Bambi

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This article is about the 1942 Walt Disney film. For other uses, see Bambi (disambiguation).

{{Infobox_Film | name = Bambi | image = theatrical2.jpg | | director = David Hand | writer = Felix Salten (novel)
Larry Morey (story adaptation)
Perce Pearce (story direction) | starring = Bobby Stewart
Donnie Dunagan
Hardie Albright
John Sutherland
Paula Winslowe
Peter Behn
Tim Davis
Sam Edwards
Will Wright
Cammie King
Ann Gillis
Fred Shields
Stan Alexander
Sterling Holloway | producer = Walt Disney | distributor = RKO Radio Pictures | released = August 13, 1942 | runtime = 70 min. | language = English | budget = | imdb_id = 0034492 

 | preceded_by = Dumbo (1941)
 | followed_by = Saludos Amigos (1942)

}} Bambi is the fifth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, which was originally released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on August 13, 1942 and produced by Walt Disney. The film was based on the 1923 book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten. In the book, the main characters are Bambi, the young roe deer prince of the forest, his parents - the Great Prince of the forest and his unnamed mate - and his friends Thumper (a rabbit), Flower (a skunk), and his childhood friend and future mate, Faline (a deer). For the movie, Disney took the liberty of changing Bambi's species into a white-tailed deer for visual emphasis against the colored backgrounds.

Contents

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story of the natural life cycle - birth, death and re-birth - is the true plot of the film. It is a case study in the very basics of life: the ‘doe-eyed’ innocence of childhood; parental love; discovering and learning about the world around us (both its beauty and its danger); loss and grief; developing friendships; loyalty; balancing risk and need; growing toward independence; being at one and in harmony with nature; and romantic love.

Like the majority of Walt Disney's feature-length animated narratives, Bambi embraces both joy and tragedy. Bambi is a movie that alternates frequently between these two extremes, with the one typically being used to set up the other. For instance, the joy of Bambi's first walk through the forest is interrupted by a frightening thunderstorm. His first visit to the meadow is joyful until it is interrupted by hunters who fire upon Bambi and his mother and father.

The seminal scene in the movie involves Bambi's mother and her death at the hands of off-screen hunters. In the sequence, we see the use of the joy/tragedy motif used again. The scene is set in late winter, and Bambi and his mother struggle to find food as mournful music plays. Joy is felt as they discover a patch of new grass, signaling the arrival of Spring, and joyful music is heard on the soundtrack. As they feast, the mood changes again, and we hear Man approach off-screen, represented only by his theme music (a low, three-note motif). Bambi's mother suddenly catches Man's scent, and orders her child to run, but she is too late. As they flee across the snow field, a shot rings out. The camera stays with young Bambi as he runs through the forest, finally stopping to catch his breath. He notices at this time (as does the audience) that his mother is nowhere to be seen.

In a series of heartbreaking dissolves, Bambi wanders desperately through the forest calling for her, but no answer comes. Bambi is startled by the sudden appearance of his father, the Great Prince, who tells him that his mother cannot be with him any more. Bambi casts his head to the ground, and when he lifts it again, we see he is crying, realizing what has happened. Bambi follows his father into the forest, taking one last look back as he leaves his childhood and innocence behind.

The death of Bambi's mother is one of the most famous moments in American animation, a moment so upsetting to certain children that they had to be carried screaming out of the theater during Bambi's numerous theatrical presentations. For this reason, and because of the horror and violence of the climactic hunting/forest fire sequence, many critics question the suitability of Bambi as a film appropriate for very young audiences. When one takes Bambi together with the other Disney feature films created during the same period of the early 40's, such as the dark Pinocchio, the powerful Fantasia, and the serious Victory Through Air Power, one can see an attempt by Walt Disney to produce films pushing against the stereotype of Disney animation as "children's films".

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Controversy

Recently, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior has criticized the movie Bambi for propagating the idea that the best way to manage the forest resources within the U.S. was to fight forest fires. The Secretary of the Interior points out that controlled burning is now recognized as more beneficial, and that forest animals, such as Bambi, simply move out of the way of forest fires and, in general, are not killed by them. This is perhaps ironic, but an interesting indicator of changing scientific attitudes, as the U.S. Forest Service originally used Bambi with limited permission from Disney as their charismatic anti-fire mascot before they developed the now-famous Smokey the Bear.

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History

Image:Bambivhscover.jpg

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Re-release schedule and home video

Bambi was released in theaters in 1942, during World War II and was Disney's fifth full length animated film. It was an advance over the previous movies in sophistication of the animation, due to the experience gained in character animation at the Disney studio. The famous art direction of Bambi, which suggests emotion and the feeling of a forest rather than depicting a real forest, was due to the influence of Tyrus Wong, a former painter who provided eastern and painterly influence to the backgrounds. It was re-released to theaters on 1947, 1957, 1966, 1975, 1982, and 1988. It was released on VHS video in 1989 (The Classics version) and 1997 (Masterpiece Collection version) and remastered for DVD in 2005 (as a Platinum Edition release).

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Bambi theatrical release history

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Recycled Animation from Bambi in other films

Animation from Bambi has been reused in a lot of other Disney films, usually of birds, leaves and generic woodland footage. For example, one scene in The Fox and the Hound reused footage of the animals running from the rain in Bambi's "Little April Shower" sequence. The most reused footage from Bambi was the few seconds of Bambi's mother looking up from eating grass just before she is killed by the hunter. This footage has been used in hunting scenes in The Sword in the Stone and The Jungle Book. It's also featured in The Rescuers (during the song "Someone's Waiting For You") and in the opening scene of Beauty and the Beast. Even a later Donald Duck short featured Bambi and his mother. They are drinking from a stream and then a bunch of garbage floats past them in the stream and Bambi's mother says to him calmly, "Man is in the forest. Let's dig out." They then leave.

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Trivia

  • The use of implied violence by an unseen threat, expressed solely through music (a low, simple, repeating musical motif), were powerful psychological techniques Steven Spielberg later famously adopted in Jaws (1975).
  • In a recent interview to Newsweek magazine, Spielberg says he that considers Bambi the biggest crying movie of all time. "When I was a kid, I would actually get up in the middle of the night and make sure my parents were still alive."
  • The off-screen character of "Man" has been named one of the 100 Greatest Screen Villains by the American Film Institute.
  • In 1993, the producers at Warner Bros. Animation made a parody of this element on one of their Animaniacs episodes, a Slappy Squirrel segment entitled "Bumbie's Mom." In it, Slappy and her nephew Skippy go see the movie "Bumbie," which is a direct parody of Bambi, down to a Thumper-like rabbit who bumps his buttocks (according to Slappy, this is because he "ate too much sugar"). However, when Bumbie's mother gets shot offscreen, like the original film, Skippy bursts into tears. The forest fire scene is also parodied, also scaring Skippy and making him cry harder. Slappy winds up pulling the sobbing Skippy out of the theater, and then they go to visit the actress (a female elderly deer), where Skippy learns that the deer playing Bumbie's mom was not really killed.
  • In Kingdom Hearts, a popular video game created by Squaresoft and Disney, Bambi makes an appearance as a Summon creature. He runs around and drops items beneficial to the party.
  • In the James Bond Diamonds Are Forever, two characters are named Bambi and Thumper. (Ian Fleming's reference)
  • In the original novel, Faline had a twin brother named "Gobo". Along with Gobo, Ronno had a friend called "Karus". There was also a doe named "Marena" and an old doe called "Nettla" who takes care of Bambi after his mother dies.
  • Saturday Night Live's TV Funhouse segment, used Bambi as a means to lampoon Disney's usage of older properties for new direct-to-video sequels in the form of Bambi 2002 as well as Disney's standard of pulling off their movies from retail and putting them in the Disney vault. Of course, being TV Funhouse, the entire segment consists of rather absurd sequences involving a rapping Bambi, terrorists, Jared Fogle, and the New York Yankees to name a few.
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Titles in different languages

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Voice cast

Actor Role(s)
Bobby Stewart Baby Bambi
Donnie Dunagan Young Bambi
Hardie Albright Adolescent Bambi
John Sutherland Adult Bambi
Paula Winslowe Bambi's Mother and Pheasant
Peter Behn Young Thumper
Tim Davis Adolescent Thumper, Adolescent Flower
Sam Edwards Adult Thumper
Stan Alexander Young Flower
Sterling Holloway Adult Flower
Will Wright Friend Owl
Cammie King Young Faline
Ann Gillis Adult Faline
Fred Shields Great Prince of the Forest
Thelma Boardman Girl Bunny, Quail Mother and Frightened Pheasant
Mary Lansing Aunt Ena, Mrs. Possum, Pheasant
Margaret Lee Mrs. Rabbit
Otis Harlan Mr. Mole
Marion Darlington Bird calls
Clarence Nash Bullfrog
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See also

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References

  • Spoofed by "Cartoons Gone Bad" http://cartoons-gone-bad.smackjeeves.com/. Thamper is an Thumper spoof
  • Barrier, Michael, Graham Webb, and Hames Ware. "The Moving Drawing Speaks." Funnyworld #18, Summer 1978. pp.21.
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External links

Template:Disney animated featuresde:Bambi (Film) es:Bambi it:Bambi nl:Bambi

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