Wednesday, July 13, 2005
BAMBI: analysis of a Realization Story
Year: 1942
Genre: Children/Fantasy
Story Author: Felix Salten
Screen Story: George Stallings
Screenwriters: Perce Pearce, Chuck Couch, Larry Morey, Melvin Shaw, Ralph Wright
(Note: this analysis contains information about key plot points. If you haven't seen the movie, please be advised some info may be considered a "spoiler.")
Widely acclaimed as one of Walt Disney's finest masterpieces, Bambi is the simple yet profound coming-of-age story of a young deer. It begins with the birth announcement of a prince. All the forest animals welcome the title character as royalty because his father, the Stag, is the oldest and wisest animal in the forest. Nevertheless, the Stag is a distant and mysterious persona in the young fawn's life. He bonds closer with his mother, upon whom he depends for guidance and protection.
When Bambi is big enough, his mother introduces him to the wonders of the meadow. There he meets new friends and experiences genuine danger for the first time. When Bambi gets separated from his mother, and little animals are randomly shot all around him, he becomes frantic until the Stag appears and leads him to safety.
The danger came from man, and to little Bambi man becomes a type of god holding the power of life and death. After a hard winter, when he and his mother return to the meadow in desperate need of food, he encounters the danger again. His mother is shot, and now he knows man controls life and death.
Time passes, and Bambi grows up under the Stag's watchful eye. He falls in love with a childhood playmate, but before they can settle down to raise a family, man returns. Man's dogs attack his mate. Bambi successfully defends her, but is shot and lays helpless as man's fire spreads through the forest. The Stag again mysteriously appears to lead him to safety and a new life as King of the Forest.
To have a plot, a story must have characters with goals that come into conflict. Bambi lacks all of these vital ingredients, which sets it (along with all Realization Stories) at an inherent disadvantage.
Yet it succeeds as a story. The primary reason is that it is told beautifully. The dialogue is economical; nothing is told to the audience if it can be better shown through character action. The tone is precise and never stumbles. The tragic and comic scenes are balanced to give the audience breather spaces between heavier emotions.
Nevertheless, all those things, done as excellently as they are in Bambi, cannot take the place of a plot to create and hold interest. Instead, the story unfurls a subtle pattern of events that slowly weave together a belief system in the protagonist. For the most part, the events are unrelated by the cause-and-effect logic driving Opposition and Choice Stories. Their relevancy to each other is found in the part they play in shaping the character's beliefs.
Bambi is shot at in the meadow--by man. So he learns that danger comes from man. Then his mother is killed in the meadow--by man. So now he believes that death comes from man. Then his true love is imperiled--by man. So now it looks as though man is more powerful than love. Finally Bambi is shot and the forest set on fire--by man. For awhile it seems man has the power to destroy the whole world.
Man overshadows each of these belief-shaping events, but not because he's the antagonist. He is the center of the events because it is Bambi's beliefs about man and divinity that the story focuses on (instead of, for example, Bambi's beliefs about friendship). The impact, direct and indirect, man has on Bambi's life is not deliberate. Man is not in conflict with Bambi, he merely is a source of great pain and injury for the protagonist. When man kills Bambi's mother, it's not because it's Bambi's mother. She's a random, happenstance target.
The facelessness of man in Bambi blurs him from a specific character into a force of nature. The audience doesn't even see his shadow. Or hear his voice. The only evidence man exists is gunshots, a pack of dogs, and a campsite. The gunshots kill at random. Even the dogs act like a frenzied mob, without focused intent. The fire also is the result of carelessness rather than ruthless determination.
Conflict equals interest, and this is as true in Realization Stories as any other kind. But in place of an antagonist and story-length conflict, Bambi sustains interest through a series of self-contained sequences with mini-goals and mini-conflicts. For instance, there's the sequence where Bambi tries to walk and must overcome the opposition of his own inexperience and uncooperative legs. There's the sequence where he and his mother search for food during the hard winter. There's the sequence where he searches for his dead mother, and the impenetrable forest opposes him. There's the sequence where he and his friends determine not to fall in love, and then meet the most beautiful creatures in the forest. There's the sequence where Bambi fights another buck to win his mate. There's the sequence where he rescues her by fighting off the pack of dogs.
For the most part, the goals/conflicts from these and other sequences are unrelated. Even so, tiny patterns and echoes overlap, drawing the sequences together and creating a safety net protecting the story from descending into episodic storytelling. Like when Bambi first meets his future love and then later when they meet as adults, his feet tangle and he plops on his rear. It's a small piece of action reminiscent of the unrelated sequence where he learned to walk.
Naturally, the most powerful conflict sequence occurs at the end. The fire, which man is responsible for, devastates the forest. It is treated almost like a live force, leaping and grasping after the protagonist. It literally chases Bambi over a cliff. The fact man is destroyed in the fire brings Bambi to his big, life-altering realization: man is not God; there's Somebody bigger than man and everything else. As satisfying as this realization is, it's the big conflict sequence leading up to it that makes it memorable. This is the kind of high drama that elevates the story from "beautiful" to "classic."
Genre: Children/Fantasy
Story Author: Felix Salten
Screen Story: George Stallings
Screenwriters: Perce Pearce, Chuck Couch, Larry Morey, Melvin Shaw, Ralph Wright
(Note: this analysis contains information about key plot points. If you haven't seen the movie, please be advised some info may be considered a "spoiler.")
Widely acclaimed as one of Walt Disney's finest masterpieces, Bambi is the simple yet profound coming-of-age story of a young deer. It begins with the birth announcement of a prince. All the forest animals welcome the title character as royalty because his father, the Stag, is the oldest and wisest animal in the forest. Nevertheless, the Stag is a distant and mysterious persona in the young fawn's life. He bonds closer with his mother, upon whom he depends for guidance and protection.
When Bambi is big enough, his mother introduces him to the wonders of the meadow. There he meets new friends and experiences genuine danger for the first time. When Bambi gets separated from his mother, and little animals are randomly shot all around him, he becomes frantic until the Stag appears and leads him to safety.
The danger came from man, and to little Bambi man becomes a type of god holding the power of life and death. After a hard winter, when he and his mother return to the meadow in desperate need of food, he encounters the danger again. His mother is shot, and now he knows man controls life and death.
Time passes, and Bambi grows up under the Stag's watchful eye. He falls in love with a childhood playmate, but before they can settle down to raise a family, man returns. Man's dogs attack his mate. Bambi successfully defends her, but is shot and lays helpless as man's fire spreads through the forest. The Stag again mysteriously appears to lead him to safety and a new life as King of the Forest.
To have a plot, a story must have characters with goals that come into conflict. Bambi lacks all of these vital ingredients, which sets it (along with all Realization Stories) at an inherent disadvantage.
Yet it succeeds as a story. The primary reason is that it is told beautifully. The dialogue is economical; nothing is told to the audience if it can be better shown through character action. The tone is precise and never stumbles. The tragic and comic scenes are balanced to give the audience breather spaces between heavier emotions.
Nevertheless, all those things, done as excellently as they are in Bambi, cannot take the place of a plot to create and hold interest. Instead, the story unfurls a subtle pattern of events that slowly weave together a belief system in the protagonist. For the most part, the events are unrelated by the cause-and-effect logic driving Opposition and Choice Stories. Their relevancy to each other is found in the part they play in shaping the character's beliefs.
Bambi is shot at in the meadow--by man. So he learns that danger comes from man. Then his mother is killed in the meadow--by man. So now he believes that death comes from man. Then his true love is imperiled--by man. So now it looks as though man is more powerful than love. Finally Bambi is shot and the forest set on fire--by man. For awhile it seems man has the power to destroy the whole world.
Man overshadows each of these belief-shaping events, but not because he's the antagonist. He is the center of the events because it is Bambi's beliefs about man and divinity that the story focuses on (instead of, for example, Bambi's beliefs about friendship). The impact, direct and indirect, man has on Bambi's life is not deliberate. Man is not in conflict with Bambi, he merely is a source of great pain and injury for the protagonist. When man kills Bambi's mother, it's not because it's Bambi's mother. She's a random, happenstance target.
The facelessness of man in Bambi blurs him from a specific character into a force of nature. The audience doesn't even see his shadow. Or hear his voice. The only evidence man exists is gunshots, a pack of dogs, and a campsite. The gunshots kill at random. Even the dogs act like a frenzied mob, without focused intent. The fire also is the result of carelessness rather than ruthless determination.
Conflict equals interest, and this is as true in Realization Stories as any other kind. But in place of an antagonist and story-length conflict, Bambi sustains interest through a series of self-contained sequences with mini-goals and mini-conflicts. For instance, there's the sequence where Bambi tries to walk and must overcome the opposition of his own inexperience and uncooperative legs. There's the sequence where he and his mother search for food during the hard winter. There's the sequence where he searches for his dead mother, and the impenetrable forest opposes him. There's the sequence where he and his friends determine not to fall in love, and then meet the most beautiful creatures in the forest. There's the sequence where Bambi fights another buck to win his mate. There's the sequence where he rescues her by fighting off the pack of dogs.
For the most part, the goals/conflicts from these and other sequences are unrelated. Even so, tiny patterns and echoes overlap, drawing the sequences together and creating a safety net protecting the story from descending into episodic storytelling. Like when Bambi first meets his future love and then later when they meet as adults, his feet tangle and he plops on his rear. It's a small piece of action reminiscent of the unrelated sequence where he learned to walk.
Naturally, the most powerful conflict sequence occurs at the end. The fire, which man is responsible for, devastates the forest. It is treated almost like a live force, leaping and grasping after the protagonist. It literally chases Bambi over a cliff. The fact man is destroyed in the fire brings Bambi to his big, life-altering realization: man is not God; there's Somebody bigger than man and everything else. As satisfying as this realization is, it's the big conflict sequence leading up to it that makes it memorable. This is the kind of high drama that elevates the story from "beautiful" to "classic."
