Sleeping Beauty Spring: "Sleeping Beauty" (1959 Disney animated film)
In contemporary American popular culture, this lavish animated feature defines the story of Sleeping Beauty. Countless children have grown up with this version of the tale, not just through the film itself, but through dolls, picture books, Halloween costumes, t-shirts, accessories, and visits to the pop culture icon that is Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle. Yet as an adaptation of of the fairy tale, it plays particularly fast and loose with the original plot. But the liberties it takes work to its advantage. Disney infuses the tale with emotion, conflict, and action that more strictly faithful adaptations lack, but which suit the art form of cinema.
The film's first and foremost departure from the classic tale is to flesh out and humanize the fairies, rather than portraying them as just ethereal agents of fate. The three good fairies, Flora (voice of Verna Felton), Fauna (Barbara Jo Allen), and Merryweather (Barbara Luddy), are small elderly ladies, each with her own distinct, endearing personality. In sharp, powerful contrast to their goodness and warmth stands Maleficent (Eleanor Audley) – not the mere angry fairy of tradition, but a majestic dark sorceress, the self-proclaimed "mistress of all evil," and one of Disney's most iconic villains. Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather are the true protagonists of this film, as the story is rewritten to revolve around their efforts to save Princess Aurora (voiced by the golden-toned operatic soprano Mary Costa) from Maleficent's evil magic.
After Merryweather softens Maleficent's curse on Aurora from death to sleep, the three good fairies take further steps to try to prevent the curse from coming to pass at all. In another drastic departure from the traditional tale, King Stefan and his queen entrust their baby daughter to the fairies, who disguise themselves as peasant women and raise her as their foster child in the forest, changing her name to "Briar Rose." (Thus her name from the Grimms' version of the tale and her name from Tchaikovsky's ballet both get their due.) They plan to take her back to the castle at sunset on her sixteenth birthday, when the curse will end, to reunite with her parents and to marry her betrothed, Prince Phillip (Bill Shirley).
Sixteen years later, in the forest, Briar Rose and Prince Phillip meet by chance and fall in love, neither knowing the other's identity. Afterwards, Briar Rose is distraught to learn her own royal identity and betrothal, because it means leaving her "peasant boy" behind. When the fairies take her back to the castle, they allow the sad princess a few moments alone. Unfortunately, Maleficent seizes the chance to hypnotize Aurora and leads her up to a tower where a spinning wheel waits.
As the fairies put the whole royal court to sleep along with Aurora, they learn that the young man she met in the forest was, in fact, Prince Phillip. But Maleficent captures and imprisons the prince to prevent him from waking Aurora with true love's kiss. This leads to what may be the most dramatic change from the traditional story: Aurora and the court's enchanted sleep doesn't last for a hundred years, but just one night, the length of time it takes for the fairies to help Prince Phillip escape from Maleficent's dungeon and reach King Stefan's castle. After Phillip chops through the forest of thorns Maleficent creates to bar his way, Maleficent transforms herself into a fire-breathing dragon, and an epic battle takes place. In the end, of course, the dragon is slain, and Phillip's kiss wakes Aurora, who finally meets her parents and takes her place as princess by her prince's side, while the good fairies happily look on.
Walt Disney set out to make Sleeping Beauty his greatest animated feature thus far, and its visual spectacle and elegance have rarely been equalled before or since. With artist Eyvind Earl as the animation's chief stylist, the entire picture has the look of a rich medieval tapestry, combined with with sleek traces of 1950s modern art too, and the film's widescreen Super Technirama 70 format gives it an epic dimension far different from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Cinderella. The visual beauty is enhanced by the classical-flavored musical score by George Bruns, based on motifs from Tchaikovsky's ballet – of the few songs sung by the characters, the standout is the main love theme, "Once Upon a Dream," based on Tchaikovsky's famous Garland Waltz. Some critics might find the whole atmosphere too sophisticated and serious compared to other, livelier films in Disney's animated canon. But the excellent voice cast brings their roles to life, and the film's focus on Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather adds warmth, lightness, and gentle humor to balance out the medieval elegance.
While I can't say if Walt Disney succeeded or not in making Sleeping Beauty greater than all his earlier animated features, it's most definitely one of the crown jewels of the Disney animated canon. And while it's not the most faithful retelling of the classic fairy tale, its sheer artistic quality as a film is hard for any other version to equal.
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