Bambi

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

Bambi
File:Theatrical2.jpg
Directed by	David Hand
Written by	Felix Salten (novel) Larry Morey (story adaptation) Perce Pearce (story direction)
Produced by	Walt Disney
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
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release dates	August 13, 1942
Running time	70 min.
Language	English

Bambi is the fifth animated motion picture 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.

Plot

Template:Spoiler 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; loss and grief; developing friendships; loyalty; balancing risk and need; growing toward independence; being at one and in harmony with nature; and romantic love.

The death of Bambi's mother

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, signalling 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".

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.

History

File:Bambivhscover.jpg

1989 VHS cover of Bambi.

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, partly due to the experience gained, and partly 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).

Bambi theatrical release history

• August 13, 1942 (original release)
• December 25, 1947
• July 3, 1957
• March 25, 1966
• June 20, 1975
• June 4, 1982
• July 15, 1988

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.

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).
• The off-screen character of "Man" has been named one of the 100 Greatest Screen Villains by the American Film Institute.
• In an early draft of the screenplay for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it was intended to reveal that Judge Doom was the person who killed Bambi's mother. However, Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt and at the time head of Walt Disney Feature Animation, discarded the idea, feeling the association inappropriate. Mentioning the idea at one of the weekly Sunday gatherings of top WDFA animators, it was decided spontaneously that it would make sense to hint at Gaston being the infamous hunter.
• 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 Square Enix and Disney, Bambi makes an appearance as a Summon creature.

Titles in different languages

• Danish: Bambi
• Dutch: Bambi
• Finnish: Bambi
• French: Bambi
• German: Bambi
• Greek: Μπάμπι
• Italian: Bambi
• Norwegian: Bambi
• Serbian: Bаmbi
• Spanish: Bambi
• Swedish: Bambi, Storskogens Prins (later Bambi)
• Turkish: Bambi

Voice cast

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

See also

• Bambi, A Life in the Woods
• Bambi Effect
• Bambi II

References

• Barrier, Michael, Graham Webb, and Hames Ware. "The Moving Drawing Speaks." Funnyworld #18, Summer 1978. pp.21.

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External links

• Bambi at IMDb
• Bambi Special Edition DVD Home Page
• Donnie Dunagan's Website: Bambi Gallery