BBC Walt Disney Documentary Review ★★★★
A few months ago my sister text me to tell me that there was a Documentary airing on the BBC Chanel about Walt Disney. I of course was really interested to see it. I had previously, as I'm sure many have, seen a documentary they made years ago regarding his "Secret Life". Unfortunately a lot of that Documentary was intended to malign the man's reputation based on stories of anti communism, sexism, racism etc... which I personally found to be really outlandish and have evidence pointing to the contrary, at least about the sexism and racist parts. Anyway, this most recent documentary wasn't like that at all, it was more just a biographical look at Walt, his work and a bit of the life of the man himself and what made him tick.
I couldn't actually watch it's original airing because I don't have that channel but luckily I found it uploaded on Youtube! So thank you to the person who took the time to do that. It's uploaded in two one hour long parts. The first part obviously deals with Walt's early beginnings as an animator then goes on to his creation of Oswald the Rabbit and eventually his creation of Mickey Mouse. One thing I appreciated about this was that they didn't fixate too much on his difficulties during this time, it was brought up of course but they didn't drag it out too much which some previous ones have done. I really found it very fascinating when they discussed the tole the making of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs took on Walt as well as all of the other workers at the studio, there were some facts about deadlines and the work put into it that I wasn't fully aware of before watching it.
The rest of the first segment of the program focuses on the rest of the "Big Five" aka Walt's first animated features which are Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi and the struggles that came with creating those masterpieces. This of course features segments about the strike of the studio's employees due to their outrage over wages, workload etc... and Walt's distaste with them joining unions. This bit of the documentary is handled fairly and it does not once side with the employees or Walt, instead it just takes a subjective look at the situation which I thought was a great way to go.
The second installment was the better one for me personally. It featured a lot about how Walt felt about the production of Cinderella which I had no idea about as a huge fan of that movie and it also talked about the making of Mary Poppins, my favourite movie of all time. The controversy of the movie Song of the South which I have yet to see as I'm not sure I would enjoy it is discussed, as well as criticism of Walt's vision for things by many journalists throughout the years which lends to the unbiased tell of the story. Lastly the idea, creation and execution of Disneyland features in the final part of the documentary. The tidbits and information about the weeks coming up to the opening day of the theme park and why Walt decided to open it in the first place are amazing for any Disney fan to hear about and it was in my opinion the best thing about this production.
Overall, I feel BBC did a wonderful job with this documentary, as I said they made an unbiased and subjective observation on all the aspects of Walt Disney's life and his creations throughout the years. This of course was helped along by interviews from various people including biographers, journalists, animators, family members etc.... I would definitely recommend this to any Disney fan, particularly ones like myself who are not only interested in watching the films, but also the technical and historical aspect of the Disney world. 4 out of 5 stars
Here is a link to the Documentary on Youtube for anybody that wants to check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vts2AWcIUHM
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