I rewatched the Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs movie, must be years since I last seen it, in truth I'd forgotten most of it except the basic plot. The artwork and animation is simply stunning, the imagery is so beautiful even by today's standards and I'm in awe of the work those artists and animators must have put into this movie. I love all the settings and I adored how the animals were shown, even the spider and fly looked cute! The freaky scene in the woods was gothic and a good use of bringing metaphors to life, those trees really did look terrifying and of course the scene of the Queen turning into the crone was as scary and amazing as I remembered.
I never liked Snow White much as a child, it just didn't hold my attention but now I have a new respect for it, and a new respect for heroine I usually panned as dull and useless. She is resourceful, grateful, cheerful and always optimistic, in truth she's almost perfect and shows very admirable traits. Yes she is naive but she is young, she has suffered a hard life and in the end who can blame her for risking a bite on the apple in the hope that it will make her dreams come true. She suffered a lot of hardships under the Queen, being turned into a scullery maid when she was a princess, and then being forced to flee into an unknown forest for her life where she ends becoming the effective maid to seven dwarfs.
I love how her relationship with the dwarfs managed to develop in such a short span, it was believable and yet they only spent two days together, it was amusing to see even Grumpy come round to her. In the end she was a beloved friend, a sister and a mother even, telling them when to go to bed and to wash their hands before supper, and yet in turn being protected by them.
The Queen's death was horrific and yet I felt being killed by nature wasn't enough, in the book she is forced to dance until her death in hot shoes and whilst they obviously couldn't show that it would have been better if the dwarfs or prince had killed her but again they probably couldn't show that. I thought the vultures being there and watching her before her death was quite prophetic and creepy.
The prince's lack of character and appearance is disappointing but I read it because they just couldn't animate him realistically so I guess it's understandable. In the original story he has even less of appearance and is actually rather perverse, he shows up right at the end and falls in love with her comatose body taking it for himself, it is as she is being moved that the apple is dislodged from her throat, no true love's kiss there.
I find looking back on Snow White that the later Disney films definitely took a lot from it in ways. Wendy's role as a mother figure to the Lost Boys is much like Snow White's to the dwarfs, Prince Phillip resembles the prince a lot, they both have brown hair, red cloaks and white steeds, being a sleeping princess obviously ties in with Sleeping Beauty and Maleficient is very like Queen Grimhilde, I would even suggest Grimhilde was a prototype for her in a way. Now I know Wendy and Sleeping Beauty's characters are from their own stories and that the Disney Snow White movie did not inspire them but I just feel in terms of their Disney counterparts there are connections.
Although I have never had much of an affinity for this fairytale in general I have had some interest in it recently due to the two upcoming movies. I've also liked the symbolism of the apple as a thing of desire and evil, it ties in with the Adam and Eve story but also with The Judgement of Paris where Eris causes disagreement amongst Athena, Hera and Aphrodite by tossing a golden apple labelled 'For the fairest' amongst them. And who is Snow White? The fairest of them all. It's easy to see with that in mind why an apple was chosen to be the wicked fruit that delivered the sleeping death to Snow White.
The ending did leave me puzzled though, the way it focused on a golden castle seemingly in the sky, whether it was just the way it was animated or if this was intentional I don't know. I know one poster suggested that Snow White was dead and that the ending was her dream/her heaven, an interesting theory definitely. I like it but I disagree, Disney does happy endings after all, surely it's first movie wouldn't turn out to be a farce of that, I'd say the castle was just meant to be their future castle. I did like how the prince came to pay tribute to her, kissing her and bowing down solemnly with the dwarfs, obviously not realising the power of his kiss. It was sad and respectful, especially tragic since he had been trying to find her all that time and only seemed to have found her too late. That small addition at the start of their first meeting made all the difference really, since him finding her at the end wasn't as creepy as the original tale.
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