Something Else: Sleeping Beauty

Random thoughts of random lengths on random films

Directed by Clyde Geronimi

Written by Erdman Penner adapting Charles Perrault's/The Brothers' Grimm/Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty"

Voice acting by Mary Costa (Princess Aurora), Bill Shirley (Prince Phillip), and Eleanor Audley (Maleficent)

Edited by Roy M. Brewer Jr. and Donald Halliday

Production Design by Ken Peterson

*Note: I don't know what the equivalent of "cinematographer" is in animation, so I just put down Ken Peterson. If I wanted to be fully accurate, I'd need to list every animator/visual effects artist.

Sleeping Beauty can be difficult to analyze. The characters are one-dimensional, there's barely anything going on thematically, and the plot is a wisp. Princess Aurora's only defining traits are that she's pretty and can sing. Her only desire is to get married. Prince Phillip is a drip, with the features of a Ken doll and the personality to match. Likewise, his one want is betrothal.

The title gives the wrong impression. The Beauty of note only appears for 18 minutes, long enough only to sing to some animals and prick her finger. If she is labeled the protagonist, the pacing seems lumpy. The majority of the action is jammed into the beginning and end, with a long, barren section in the middle. However, if our sympathies are re-centered on the three fairies, the structure makes more sense and the emotional arc becomes satisfactory.

Despite the aforementioned issues, Sleeping Beauty is an absolute pleasure for one simple reason: its animation and design are unique and astounding to behold. As a biochemist impersonating a cinephile with a limited vocabulary, the overuse of stunning, striking, amazing, and all their permutations in film writing is hugely frustrating. All of those words are accurate descriptors, but their "dead to language" nature doesn't properly communicate the experience of watching Sleeping Beauty, so I'll try to be more specific.

Next time you're perusing the film, stop on one of the scenes of Princess Aurora or Prince Phillip gallivanting about the woods. Notice that there is a clear distinction between the foreground (where the characters usually reside), the middle ground, and the background. The three look flat and separated from each other. This is different from the style developed in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, where fluid animation gives the impression of depth to the humans and the scenery is highly detailed.

The effect is like watching a stained glass window wrung through the Technicolor process or an illustrated medieval scroll that has gained autonomy. I began watching while eating dinner, and once the film opened with hordes of multicolored knights and villagers lined up at a castle, I had to stop just so I could gawk at what was onscreen. It's a cliché to say so, but nothing else looks like it, certainly nothing in the past or future of the Disney canon. If you venture outside of Walt's domain, Samurai Jack and The Secret of Kells come close, but they take the deliberately dimensionless aesthetic to further extremes. The style extends to the people. When in profile, they look cut-out and have multiple, discrete lines demarcating different parts of their bodies and clothing. When they move, this effect is slightly dampened and they appear fuller. Taken together, they twirl from 2-d to 3-d and back again in a mind-boggling manner.

Perhaps Sleeping Beauty's greatest asset is the malevolent Maleficent. She is a successful villain based not so much on what she does, but how she looks while doing it. Her scant few actions boil down to placing the famous curse and turning into a dragon after ineffectually detaining Phillip. And yet, she is awesome. Her garb of a black robe with purple lining and a horned headdress hides whatever human form might exist underneath, turning her into a shade or a wraith.

Walk? Ha! Walking is for mere mortals. Maleficent glides. Normal entrances are below her. A Maleficent entrance requires nothing less than transforming into an ominous green orb of energy and laughing maniacally. If you're inclined to approach Disney through its history of poor female representation, you could find your way to seeing her as the hero. She relishes the chance to disrupt a safe, hetero-normative relationship and attempts to bring down a monarchy by slowly torturing its boring heir. She even gets the film's most affecting scene, when she cries out in distress upon seeing her pet crow turned to stone. She is an ancient vamp and a middle ages femme fatale to Aurora’s straight-laced peasant/princess. How could you not love her?