Review:
I wanted to like this book. Truly, I did. Art of Walt Disney promises what one could only hope would be an engaging, insightful, and yes - wholly delightful - collection and overview of the western world’s most influential pop culture icon.
However what is presented here is best described as a complete and utter disappointment. That is not to say that I didn’t derive enjoyment from the book. In its glossy pages, I marveled at the loose, expressive works of Disney’s best though these pieces cannot be attributed to the author’s direct input. It is heartening to see, as well, these works referred to as legitimate products of art - for that they are. All too often, despite the genius apparent in them, the connotation of work under the Disney label leads to dismissal as childish and therefore unworthy of any sort of legitimization. This of course does not stand true; apparent in the far-reaching effects they have had not only in the formation of this nation but in the global community’s regard. It is precisely this legitimization, though, and the subsequent failure to produce any sort of insightful analytic remark upon it, where Art of Walt Disney fails so remarkably.
After initial impression, I felt not only empty but bored - unable to read and intellectually stymied through its final thesis. Part of this is due to the rather increasingly banal commentary the author nears as the book draws to its final pages. Yet the largest problem I had with Disney was the fact that, despite its boasting of being one of the longest running recounts on the near immortal company’s visual history, it stands more as a portable gallery with neat captions than any sort of actual book. In this way it feels obsolete and cripplingly decrepit. Pictures? Oh sure, we have the internet for that now.
The comments are the equivalent to literary potato chips. Quick, easy to digest, but ultimately unsatisfying and - upon reflection - a most probable waste of one’s time. Christopher Finch refers to the company’s history often but only half-heartedly, as if unsure of just what else to say. However there is quite a lot that could be remarked upon the subject. Disney, the company, was made great by the extensive vision of Disney, the man, that not only highlighted the intellectual appeal and humanity of those involved in the process but reciprocated this unto its audience. In its formulative stages, the works produced where not the fodder of Saturday morning cartoon programming but an experiment in the surreal landscape of what must surely have been seen as an equally surreal medium of the day; film. Artists that could now make their creatures dance, sing, breath, and live in front of the audience’s eyes had an intent with what they did. This new approach was Shakespeare modernized - perhaps surpassed. For where Shakespeare’s characters existed behind black ink to animate only within the reader’s mind, here Disney’s creatures came to have a life of their own. Autonomous, thinking, real; they existed in our dimensional world through their two-dimensional plane. Surely Finch would have perceived some of this and allowed at least a passing reference in the name of this vision. Unfortunately, however, in memory of these works, we - the audience - are pandered to and given instead only a dry summary of film’s (and it’s art) background.
I applaud Art of Disney for attempting a stab at artistic celebration in an oft overlooked and dismissed medium. However it falls short of any such true artistic analysis, critique, or even celebration of these works to instead replace it with dry commentary -however well intentioned - that remains flat. Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that where it attempts legitimization of it’s subject, Art of Disney itself falls short of such a goal in pandering to it’s where the true art of Disney - the realization of visionary intellect - stands tall.
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