Disney Documentaries (dvd review)

Walt Disney Home Entertainment // Released November 30, 2010 // Rated PG

The Pitches
Walt & El Grupo
For ten weeks in 1941, Walt Disney, his wife Lilly, and sixteen colleagues from his studio visited nations in Latin America to gather story material for a series of films with South American themes.  The feature documentary film Walt & El Grupo uses this framing device to explore inter-American relations, provide a rare glimpse into the artists who were part of the magic of Disney’s “golden age” and give an unprecedented look at the 39 year-old Walt Disney during one of the most challenging times of his entire life.

Waking Sleeping Beauty
By the mid-1980s, the fabled animation studios of Walt Disney had fallen on hard times. The artists were polarized between newcomers hungry to innovate and old timers not yet ready to relinquish control. These conditions produced a series of box-office flops and pessimistic forecasts – maybe the best days of animation were over. Maybe the public didn’t care. Only a miracle or a magic spell could produce a happy ending. Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairy tale. It’s the true story of how Disney regained its magic with a staggering output of hits – “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” “The Lion King,” and more – over a 10-year period.

The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story
The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story is an intimate journey through the lives of Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman, the astoundingly prolific, Academy Award®-winning songwriting team that defined family musical entertainment for five decades with unforgettable songs like “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocous” from Mary Poppins, “I Wanna Be Like You” from The Jungle Book and the most translated song ever written “It’s a Small World (After All)” from the Disneyland attraction. The feature-length documentary, conceived, produced and directed by two of the songwriters’ sons, take audiences behind the scenes of the Hollywood magic factory and offers a rate glimpse of a unique creative process at work. It also explores a deep and longstanding rift that has kept the brothers personally estranged throughout much of their unparalleled professional partnership

The Reviews
The Disney Empire is known for many things over the decades in existence, including secrecy.  Which makes it even more unique and special that the studio produced three different documentaries exploring different behind-the-scenes stories.

Mind you, none of these are electronic press pieces and despite the studio’s involvement, not everything presented is 100% positive (most notably the clashing personalities chronicled in Waking Sleeping Beauty).

Unfortunately, the films don’t probe as deep as you’d want them to.  Despite the candor shared, you never get a sense that the documentaries aren’t more than a bit self-congratulatory.

Waking Sleeping Beauty is probably the most accessible of the trio, and a wonderful introduction for younger viewers, but any cinegeek knows that even the conflicts discussed within are safe under several heavy layers of polish.

The Boys, was extremely informative, and documented the collaboration and estrangement of the Sherman Brothers, who composed a number of iconic Disney films.  Directed by the sons of both brothers, cousins who had never met, which leads me to believe that they might each have their own agendas in chronicling their father’s stories.  Nevertheless, a fascinating look at often overlooked artists.

Finally, Walt & El Grupo is essentially a travelogue told through various ephemera chronicling Walt Disney’s journey to South America in the role of United States Ambassador.  Ultimately, two films Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros were the result of the trip. The documentary although visually appealing, is a bit dull.

All three films are packed with extensive special features making them more appealing.  For Disney geeks there’s a lot of value here.  For cinegeeks, depending on your particular interest, they are all mildly recommended.