AFI #34: Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs (1937)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on May 14, 2021.

This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as unveiled in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas were closed and I had to review something, and I can't stop now until I finish.

(G) ★★★½

Director: David Hand.

Cast: (voices of) Adriana Caselotti, Lucille La Verne, Harry Stockwell, Roy Atwell, Pinto Colvig, Otis Harlan, Scotty Mattraw, Billy Gilbert, Eddie Collins, Jimmy MacDonald, Moroni Olsen, Stuart Buchanan. 

The dwarfs were about to drop some phat beats up in this shizzle.

Of all the films I've watched on this list so far, Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs is the first to appear purely on the strength of what it represents in terms of achievement. Re-watching it more than 80 years on from its creation, the hokeyness of it all and the scarcity of story shine through. Yes, it's a technological triumph of its era, but the supply of character development and plot are as short as the dwarfs themselves. 

But Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs holds its place on this list by being the first to boldly go where none had gone before. Derided as "Disney's folly" during pre-production, Walt Disney's quest to make the first traditionally animated feature-length film pushed him to the brink of bankruptcy as production costs ballooned from about half a million US dollars (roughly US$9.5m today) to US$1.5m. The sheer scale of the project shoved Disney's team to its limits and beyond. Animators were constantly having to "devise and refine numerous new techniques" as they went, according to Allan Hunter's The Woodsworth Book of Movie Classics.

"The drawing boards used in the studio had to be changed to accommodate the larger, more detailed images needed, whilst the development of the multi-plane camera helped to give a greater illusion of depth, augmented by much refined attention to small but telling details like the movement of smoke or rain, and other similar 'special effects' which had not been considered worthwhile in the shorter format," Hunter writes.

This attention to detail, as well as the technological achievements, are still impressive today, let alone in 1937. An early moment in which Snow White looks down into a wishing well and sees her reflection in the rippling water is a classic "how did they do that?" moment. It's one of many brought to life by the Disney team's revolutionary multi-plane camera, which is also used in the many slow zooms that draw us into the world. It's also a key factor in the Evil Queen's remarkable transformation sequence, where the camera spins around her in a trippy and disturbing way. Additionally, the use of rotoscoping for the human characters sets them apart from the dwarfs and animals (and still looks incredible by the way). All these things are the technology serving the artistry, and drawing us into Disney's magical kingdom, which is the real triumph of the film.

As Joshua Klein puts it in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, "there is no way to overestimate the effect of Snow White".

"It not only permanently established Disney as one of the foremost studios in the world but also advanced the state of animation to such a degree that it wasn't really until the advent of computer animation that anyone arguably pushed the form further," Klein writes. 

This is true. Snow White also set the template for the next half a century or so of feature-length animation -  not just at Disney, but at any cartoon company willing to battle at the box office with the House of Mouse. Even in the modern CG-animated era, you can see the influence of Snow White - just look at the likes of Frozen or Moana for the lingering traces of its lineage in the musical numbers, wacky sidekicks, cutesy animals, and sense of animated wonder.

Snow White's power to influence was immediate though. The Wizard Of Oz, released just two years later, owes Disney's big debut a big debt. The darker sequences in Snow White have a similar vibe, and it's even been suggested Snow White's success encouraged MGM to follow through on their journey along the yellow brick road.

But outside of its technological achievements, the film is seriously lacking. Snow White is a rotoscoped plot device, not a character. Her relationship with the prince is non-existent and we know next to zero about her (or the prince for that matter). We only care about Snow White because the dwarfs - who have far more personality - care about her, but even that is a stretch. 

As for the story, it's padded beyond belief. Strip back the sketches, and this struggles to be an hour long. Eight minutes (!) of the film are devoted to Snow White asking the dwarfs to wash themselves before dinner and then the dwarves washing themselves. That's 10 per cent of the running time given over to what quickly becomes a monotonous skit. 

The last 20 minutes - basically from the Queen's apple spell onwards - are dynamite, with real tension, conflict and drama. In fact, any time the Queen is on screen, the film goes up a notch. The stakes are raised and the film has something actually happening that's more involved and intense than dwarves washing themselves.

But Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs is not the best feature-length traditionally animated film of all time. It's not even the best Disney animated film of all time (that's an argument for another day). It's on this list, and deservedly so, because it's the first and perhaps the most influential, and that's not something to be sneezed at.