Bambi (film)

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Movie
German title Bambi
Original title Bambi
Bambi-Title.svg
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1942
length 68 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director David's hand
script Larry Morey ,
Perce Pearce
production Walt Disney
music Film music:
Edward H. Plumb ,
songs:
Frank Churchill ,
orchestration:
Paul J. Smith
camera Maxwell Morgan
synchronization
chronology

Successor  →
Bambi 2 - The Lord of the Forests

The children's film Bambi from 1942 is the fifth full-length cartoon from the Walt Disney Studios . It is based on the book Bambi published in 1923 . A life story from the forest of the Austrian writer and hunter Felix Salten .

action

A little white-tailed deer named Bambi is born in a forest . This news quickly spreads in the forest and all the animals gather to greet the boy, who at first seems a bit scared and insecure on his feet. Shortly afterwards, Bambi meets his two new friends on an excursion with his mother: the cheeky rabbit Klopfer and the shy skunk Blume. Together they experience a happy and carefree childhood. In a meadow he gets to know his girlfriend Feline, but also the danger posed by people, which always lies like a dark threat to the lives of animals. Summer and autumn fly by, Bambi is growing up and learning more and more. In winter, his previously carefree childhood comes to an abrupt end: he loses his mother to a hunter's bullet . His father, the great prince of the forest, takes care of the little half- orphan .

Years later Bambi has grown into a handsome young stag. When he sees his childhood friend Feline again in addition to Thumper and Flower, the two fall in love. But since another stag also desires Feline, a dramatic battle against the rival ensues. Bambi has the upper hand and can win Feline over. Both live happily together from now on.

Bambi wakes up early one morning to the smoke from the campfire and investigates the matter. On a cliff that offers a clear view of the valley, he meets his father, who warns him that the hunters are back in large numbers in the forest and that they must retreat deep into the forest. A column of smoke from a hunter's campfire rises in the valley. Both want to flee when Bambi realizes that he has to warn the sleeping Feline. In the meantime, Feline has woken up and in turn went to look for Bambi. Both just miss each other when Bambi returns to his nightly resting place. The first shots echo through the forest and panic breaks out among the animals. Meanwhile, Feline is discovered and chased by a pack of hunting dogs . At the last second she can save herself on a cliff . Meanwhile, the flying sparks from the unsupervised campfire set the entire forest on fire. Bambi hears Feline's cries for help and rushes to the rescue. He bravely rushes at the pack of dogs and can keep them in check for a short time with antlers and hoof kicks. Feline manages to save herself. Bambi also just manages to escape the pack of dogs. He saves himself by jumping over a large abyss before the remaining dogs can take up his track again, but is shot in the middle of the jump. Half unconscious, he hits the other side of the abyss. In the meantime the forest fire has spread further, the sky is colored deep red. Bambi is lying on the floor apathetically and in pain when his father appears and strictly tells him to get up and pull himself together.

Still dazed, Bambi finally gets back on her feet. Together with his father he flees from the fire through a river. They both rush down a waterfall to escape the fire. Meanwhile, many animals have been able to save themselves on a small group of islands. Feline is also standing on the bank, desperately looking for Bambi. Emerging from the smoke and fog, Bambi and his father finally reach the archipelago by swimming. Feline hugs Bambi lovingly. Both are saved and reunited.

A year later, the awakening spring had already overgrown a large part of the forest fire damage, when one early morning a new customer caused a stir in the forest: Feline has become a mother. All the animals, including thumper and flower, who have now become fathers themselves, rush to the young mother. Another happy surprise awaits her there: Feline has given birth to twins. The camera pans from the happy mother to a high cliff on which Bambi and his father are standing. They exchange understanding looks, then Bambi's father withdraws. His job is done. Bambi briefly lowers his head sadly about his father's departure, but straightens him up again and now, standing in the light of the sunrise, proudly and happily sits enthroned over his kingdom. Now he is the prince of the forest. The camera slowly fades out from this last film scene.

characters

Bambi
The young deer is the main character in the story. Beginning with his carefree childhood, he learns the beautiful sides of life, but soon also gets to know its sometimes deadly dangers.
Bambi's mother (Mother)
She selflessly takes care of little Bambi and teaches him the secrets of the forest. She later sacrifices her life for Bambi by attracting a hunter's attention and being shot.
Bambi's father (The Great King of the Forest)
The great king of the forest is the oldest and wisest deer in the forest, who at first seems to Bambi to be closed, inaccessible and overwhelming. But he always stays in the background near Bambi in order to be able to help him at any time if necessary, and takes care of little Bambi after his mother has been killed.
Thumper
The cheeky young wild rabbit is one of Bambi's best friends. Klopfer is often admonished by his mother not to be so cheeky and cheeky, and often has to recite his father's wisdom, such as: "If you can't say something nice ... don't say nothing at all!" has nothing nice to say ... keep your mouth shut.). This sentence was uttered unplanned by Peter Behn when he had forgotten his actual text when setting it to music. The producers were so enthusiastic about it that an extra scene was designed for this movement.
Flower
The shy little skunk is Bambi's second friend. It got its name because Bambi, when he learned to speak, spotted it in a flower bed and promptly addressed it with "flower".
Feline (Faline)
Bambi's girlfriend. Bambi and Feline first get to know each other as children on the meadow. When they both grow up later, they fall in love. If you rearrange the letters of the name Faline , the result is the word elafin (Greek for deer ).
Friend Owl
A wise old owl Bambi has known since childhood. Finally, when he grows up, she tells him about the effects of love.
Ronno
Bambi's rival in the battle for Feline. He is defeated by Bambi in a dramatic stag fight and has to leave the field defeated. He is not mentioned by name in the film, but is mentioned in both Felix Salten's book and Bambi 2 .
Aunt Ena (Aunt Ena)
Feline's mother, who is also only mentioned by name in the original book.

production

History of origin

The rights to the film adaptation of Bambi were acquired in 1933 from MGM director Sidney Franklin , who originally wanted to bring the story to the screen as a real film. He had already started working on the film when he discovered that the technology used in a real-life film was not adequate to implement the novel. So he came up with the idea of ​​making the whole thing as a cartoon and turned to Walt Disney in 1935. Franklin and Disney signed a three-and-a-half-year collaboration, but when the work on Bambi finally dragged on for seven years, the friendship and collaboration between the two men continued beyond the official contract term. Disney thanked with the phrase "To Sidney A. Franklin -. Our sincere appreciation for the inspiring collaboration" in the film leader at Franklin.

Pre-production for Bambi began in 1936, and the film was originally intended to be released as the second full-length Disney cartoon after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Disney's thirst for perfection delayed the project more and more, so that finally Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940) and Dumbo (1941) were published before Bambi .

After the United States entered the war, all civilian film projects ceased and short propaganda films were made for the Department of Defense. Work was only continued on Bambi . At one point three quarters of the entire Disney production team worked exclusively on Bambi . In addition, the Multiplan camera developed by the Disney Studios was used to a particularly large extent in this film for realistic, three-dimensional tracking shots through a cartoon landscape. This can be seen particularly well in the opening sequence of the film.

The film was originally scheduled to premiere at the Lincoln Theater in Damariscotta , Maine, United States. However, it was feared that the hunters living in Maine could feel attacked by the film. The world premiere was instead on August 8, 1942 in London , the US premiere followed on August 13 in the Radio City Music Hall in New York . The novelist Felix Salten attended the Swiss premiere of Bambi in 1942 in the Zurich cinema "Rex". The German premiere of Bambi was in December 1950. Revivals followed in 1964, 1973, 1983 and 1993.

Film music

The composing of the actual film music for Bambi was originally supposed to be done by Frank Churchill , finished compositions were already available. But Walt Disney declined and instead entrusted Edward H. Plumb with this task, while Churchill was to compose the songs. Plumb contributed one of Bambi's most important stylistic devices with his classical orchestral music , Charles Henderson was responsible for the choir arrangements. The film music is of particular importance in this film, as Bambi only has around a thousand words of dialogue and the music must therefore be all the more effective. It is only interrupted twice for about 18 seconds in the entire film.

Plumb skilfully summarized the mood of the forest and the personalities of the individual animals in notes. For the autumn montage he interpreted Maurice Ravel's pieces “Daphnis and Cloe” and “La Valse” in his own way and rewrote them for choir and orchestra. Plumb's accomplished handling of the motif of people, which consists of only three notes, is also impressive. The use of this motif in Bambi's mother's dying scene is so haunting that it is immediately associated with impending doom. This motif later inspired the American composer John Williams to write his famous main theme for Jaws . The only difference between the two pieces is that the great white shark lacks the middle note and a two-tone sequence is used as the basis. The composer Russell Garcia was obviously inspired by this motif. He followed Bambi's three-tone sequence with his piece "Fear" from the 1960 film The Time Machine even more precisely.

The songs and the score for Bambi were optimally coordinated so that typical musical breaks are largely avoided. The result was four sensitive songs, all of which are sung from the off in the film - a specialty because in most other Disney cartoons the songs are sung by the characters themselves. In addition, the music in the film is almost perfectly adapted to the rhythm of the images. The so-called Mickey Mousing was used so imaginatively through different timbres, pitches and rhythms that next to the orchestra and choir only very few sound effects were required. An example of this is the song “Little April Shower”, which provides a suitable background during the scene with the spring rain.

The main theme of the film Love Is a Song (That Never Ends) (German title: Love is more than just a word - love knows no borders ) was written by Churchill together with Larry Morey, who had already worked on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . At Bambi , Morey was mainly responsible for the lyrics of the songs. Due to lack of time, colleagues had to help out musically towards the end of the production, so that Charles Walcott, Alexander Steinert, the conductor of the recording sessions, and Paul J. Smith , the musician responsible for orchestration, had to be named as co-composers.

synchronization

role Original speaker German speakers (1950) German speakers (1973)
Bambi as a baby Bobby Stewart Bobby Stewart Bobby Stewart
Bambi as a child Donnie Dunagan Mario Doerner
Bambi as a teenager Hardie Albright Michael Günther Sven Plate
Bambi as an adult John Sutherland Uwe Paulsen
Thumper as a child Peter Behn Karl Heinz Schenk
Thumper as a teenager Tim Davis Oliver Rohrbeck
Thumper as an adult Sam Edwards
Flower as a child Stan Alexander Corinna Fehrs
Flower as a teenager Tim Davis
Flower as an adult Sterling Holloway Horst Buchholz Eberhard Prüter
Feline as a child Cammie King Madeleine proud
Feline as adults Ann Gillis Susanne Tremper
Bambi's mother Paula Winslove Friedel Schuster Almut Eggert
Bambi's father Fred Shields Konrad Wagner Arnold Marquis
Friend owl Will Wright Georg Thomalla Hans Hessling
Bullfrog Clarence Nash Georg Thomalla
Mr. Mole Otis Harlan Georg Thomalla
Mrs. Rabbit Margaret Lee Inge Wolffberg
Woman raccoon Thelma Boardman Renate Danz
Mrs. Possum Mary Lansing Renate Danz
Mother quail Thelma Boardman Inge Estate
squirrel Stuart Erwin

The German first dubbing was done in 1950 on behalf of the German first distributor RKO by the company Elite Film Franz Schröder in Berlin-Dahlem. The book was written by Fritz A. Koeniger and Bruno Hartwich , and Bruno Hartwich alone directed the dialogue. The text and layout of this first synchronization still closely followed the English original. So all the songs here have been left in English, and Bambi is correctly addressed as "the little prince". Here the dubbing still has a serious character and is aimed more at an adult audience.

The second dubbing was created in 1973 on the occasion of the re-release by Fox-MGM at Simoton Film GmbH in Berlin. The script, direction, lyrics and musical direction were under the direction of Heinrich Riethmüller . With the synchronization of 1973, they wanted to "modernize" this Disney classic like many others and make it more child-friendly. Much has been smoothed out and played down compared to the original and the first version from 1950. This resulted in numerous inaccuracies:

  • The fact that Bambi is in the original “the young prince” and his father is “the great prince of the forest” is not mentioned in this synchronization.
  • The frog jumping away on the meadow says in the German dubbing "He's right" (in relation to Klopfer's opinion on the flowers and the greenery), but in the original "Watch out" ("Pay attention") so that he doesn't is accidentally bitten or trampled by Bambi.
  • After the death of Bambi's mother, Bambi's father only says the two sentences “Your Mother can't be with you anymore. Come, my son ”. The 1973 dubbing is more verbose: “You no longer have to wait for your mother. The hunters have it. You have to be brave now and learn to take care of yourself ... Come, my son ”. The translation is not correct either, as Bambi did not “wait” but desperately looked for his mother.

The German version from 1950 was officially withdrawn from circulation in the mid-1970s. According to the Disney Company and Buena Vista, only the second synchronization may still be used today and is therefore included on all releases for video and DVD.

The German translations of the four lyrics of Love is a Song (Love is more than just a word) , Little April Shower (Kleiner Regen im April) , Let's sing a gay little Spring Song (Frühling) and Looking for Romance (Ich singe mein Lied ) in the second German synchronization of the film from 1973 are by Heinrich Riethmüller .

background

restoration

In 2004 the film was extensively restored by Lowry Digital Images . The original film, which is stored in the Library of Congress and threatened to disintegrate as it was recorded on old, unstable celluloid film, served as a template . In about 9600 working hours, the 110,000 individual images had to be cleaned piece by piece and the original colors restored using the original drawings and the glass images from the Multiplan camera .

In order to bring the colors of the film exactly back to the state in which they were in 1942, it was not enough to simply take over the colors of the original drawings that were still in existence. Bambi was recorded on so-called "Successive Exposure-Film" (SE-Film), which increased the contrast and the color saturation. The restoration team worked with Kodak , which still had old film material that was chemically and technically very similar to the SE film used in the 1940s. The original drawings were photographed on this material in order to correctly restore the color tones from this film material.

The restoration work lasted fourteen months. In addition to a new, high-resolution 4K digital version, a new analog master tape was then created. In March 2005, the fully restored version of the film was presented for the first time on DVD .

During the restoration, an error towards the end of the film was also corrected. After the forest fire you can see a mother raccoon licking her child clean. In the middle of the scene, however, the child shifted from one picture to the next and the other half of the picture, and the mother licked the air. In the restored version, the child stays in the right place.

The audio track was also digitally processed. The original mono soundtrack, which had already been processed in stereo for the laser disc version of the film in 1996 , was freed from noise and other background noises and converted into the 7.1 format. However, the typical, for today's conditions extreme, distortions of the old optical sound track are still clearly perceptible.

influence

White-tailed deer
Roebuck

Bambi also served as a model for the animated film The Lion King , also produced by Disney in the 1990s . This film has even been dubbed “Bambi in Africa” by critics. The death of Mufasa in The Lion King in particular is very similar to the scene in which Bambi's mother dies. In early drafts of this scene, Bambi was also supposed to return to his dead mother and ask her to get up. Disney didn't like these designs, however. In one of the first changes, Bambi was only supposed to return to his mother's body imprint in the snow. But Disney was still too drastic:

“You never come back and show the imprint of the mother. It's all by suggestion… I just wonder if coming back and seeing her form isn't just sticking a knife in their hearts… He's hunting his mother and he never finds her… It stops any awkward business of him seeing his mother's form and start any extra crying. "

“You don't go back and show your mother's imprint in the snow. It all happens through hints ... I wonder if the imprint in the snow wouldn't break their hearts [the audience] ... [Bambi] is looking for his mother and will never find her ... This is how we avoid a delicate situation and unnecessary tears. "

- Walt Disney

The Japanese manga artist Osamu Tezuka was also inspired by Bambi for his character Kimba, the white lion . Robin Pen in the science fiction and fantasy magazine Eidolon :

“Osamu Tezuka was happy to acknowledge the inspiration that the works of Walt Disney and his employers had on his own creations. He even acknowledged that 'Bambi' assisted the creation of his lion king story. It is reasonable and responsible of artists to be inspired by others and to study their techniques, and there is no shame in admitting so. "

“Osamu Tezuka freely admitted that his own creations were inspired by the works of Walt Disney and his collaborators. He even admitted that Bambi helped create his Lion King story. It is only right that an artist should be inspired by the other and study their techniques. There is no reason not to admit that. "

- Robin Pen : Eidolon

continuation

The sequel Bambi 2 - The Lord of the Forests had its cinema premiere in Germany on April 27, 2006. In the United States, it was not shown in theaters, only released as "Direct to Video" on videotape and DVD.

analysis

dramaturgy

In Bambi , a continuous film plot and a predetermined goal for the protagonist were deliberately avoided - as is usually the case. Like Salen's literary source, the film also consists of a series of small and large events that happened to the young stag from his birth through his youth. The film is only told from the point of view of the animals. An exact time-defined process in weeks, months or years according to human standards is avoided. Rather, the transitions of the changing seasons are used for the flow of history, for example in the autumn or winter scene, where the color of the film slowly changes from green to golden yellow and falling leaves into cold, wintry shades of white.

The exaggerations or impossibilities that are typical for cartoons are avoided as far as possible and the emphasis is placed on a realistic, albeit poetic, representation of the animal world and the story. The film historian John Culhane said:

“The power of it was that is was real. It was there. You could walk into it and live with those animals. If there had ever been the question in the audience's mind as to whether the forest and this creatures were true, the hunter's hounds could never have chased Faline, Bambi's mother could never have been shot, and Man could not have been the predator that he was . ”

“The power of the film lies in its reality. It really is! You can go in and live with these animals. If ever the question arose in the cinema audience whether the animals or the forest were real, the dogs could never have hunted felines, Bambi's mother could not have been shot and the people could never have been the threat they are. "

- John Culhane

The initially still intact world of Bambi's childhood is suddenly destroyed when he loses his mother to the hunters. This scene is the pivotal turning point of the film, the carefree, innocent childhood is over. Here the makers worked a lot with indirect means of design in order to subconsciously address the primarily young audience. The so-called off-camera technology is used. The death of Bambi's mother is not shown in the picture, nor is the hunter who shoots her, although both were originally planned. Children in particular are specifically addressed - one reason why this scene has become an early “child shock” for many young moviegoers.

“Snow White and the seven Dwarfs is pure fairy tale and Pinocchio is a story of dreams come true. Only in Bambi the tears linger. In spite of humor, beauty and charm, even a lifetime does not diminish the memory of the shot that killed Bambi's mother and the anguish felt for the lonely little deer. Love's first kiss or the wave of a Blue Fairy's wand could not undo this terrible moment. It's reality and truth were the story's strength and the prime ingredient in making Bambi such a different picture. "

“ Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a fairy tale film and Pinocchio a film about dreams that come true. Only in Bambi did the tears remain unforgotten. Despite a lot of humor, beauty and enchantment, even a lifetime cannot erase the memory of the shot that killed Bambi's mother and the feeling of agony we shared with the lonely, little deer. Neither the first kiss of love nor a blue fairy's wand undone that horrific moment. Reality and truthfulness are the strengths of the story and the main reason why Bambi became such a different film. "

- Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas

The people are never seen in the film either, their presence and their work are only revealed to the viewer through threatening colors and music as well as warning swarms of crows, shots and fleeing animals.

Visual style

To this day, the film is a milestone in animation technology and was Walt Disney's personal favorite film. During the shooting, a small zoo with rabbits, skunks, white-tailed deer and calves, etc. was set up in the studio. The aim of the Disney cartoonists was to lead the characters from the previous, relatively simple cartoon style of earlier films to lifelike depiction in appearance and behavior, without, however, destroying the cartoon character of the film. You shouldn't, as Disney explained, "look like people in deer costumes." Precise studies of living animals and human children were therefore particularly important. The movement, behavior and physical appearance of the cartoon deer correspond exactly to their real role models. Thousands of study drawings, models and raw animations about movement, skeletal structure, muscles etc. of real animals were made. Facial expressions and facial expressions, on the other hand, were copied from toddler faces and transferred to animal faces. Here, too, every facial expression that can appear in small children was recorded in extensive studies. This amalgamation made it possible to depict the animals in an amazingly human way, but also without losing their typical animal attributes in a believable, realistic and lively manner.

The background images also required extensive research in the great outdoors. The artist and photographer Maurice Day was commissioned to take pictures in the forests of the US state of Maine . Over months he made thousands of pictures that showed the forests in all seasons and in all weather conditions: trees, grass, light, morning dew, moonlight, fog, snow, rivers, rain, etc. But even with these photo templates, the draftsmen were initially in front of you seemingly unsolvable problem: How should they draw the innumerable branches, blades of grass, the millions of leaves? It would not have been just a job that was impossible to handle because of the sheer amount of detail. Even the main characters, the animals, did not stand out sufficiently from these detailed backgrounds.

The solution was finally found by Tyrus Wong , an artist from China who worked at Disney as a simple intermediate draftsman. When he presented some of his sample drawings to the Bambi team, he was immediately brought into the team. Where countless details were previously visible, Wong only hinted at them in the oil paintings of his backgrounds, he made more use of the colors, the light and the atmosphere that prevail in a forest. He only used the detailed representation in important image sections. With a never-before-seen amalgamation of true-to-life representation, Western impressionism and traditional Chinese painting, he transformed the bare background of the film, the forest and nature, into his own, further actor with his own personality.

Another special feature of the film are its expressionistic, visual abstractions in some scenes. For example, when Bambi's father warns the deer in the meadow about the people, the color of the film shifts very strongly: the sky becomes a dirty gray, the previously green meadow a threatening, pale yellow. An as yet intangible danger is in the air. With the exception of the protagonists, all other fleeing animals are only shown in a silhouette and monochrome brown / yellow. When Bambi, his mother and father flee from the meadow together, they walk in a bright wedge of light that catches them like a kind of searchlight until they finally reach the protective thicket.

As the film progresses, Bambi falls in love with Feline, and this feeling of happiness shifts the worldview again. This time romantically transfigured, bushes and trees become white clouds in which Bambi and Feline perform their love dance. Until Ronno, Bambi's rival, enters the stage and suddenly destroys the picture. Another - the most extreme - abstraction follows immediately in the fight between Bambi and Ronno. The background is becoming more and more indistinct and depicted in menacing dark, monochrome colors. In the end it dissolves into large red and black, abstract image parts, in front of which the fighters fight in a dark, often black silhouette and surrounded by bright light fringes. When the fight is over and Ronno is driven out, the normal display returns and the menacing, abstract red and black background changes into a golden yellow sunset.

reception

success

At the premiere in 1942, Bambi still incurred losses, probably due to the war. Only about 1.23 million US dollars in income were compared to the approximately two million US dollars in production costs. It was not until the re-release in 1947 that the film reached profitability. Initially a flop , Bambi was in the top 200 most successful films in the United States by 2007; Adjusted for inflation, even up to the present day (2008) in the top 50. Only cinema revenues are decisive, not including revenues from video and DVD sales. The 2005 DVD release sold over a million copies in the United States on its first day.

Bambi is still on the list of the world's most successful films to this day (2008) and is the second oldest film in the non-inflation-adjusted “Worldwide Greats” list after the film Gone With the Wind, which was completed in 1939 .

controversy

There are two controversies in particular about the film to this day. The first is about whether the film is suitable for younger children. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper summarized the contradiction in 1988 with the cinema rerun: “Bambi is a very serious film. I don't know if some small children are ready for it […] In the annals of the greatest and saddest moments in cinema history, the death of Bambi's mother is at the top […] These cinematic moments are like an initiation passage for children of a certain age: They leave into the film as children, and come out as sadder, but also wiser young people. "

Indeed, the death of Bambi's mother made film history. Bambi was the first Disney animated film in which a protagonist dies, an important character who is not one of the villains . There are several reports of parents leaving the cinema with their crying children after the scene. The hunting dogs, the forest fire in the finale and a pheasant who was shot also frightened young cinema-goers and surprised parents who did not expect such scenes in a Disney film.

Felix Salten describes most of these scenes in his book, Disney adopted them without any major changes. He always took children very seriously and avoided telling them everything in simple, harmless stories without any serious problems. He also exposed her to certain shocks and fears: the fear of losing her mother, the fear of fire and much more. Walt Disney himself said:

“I don't believe in playing down to children, either in life or in motion pictures. I didn't treat my own youngsters like fragile flowers, and I think no parent should. Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil, and that is what our pictures attempt to do. "

“I don't believe in playing down facts for children, be it in real life or in films. I haven't treated my own children like mimosa either, and I don't think anyone should. Children are people and they should have to work hard to learn things, to understand things, just as adults have to work hard if they want to develop mentally. Life consists of light and dark sides. And we would be dishonest, insincere and belittling if we pretend that these downsides don't exist. Many things are good and these are the strongest things, but there are also bad things and we are doing our children a disservice by shielding them from reality. The important thing is to teach our children that good can always triumph over bad. And that's exactly what I'm trying to do with my films. "

- Walt Disney : Deeds rather than words

It is strange that to this day the cute scenes of the film in particular are anchored in the collective memory of people, whereas the no less numerous dark and serious scenes are hardly. This is probably the main reason why the film (in which death, fear and horror are portrayed in just as haunting images and scenes as the harmless and cute sequences) for the expression " Bambi Syndrome ", which transfigured a sentimental, denotes a belittled view of nature, could be the godfather.

The second controversy revolves around the portrayal of people in film. Even before the premiere there was a conflict with hunters who saw themselves discredited by the film. After Raymond J. Brown, editor of Outdoor Life magazine, had the chance to see the film in advance, he sent Walt Disney a telegram informing them that it was illegal to hunt deer in the spring. He feared that the film presented a caricature of the hunters as "mean, malicious destroyers of wildlife and natural resources". He asked Disney to put a preface in front of the film, which made it clear that Bambi was a fantasy and not a representation of the hunting community. After receiving no response, he urged the film distributor to put a preface before the film. When this failed too, he condemned Bambi as an insult to the American hunters and called on them to fight back against the film. Disney followed the theme of Salen's book with the film, but changed the way people are portrayed so that they are never seen and only their work is shown. He depicts them more like a higher force of nature, an earthquake, a storm surge or a hurricane. He did not want to portray hunters in general as bad guys. In the original version, there is only talk of “Man” (the human being), only the 2nd German dubbing mistakenly made “Jäger” out of it.

Felix Salten, who was a hunter himself and had his own hunting ground 15 kilometers outside of Vienna, also focused the story entirely on the animals. The story is told completely from their point of view. Both Salten and Disney were more concerned with warning people against careless handling of nature and its creatures. Some critics called the film one of the first films with an eco message. Radical animal rights activists still use books and films to achieve their goals, while many hunters, especially in the United States, denounce the film as "anti-hunting propaganda".

criticism

  • “If the shower scene in Psycho was the shocker of the sixties, and it is for me, then the equivalent of the entire forties was the scene when Bambi's mother died. And then the sentence: 'Man has entered the forest.' And the fire and the tremendously strong appeals for non-violence. […] I know it's a cartoon, I know Thumper stole the show from the others, I know there was a lot of cuteness in it. But I left the cinema as a convert. The film was then and still has a frightening sense of reality, and that has nothing to do with reality as we'd like it to be. "- William Goldman : The Hollywood Business , 1986 (Adventures in Screen Trade), Bergisch Gladbach 1986
  • "The music for Bambi, together with that for Pinocchio, is probably the strongest thing that Disney has composed for cartoons." - Michael Boldhaus, Cinemusic
  • “A masterpiece of cartoon in colors by Walt Disney based on the novella by Felix Salten. Recommended! ”- 6000 films , 1963.
  • "Despite the humanization and belittling of nature, this brilliantly animated classic cartoon with its grotesque and touching moments offers lovable entertainment." - Lexicon of international film

There are also reviews accusing Bambi of excessive use of the child scheme and other psychological manipulations of the viewer.

Honors

Bambi was mainly considered at the Academy Awards in 1943 , where the film received three nominations, including a. for the theme song Love Is a Song .

The film is also included in some leaderboards. For example, the death scene was listed in July 2004 by Total Film Magazine in 6th place in the “50 Top Movie Death Scenes” (50 most famous film deaths). In June 2003 the American Film Institute compiled the list of the "100 Greatest Heroes and Villains" (100 greatest heroes and villains of American film); people in general were voted 20th on the “villain list”. Additionally, it ranked the film as the third best animated cartoon of all time in 2008.

Academy Awards 1943

Golden Globe 1948

  • Special award for Walt Disney , among other things for the successful Hindi synchronization

Genesis Awards 1988

  • Predicate feature film classic

Satellite Awards 2005

  • nominated:
    • Exceptional youth DVD for the restored DVD version of the film

Library of Congress

Publications

  • VHS
    • Walt Disney Masterpieces: Bambi . March 4, 1994.
    • Walt Disney Masterpieces: Bambi . Special edition. Walt Disney Home Video. March 3, 2005 (new edition).
  • DVD
    • Bambi . Platinum Edition . 2 disc set. Walt Disney Home Video. 2005.
    • Bambi (Diamond Edition). Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. March 10, 2011.
    • Bambi's Adventure: Bambi (Diamond Edition) + Bambi 2 . Box set in a cardboard slipcase. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. February 25, 2016.
    • Disney Classics 5: Bambi . Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. April 12, 2018.
    • 2-Film Collection: Disney Bambi . Film 1 + 2 in a cardboard slipcase. New edition. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. September 6, 2018.
  • Blu-ray disc
    • Bambi . Diamond Edition. 2 disc set: Blu-ray + DVD. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. March 10, 2011.
    • Bambi (Collector's Edition), film 1 + 2 in DigiBook. limited. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. February 25, 2016.
    • Bambi's Adventure: Bambi (Diamond Edition) + Bambi 2 . Box set in a cardboard slipcase. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. July 14, 2016.
    • Disney Classics 5: Bambi . Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. April 12, 2018.
  • Free TV premiere
    • The German free TV premiere took place on May 17, 2012 on Sat.1 , around seventy years after it was first published. The second part also premiered immediately afterwards.
  • Soundtrack
    • Frank Churchill, Larry Morey, Edward Plumb: Bambi. On Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack. Classic Soundtrack Series. Walt Disney Records, Burbank 1996, No. 60880-2

literature

Web links

Commons : Bambi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ross Cares in an essay published by the Library of Congress , Washington, 1984.
  2. ↑ Bambi, Soundtrack: Man Returns on YouTube , Retrieved January 29, 2011.
  3. ^ The Time Machine, Soundtrack: Fear on YouTube , Retrieved January 29, 2011.
  4. ↑ Little April Shower - Bambi on YouTube , accessed September 24, 2015.
  5. ↑ Bambi in the Disney Dubbing Archive
  6. ^ Johnston and Thomas, p. 173.
  7. ↑ Robin Pen in the science fiction & fantasy magazine Eidolon , pp. 65–71, February 16, 1995.
  8. ^ Johnston and Thomas, p. 141.
  9. ^ Johnston and Thomas, p. 104.
  10. ↑ a b Kevin Jackson: "Tears of a Fawn," The Independent on Sunday, February 6, 2005.
  11. ↑ Worldwide Boxoffice
  12. ↑ List of United States adjusted for inflation , www.boxofficemojo.com
  13. ↑ "Bambi stampedes into video stores" ( Memento of 5 March 2005 at the Internet Archive ), Internet Movie Database
  14. ↑ Worldwide list, not adjusted for inflation , www.boxofficemojo.com
  15. ↑ Walt Disney in his essay "Deeds rather than words" ( Memento of October 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), 1963
  16. ^ Raymond J. Brown: Outdoor Life condemns Walt Disney's film 'Bambi' as Insult to American Sportsmen , Outdoor Life 90, September 1942.
  17. ↑ Boria Sax: The Mythical Zoo: An Encyclopedia of Animals in World Myth, Legend, and Literature . ABC-CLIO, 2001, ISBN 978-1-57607-612-5 , p. 146 .
  18. ↑ Joachim Radkau: The era of ecology: A world history . CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61902-1 , p. 414 ( google.de [accessed February 1, 2019]).
  19. ↑ Norbert Jessen: Israel: A visit to the heirs of Bambi. In: WORLD. February 26, 2012, archived from the original on December 18, 2018 ; accessed on December 18, 2018 .
  20. ^ William Goldman , "The Hollywood Business" (Adventures in Screen Trade), Bergisch Gladbach 1986, pp. 187/188.
  21. ↑ Michael Boldhaus at Cinemusic , 2005.
  22. ↑ 6000 films. Critical notes from the cinema years 1945 to 1958 . Handbook V of Catholic Film Critics, 3rd edition, Verlag Haus Altenberg, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 36.
  23. ↑ Bambi. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed May 27, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  24. ↑ Ralph H. Lutts, "The Trouble with Bambi: Walt Disney's Bambi and the American Vision of Nature," Forest and Conservation History, October 36, 1992.
  25. ↑ VHS tape from 1994
  26. ↑ Bambi Special Edition VHS
  27. ↑ Bambi's Adventure DVD Box.
  28. ↑ Bambi - Diamond Edition (DVD + Blu-ray)
  29. ↑ Bambi 1 + 2 double set new edition
  30. ↑ Bambi and Depps Alice in Wonderland for the first time on free TV on digitalfernsehen.de
Films from Walt Disney Animation Studios
1937-1949

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs  (1937)  • Pinocchio  (1940)  • Fantasia  (1940)  • Dumbo  (1941)  • Bambi  (1942)  • Saludos Amigos  (1943)  • Three Caballeros  (1944)  • Make Mine Music  (1946)  • Happy, Free, fun while doing it  (1947)  • Music, dance and rhythm  (1948)  • The adventures of Ichabod and Taddäus Toad  (1949)

1950-1999

Cinderella  (1950)  • Alice in Wonderland  (1951)  • Peter Pan  (1953)  • Lady and the Tramp  (1955)  • Sleeping Beauty  (1959)  • 101 Dalmatians  (1961)  • The Witch and the Wizard  (1963)  • The Jungle Book  (1967)  • Aristocats  (1970)  • Robin Hood  (1973)  • The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh  (1977)  • Bernard and Bianca - The Mouse Police  (1977)  • Cap and Capper  (1981)  • Taran and the Cauldron  (1985)  • Basil, the Great Mouse Detective  (1986)  • Oliver & Co.  (1988)  • Arielle, the Mermaid  (1989)  • Bernard and Bianca in Kangaroo Land  (1990)  • Beauty and the Beast  (1991)  • Aladdin  (1992)  • The Lion King  ( 1994)  • Pocahontas  (1995)  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame  (1996)  • Hercules  (1997)  • Mulan  (1998)  • Tarzan  (1999)  • Fantasia 2000  (1999)

from 2000

Dinosaurs  (2000)  • A Kingdom for a Lama  (2000)  • Atlantis - The Secret of the Lost City  (2001)  • Lilo & Stitch  (2002)  • The Treasure Planet  (2002)  • Brothers Bear  (2003)  • The Cows Are Going  (2004)  • Heaven and Chicken  (2005)  • Meet the Robinsons  (2007)  • Bolt - A Dog for All Cases  (2008)  • Kiss the Frog  (2009)  • Rapunzel - New Spoiled  (2010)  • Winnie the Pooh  (2011)  • Ralph Enough  ( 2012)  • The Frozen - Totally Unabashed  (2013)  • Baymax - Giant Robowabohu  (2014)  • Zoomania  (2016)  • Vaiana  (2016)  • Chaos in the Net  (2018)  • The Frozen II  (2019)

Future

Raya and the Last Dragon  (2021)

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on February 21, 2006 .