into the Woods” had one-tenth the pop of the already-gloomy Broadway musical. Then came live-action “Maleficent” (2014), “Cinderella” (2015), “Alice Through the Looking Glass” (2016) and “Beauty and the Beast” (2017) — all visually dank. The subsequent “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequels could’ve been shot in Antarctica, and some of the live-action remakes of popular cartoons, such as “The Lion King,” are also more washed-out than their animated source material.
Think back to Disney’s greatest original hits: “Mary Poppins,” “Fantasia,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast.” The yellow of Belle’s dress and the red of Ariel’s hair were so bold and bright, they became culturally iconic. You can picture them even now, because color is powerful. Pocahontas did not sing, “You can paint with all the humidity of the wind” when she was trying to explain the wonders of her home to John Smith.
Obviously, it’s a drag to stare at sludge for two hours, but what’s worse than the drab appearance is the decrepit tone that comes with it.
Disney, while always exposing humanity’s failures, had never gone totally Grimm. The films didn’t hawk harsh lessons so much as optimism in the face of peril. They believed in love, friendship and happy endings. And what’s wrong with that? Kids can learn about the Dow and “ghosting” when they’re older.
These new grayscale films, on the other hand, are infatuated with the bleakness of modern life. They’re packed with violent battles, political allegory and contain a mood of constant sadness. In one scene in “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil,” all the magical woodland creatures are padlocked in a church and, essentially, gassed. Disney’s 1971 film “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” is actually set during World War II and it still managed to avoid such horrifying imagery — making its point instead with magic and human connection. And, yes, color.
Is this dispiriting trend the way it’s going to be for good? I’m not so sure. Last year’s “Mary Poppins Returns” was not only a throwback to the world’s best nanny, but to technicolor dreams of yore. It was a delight. Like any kid, Disney has gone through many changes in taste. Let’s pray this goth phase ends ASAP.