Can you believe it but Disney has graced us with the joy and laughter of 50 animated feature length gems, from the innocent charm of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, to the sassy 3D chat of
Tangled (Rapunzel), released this year. And what better way to celebrate than to see them all. All in the one year.
Bambi
It's easy math to do, all you need to see is one a week, with a couple of weeks leeway for your holidays. And the
BFI are making it easy for you by showing each film a couple of times a week for a few weeks at a time, so it's not as if you're locked into a single screening. And then you'll have seen them all. Which is quite a feat really. Something you can say you achieved in 2011.
It's an interesting journey to take with Disney –
and the films are being shown in chronological order, so it will feel like a journey. Spanning 70 years from the delicate nuanced animations of the early era to the 3D life-like drama and out of this world special effects of today, it's a tale of storytelling and technology leap frogging each other every couple of years to produce both films that we'll all hold close to our hearts forever and some forgettable flops. But no one's perfect, as the fairytales so frequently remind us.
As well as the films there will also be lectures and presentations from Disney directors, artists and animators from the past and present.
Some of the highlights of the year are in the early months, with
Pinocchio (1940),
Fantasia (1940),
Dumbo (1941) and
Bambi (1942) all quite early on in the programme. But there's a lot to look forward to too,
Peter Pan was released in 1953, so it's 14th on the list of 50,
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) is in at 17,
The Aristocats (1970) is at 19 and
The Little Mermaid (1989) is at 28.
Aladdin (1992) is 31 and
The Lion King (1994) is at 32.
But those are just my favourites, I'm sure you have your own. You can check out the whole list
here.
