Re: Cinderella Discussion
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2020 10:57 pm
This is a few days late, but I wrote this on Blu-ray.com's forum thread for your #1 favorite film and why, and I decided I would post it here to celebrate my favorite film's 70th Anniversary. It's got how I first saw Cinderella which is a story some of you already know, but it details that and everything I could think of at the time for why I love the film. It'll have some stuff you didn't know about me, and maybe even stuff about the film you didn't know or realize. So, for me, for celebrating, here it is:
So, what is my favorite film? Well, my username and avatar hint at it. They are about magic dust. Which I guess was kind of invented by J.M. Barrie in Peter Pan with his fairy dust, but Disney invented the use of sparkling dust as the form of magic, and it started in Fantasia, but it was brought to its best use, in my opinion, in Walt Disney’s Cinderella. I drew this poster for the film:
Walt even loved the dust so much he asked for more of it in the film, which is how the magical sparkling dust got the name Disney Dust. Anyway, when I was three years old, I was at a picnic, and was playing on a jungle gym. I was going to swing across it by using the hanging black rings on chains. I reached for one, and…fell and broke my arm. My mom said as I came to her holding my arm, my mouth was open but no sound came out from me for a little bit. To make me feel better, my parents let me pick out a movie to rent from Blockbuster. I saw the Disney Classics VHS of Cinderella, the very first release of it on home video, with the cover of Cinderella in her torn ball gown watching her fairy godmother transform a pumpkin into a coach, and that made me wanna watch it. I don’t remember much of watching the film beyond looking down at my arm in a blue cast around the time the stepsisters hit each other with Anastasia’s flute and were fighting. I love that part. Anyway, I know that I fell in love with the movie, and since then, I have had a deep, long, lasting obsession with it. I have autism spectrum disorder, so that may be why I don’t just love the film, but am obsessed with it. I drew tons and tons of pictures, a lot of them of winding vines coming from the pumpkin, and a lot of Cinderella’s dress transforming. All the transformations I rewound and watched in slow-motion too many times to count, but especially that one. I paused the film and watched it frame-by-frame at many parts. My mom introduced me to other versions of the Cinderella story at the library, and I learned I loved the story itself, too, and loved a lot of versions, but to me, no version was ever as good as Disney’s animated classic. And I still feel that way today.
Why do I love the film? Why do I think it’s so good? I don’t know, and actually I don’t even think the film is that good. It’s really good, yes, but not even the best Disney film ever made (I think that title goes to the animated Beauty and the Beast). But it’s my favorite, and that’s what this thread is about, your #1 favorite film. So, why? Well, I think it is a masterpiece of soft, peaceful, idyllic, lilting, warm, fuzzy, magical feeling. Someone once said it plays like a lullaby, and that’s how I feel, too, despite the very dramatic and almost rape-like scene of the stepsisters destroying Cinderella’s dress, and the stepmother locking Cinderella in her room. This film is golden happiness and silver wistfulness. I wrote that before I got so depressed, I can’t remember exactly why I thought that, more than the sunny and warm scenes made me feel so happy, and the cool, bluish, purplish, white and gray scenes, with choral voices, made me think of wishing or yearning or thinking in a mysterious and peaceful way. So, the film begins with trumpets or some royal-like fanfare and then “Ahahahahahahhhh”…choral voices, making the film feel special and like something amazing was going to take place, glorifying what was to come, and the main titles are these stylistic, beautiful versions of scenes and iconography from the film. Somehow seeing what was to come that way was so exciting and mysterious, and the birds with the ribbon on the glass slipper was the magic as well as the wonderful animal friends happily helping Cinderella, in such a beautiful way. Then there’s that light revealing the storybook and the violin strings adding to the romantic nature of it all. The storybook’s opening pages look like a gorgeously rendered map, with a castle literally in the clouds and even the narrator says the kingdom is “peaceful” and that’s very much how the film feels, especially this opening sequence. The rain on the window as we zoom in to the somber time Cinderella’s father dies and her stepfamily just look off in the cold distance is perfectly dramatic. That dripping rain follows as we see the once glorious chateau in ruins and now very gloomy, but then, as we hear Cinderella remained “ever gentle and kind” through her terrible ordeals (you go girl, you’re strong!), and has hope that she will see a better life someday, the sunlight fills her tower as the birds part the curtains. It’s perfect.
Cinderella herself was perfectly cast. No other Cinderella has been as warm, as whispery, as soft, as gentle, as elegant, as princessy, or evoking a sense of caring and loving as Ilene Woods as Cinderella. She was like the perfect mother. It’s interesting, now that I think about it, the King in the film is looking for the perfect mother. But it’s her stepfamily and especially the animals she puts her care on, and we see she’s a really good person, and to me, even kind of a fun person, and we want her to see her dream come true. And the film starts with her dream. Not all Cinderella movies start as strongly as with a girl talking about her dream, which is a literal dream, too (!), that we see come true in the end. That’s good for the plot, to set up a character’s dream and get the satisfaction of it being achieved. Cinderella’s mice friends are all cute and you hope they get what they want, too. But I must say, the bits with the cat chasing the mice go on too long, and I see them as padding. I even think they extend the ending a little too much with it, despite its Hitchcockian suspense. When Cinderella starts her day and does the first chores around the house, it always felt to me like she was in charge then. Like it was her house still, and it kind of was like she had some happiness to herself then before her stepfamily started barking at her. And she was so bossy with Lucifer! And note, the film is very clever in her mockingly calling the cat “your majesty” when it is Cinderella who will become "her majesty"! The stepfamily is the perfect bunch of evil women for the true-to-original less-than-attractive type. I mean, the stepmother, Lady Tremaine, is kind of good-looking in an aristocratic way, but she’s no beauty queen, and the stepsisters are oafish buffoons, but it works! The stepmother is a clever, cold, calculating and manipulative kind of evil, while her daughters are animalistic basic b****es who can use brute force on you when brought to it! What’s best is the stepmother is scary. With one word, or even one look, she can instill fear and beat you down. And the stepsisters’ brutality is something to be feared when it rears its ugly head! The King is mad, and funny, and the Duke is bumbling and funny in his reactions to him and the other characters. The Fairy Godmother is a sweet, assuring presence with some funny moments to herself. She is such a calming and kindly force, why, she is surely Cinderella’s kindness come back to her almost literally, I am only just realizing now! With her cool periwinkle hooded cloak, benevolence, and awesome magic, she’s my second favorite character after Cinderella, and I was her for Halloween in one of my early years. Lucifer is my third favorite character. Yes, I want less of his antics with the mice in the film, but he’s so hilarious and has a huge personality.
The magic of the film, the literal magic, also of course adds to the magical feeling, because the animation of those transformations is incredible and stunning. The pumpkin coach especially has an amazing sequence from a bouncing fruit with long vines snaking out and winding into wheels, to a stately, very unique-looking mode of transportation, with those awesome spiral wheels. My favorite shape is spirals. And my favorite moment in the film, which is also Walt Disney’s favorite from any of his movies, Cinderella’s transformation, is so gorgeous, so breathtaking, so intricate and awe-inspiring, with the spiral of magic dust swirling around and dripping and sparkling as her tatters form new shapes and her hair flies up like she’s an angel, completed with a magic dust halo to further symbolize her goodness, c'est magnifique! The Fairy Godmother scenes of this film truly have a dream-like feeling that no other film can match! Cinderella’s silver and white gown is my favorite clothing design ever, with the wide, three-pleated skirt, the puffy bustle, the cap sleeves, and her hair in the three-sphered up-do, it all is what Cinderella just is and should be to me. The designs in the film are all the best and most beautiful for any Cinderella film. 19th century costumes ranging from many different decades, with hoopskirts and bustles and feathers for the women, and epaulets and braids for the men. And the architecture, such tall, grand 18th century buildings, with the castle being the tallest one, so high it reaches the clouds with it’s whimsical, fine-pointed parapets and turrets. When Cinderella gets to the ball, the pink and gold world around her is so lush and ethereal with chandeliers that hang seemingly into the heavens. And Cinderella is the only one admiring all of that instead of looking for the Prince, another aspect of her character. The Prince is pretty much a nothing character, but his scene of “So This is Love” with Cinderella is so romantic, so visually cool and kind of otherworldy, so heavenly and heady, that is my preferred way of seeing Cinderella fall in love with the Prince out of any version. It is the most beautiful.
The story is clever. Even though I feel the mice are a subplot and padding, they do have a big purpose, showing Cinderella’s kindness, helping make her dress for the ball and adding to the drama of it getting destroyed because they took what the stepsisters wore, and freeing Cinderella from her room in an intense sequence. It was so smart of Disney to add that the stepmother cruelly plays with Cinderella’s hopes, then dashes them when she has her daughters tear apart her gown, and I feel the deep sadness for Cinderella at that part. And it was even more clever to have the glass slipper break, and cleverer yet for Cinderella to use the other slipper to, in a way, save herself! I feel the elation of that moment and the happy ending.
Everything Cinderella does comes back to her. She made clothes for the mice, they made her a dress. She freed them from cages, they freed her from her tower, and even helped free her from her terrible life. Cinderella is a hero, even if just for the mice, and standing up for herself, like in that part where she says "Why not?" she be able to go to the ball (no other version has a Cinderella be strong in that way!), and using the other glass slipper cleverly to help herself! And of course, Cinderella’s kindness came back to her in the form of her fairy godmother’s magic, which also came because of her holding onto hope that her dreams would come true and she would someday truly be happy again. I love the character of Walt Disney’s Cinderella, and I have loved many other versions of her and her story, but it is Walt Disney’s Cinderella which is the movie I will always love the most, more than anything in the world. I dream of my dreams coming true. I keep holding onto hope I can make them come true. And if not in this world, maybe in Heaven, or somewhere in the universe, or beyond. I believe that someday, my depression will end and I will be fully happy again. Happily Ever After.
Happy 70th Anniversary, my darling Cinderella!
So, what is my favorite film? Well, my username and avatar hint at it. They are about magic dust. Which I guess was kind of invented by J.M. Barrie in Peter Pan with his fairy dust, but Disney invented the use of sparkling dust as the form of magic, and it started in Fantasia, but it was brought to its best use, in my opinion, in Walt Disney’s Cinderella. I drew this poster for the film:
Walt even loved the dust so much he asked for more of it in the film, which is how the magical sparkling dust got the name Disney Dust. Anyway, when I was three years old, I was at a picnic, and was playing on a jungle gym. I was going to swing across it by using the hanging black rings on chains. I reached for one, and…fell and broke my arm. My mom said as I came to her holding my arm, my mouth was open but no sound came out from me for a little bit. To make me feel better, my parents let me pick out a movie to rent from Blockbuster. I saw the Disney Classics VHS of Cinderella, the very first release of it on home video, with the cover of Cinderella in her torn ball gown watching her fairy godmother transform a pumpkin into a coach, and that made me wanna watch it. I don’t remember much of watching the film beyond looking down at my arm in a blue cast around the time the stepsisters hit each other with Anastasia’s flute and were fighting. I love that part. Anyway, I know that I fell in love with the movie, and since then, I have had a deep, long, lasting obsession with it. I have autism spectrum disorder, so that may be why I don’t just love the film, but am obsessed with it. I drew tons and tons of pictures, a lot of them of winding vines coming from the pumpkin, and a lot of Cinderella’s dress transforming. All the transformations I rewound and watched in slow-motion too many times to count, but especially that one. I paused the film and watched it frame-by-frame at many parts. My mom introduced me to other versions of the Cinderella story at the library, and I learned I loved the story itself, too, and loved a lot of versions, but to me, no version was ever as good as Disney’s animated classic. And I still feel that way today.
Why do I love the film? Why do I think it’s so good? I don’t know, and actually I don’t even think the film is that good. It’s really good, yes, but not even the best Disney film ever made (I think that title goes to the animated Beauty and the Beast). But it’s my favorite, and that’s what this thread is about, your #1 favorite film. So, why? Well, I think it is a masterpiece of soft, peaceful, idyllic, lilting, warm, fuzzy, magical feeling. Someone once said it plays like a lullaby, and that’s how I feel, too, despite the very dramatic and almost rape-like scene of the stepsisters destroying Cinderella’s dress, and the stepmother locking Cinderella in her room. This film is golden happiness and silver wistfulness. I wrote that before I got so depressed, I can’t remember exactly why I thought that, more than the sunny and warm scenes made me feel so happy, and the cool, bluish, purplish, white and gray scenes, with choral voices, made me think of wishing or yearning or thinking in a mysterious and peaceful way. So, the film begins with trumpets or some royal-like fanfare and then “Ahahahahahahhhh”…choral voices, making the film feel special and like something amazing was going to take place, glorifying what was to come, and the main titles are these stylistic, beautiful versions of scenes and iconography from the film. Somehow seeing what was to come that way was so exciting and mysterious, and the birds with the ribbon on the glass slipper was the magic as well as the wonderful animal friends happily helping Cinderella, in such a beautiful way. Then there’s that light revealing the storybook and the violin strings adding to the romantic nature of it all. The storybook’s opening pages look like a gorgeously rendered map, with a castle literally in the clouds and even the narrator says the kingdom is “peaceful” and that’s very much how the film feels, especially this opening sequence. The rain on the window as we zoom in to the somber time Cinderella’s father dies and her stepfamily just look off in the cold distance is perfectly dramatic. That dripping rain follows as we see the once glorious chateau in ruins and now very gloomy, but then, as we hear Cinderella remained “ever gentle and kind” through her terrible ordeals (you go girl, you’re strong!), and has hope that she will see a better life someday, the sunlight fills her tower as the birds part the curtains. It’s perfect.
Cinderella herself was perfectly cast. No other Cinderella has been as warm, as whispery, as soft, as gentle, as elegant, as princessy, or evoking a sense of caring and loving as Ilene Woods as Cinderella. She was like the perfect mother. It’s interesting, now that I think about it, the King in the film is looking for the perfect mother. But it’s her stepfamily and especially the animals she puts her care on, and we see she’s a really good person, and to me, even kind of a fun person, and we want her to see her dream come true. And the film starts with her dream. Not all Cinderella movies start as strongly as with a girl talking about her dream, which is a literal dream, too (!), that we see come true in the end. That’s good for the plot, to set up a character’s dream and get the satisfaction of it being achieved. Cinderella’s mice friends are all cute and you hope they get what they want, too. But I must say, the bits with the cat chasing the mice go on too long, and I see them as padding. I even think they extend the ending a little too much with it, despite its Hitchcockian suspense. When Cinderella starts her day and does the first chores around the house, it always felt to me like she was in charge then. Like it was her house still, and it kind of was like she had some happiness to herself then before her stepfamily started barking at her. And she was so bossy with Lucifer! And note, the film is very clever in her mockingly calling the cat “your majesty” when it is Cinderella who will become "her majesty"! The stepfamily is the perfect bunch of evil women for the true-to-original less-than-attractive type. I mean, the stepmother, Lady Tremaine, is kind of good-looking in an aristocratic way, but she’s no beauty queen, and the stepsisters are oafish buffoons, but it works! The stepmother is a clever, cold, calculating and manipulative kind of evil, while her daughters are animalistic basic b****es who can use brute force on you when brought to it! What’s best is the stepmother is scary. With one word, or even one look, she can instill fear and beat you down. And the stepsisters’ brutality is something to be feared when it rears its ugly head! The King is mad, and funny, and the Duke is bumbling and funny in his reactions to him and the other characters. The Fairy Godmother is a sweet, assuring presence with some funny moments to herself. She is such a calming and kindly force, why, she is surely Cinderella’s kindness come back to her almost literally, I am only just realizing now! With her cool periwinkle hooded cloak, benevolence, and awesome magic, she’s my second favorite character after Cinderella, and I was her for Halloween in one of my early years. Lucifer is my third favorite character. Yes, I want less of his antics with the mice in the film, but he’s so hilarious and has a huge personality.
The magic of the film, the literal magic, also of course adds to the magical feeling, because the animation of those transformations is incredible and stunning. The pumpkin coach especially has an amazing sequence from a bouncing fruit with long vines snaking out and winding into wheels, to a stately, very unique-looking mode of transportation, with those awesome spiral wheels. My favorite shape is spirals. And my favorite moment in the film, which is also Walt Disney’s favorite from any of his movies, Cinderella’s transformation, is so gorgeous, so breathtaking, so intricate and awe-inspiring, with the spiral of magic dust swirling around and dripping and sparkling as her tatters form new shapes and her hair flies up like she’s an angel, completed with a magic dust halo to further symbolize her goodness, c'est magnifique! The Fairy Godmother scenes of this film truly have a dream-like feeling that no other film can match! Cinderella’s silver and white gown is my favorite clothing design ever, with the wide, three-pleated skirt, the puffy bustle, the cap sleeves, and her hair in the three-sphered up-do, it all is what Cinderella just is and should be to me. The designs in the film are all the best and most beautiful for any Cinderella film. 19th century costumes ranging from many different decades, with hoopskirts and bustles and feathers for the women, and epaulets and braids for the men. And the architecture, such tall, grand 18th century buildings, with the castle being the tallest one, so high it reaches the clouds with it’s whimsical, fine-pointed parapets and turrets. When Cinderella gets to the ball, the pink and gold world around her is so lush and ethereal with chandeliers that hang seemingly into the heavens. And Cinderella is the only one admiring all of that instead of looking for the Prince, another aspect of her character. The Prince is pretty much a nothing character, but his scene of “So This is Love” with Cinderella is so romantic, so visually cool and kind of otherworldy, so heavenly and heady, that is my preferred way of seeing Cinderella fall in love with the Prince out of any version. It is the most beautiful.
The story is clever. Even though I feel the mice are a subplot and padding, they do have a big purpose, showing Cinderella’s kindness, helping make her dress for the ball and adding to the drama of it getting destroyed because they took what the stepsisters wore, and freeing Cinderella from her room in an intense sequence. It was so smart of Disney to add that the stepmother cruelly plays with Cinderella’s hopes, then dashes them when she has her daughters tear apart her gown, and I feel the deep sadness for Cinderella at that part. And it was even more clever to have the glass slipper break, and cleverer yet for Cinderella to use the other slipper to, in a way, save herself! I feel the elation of that moment and the happy ending.
Everything Cinderella does comes back to her. She made clothes for the mice, they made her a dress. She freed them from cages, they freed her from her tower, and even helped free her from her terrible life. Cinderella is a hero, even if just for the mice, and standing up for herself, like in that part where she says "Why not?" she be able to go to the ball (no other version has a Cinderella be strong in that way!), and using the other glass slipper cleverly to help herself! And of course, Cinderella’s kindness came back to her in the form of her fairy godmother’s magic, which also came because of her holding onto hope that her dreams would come true and she would someday truly be happy again. I love the character of Walt Disney’s Cinderella, and I have loved many other versions of her and her story, but it is Walt Disney’s Cinderella which is the movie I will always love the most, more than anything in the world. I dream of my dreams coming true. I keep holding onto hope I can make them come true. And if not in this world, maybe in Heaven, or somewhere in the universe, or beyond. I believe that someday, my depression will end and I will be fully happy again. Happily Ever After.
Happy 70th Anniversary, my darling Cinderella!