Blogorium Review: Waking Sleeping Beauty

Waking Sleeping Beauty is a snapshot of Walt Disney's "rebuilding years" from 1984 to 1994, culminating in the release of The Lion King, and told from the perspective not of Disney historians, but the animators who kept working when Disney's animated films cost more money than they made. In order to move from where Walt Disney Studios were in the early 80s to the re-surging juggernaut responsible for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King, Waking Sleeping Beauty also documents the fall of Roy Disney and the rise of Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Beginning in 1980, Waking Sleeping Beauty briefly covers the period after Don Bluth left Disney and took a handful of artists with him. As the old guard of Disney entered retirement, a young group of animators, artists, and story tellers were entering the studio from Cal Arts, including Tim Burton, Glen Keane (responsible for Ariel), Rob Minkoff (director of The Lion King), and Randy Cartwright, who hosts a series of tours of the Disney animation department throughout the film. His camerman? A fellow named John Lasseter, a programmer working on "computer stuff" at a little company called Pixar. Director Don Hahn also worked for the animation department, and produced many of the films covered during (and after) Waking Sleeping Beauty takes place.

Roy E. Disney, fed up with the combative nature of the Walt Disney Board of Directors, resigned from his position in 1984 and brought in executives Frank Wells and Michael Eisner to run the studio. Eisner brought in studio-chief-in-training Jeffrey Katzenberg to run the film division, then struggling to recoup the cost of their animated films against diminishing returns. In 1985, the long-in-development animated film The Black Cauldron proved to be a major flop, losing out to The Care Bears Movie. Katzenberg, focusing on the live-action division, moved the animation department out of Disney Studios and halfway across town, and the struggles of the art department to push forward with The Great Mouse Detective, Oliver and Company, and The Little Mermaid makes up the early part of Waking Sleeping Beauty.

Katzenberg also brought in Howard Ashman and Alan Mencken, a pair of Broadway composers that shifted the direction of Disney's animated films, starting with The Little Mermaid and culminating in Aladdin, a passion project for Ashman, who passed away from complications of HIV in 1991. The creative surge between the composers and an emboldened - if overworked - art department, forms the backdrop of the film while the volatile chemistry between Disney's new leadership triumvirate takes the forefront.

From the get-go, it is clear in Waking Sleeping Beauty that the artists (many of whom are interviewed for the film) are distrusting of Eisner, Katzenberg, and the studio brass they bring with them (also interviewed in the film), as the executives doubt the ability of these artists to turn around their lagging animated films division. While interviewed by Diane Sawyer, Eisner is asked how the company can continue to release animated films that are more expensive than they can make back. Eisner responds that they can't, but they'll continue to because that's what Disney is known for. Katzenberg and Disney argue about nearly every step taken to fill the void of Walt Disney's death, and out of this struggle somehow emerged a creative resurgence in the late 80s and early 90s.

While the film is primarily about Eisner, Wells, Disney, Katzenberg (and, to a lesser degree, Peter Schneider, who Katzenberg hired to oversee the animation department), there are a number of other fascinating tidbits gleaned from watching Waking Sleeping Beauty: one might look at the dour expression on Tim Burton's face early in the film and assume he never has any fun, but home movies of a "carnival" party the animators threw show Burton smiling, jumping, and laughing along with everyone else. The revelation that Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg's Disney collaboration Who Framed Roger Rabbit's animation was farmed out to London, rather than handed to the art department, was quite surprising and perhaps telling about how the upper brass regarded the in-progress Oliver and Company.

The untold story of The Rescuers Down Under is mentioned briefly in Waking Sleeping Beauty, but merits its own longer documentary: prior to its release, Katzenberg, Eisner, and Disney agreed to hand over the film to a fledgling Pixar, who composited, layered, and colored The Rescuers Down Under by computer, resulting in what is, arguably, the first digital film released in theatres. When Rescuers underperformed in its opening weekend, Katzenberg pulled all advertising and abandoned the film, which may be why its history went untold to this point.

The documentary is told in an refreshing fashion: while the film follows the "oral history" format, rather than using talking heads, Waking Sleeping Beauty is comprised almost entirely of archival footage: television interviews, b-roll footage and outtakes, recording sessions, VHS introductions, and a wealth of heretofore unseen behind-the-scenes home movies from the animation department. Also, and possibly the most valuable and telling, the documentary is packed with caricatures from artists of central figures in the story.

Even more refreshing is Waking Sleeping Beauty's candor with respect to the "down side" of Disney's rough stretch: all too often, any product released by Disney is either run through every possible level of white-washing (sometimes literally, in the case of "removing" certain characters or references to smoking from older films) in order to present the company in the best possible light. Even when the Walt Disney Treasures came out - a product for a niche market of hard-core Disney fans who wanted all their shorts uncut - the Leonard Maltin "disclaimers" about certain racial or ethnic insensitivity in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck shorts consisted of "people saw things differently back then and even though we're evolved, we can't hold that against them."

It was virtually impossible to find even a dissenting voice about Disney coming from the inside, even in documentaries about tumultuous projects. However, things seem to be changing at Walt Disney Studios: perhaps it was a change in policy that occurred towards the end of Roy Disney's life, but Waking Sleeping Beauty, like The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Legacy, and Walt & El Grupo (all released on the same day) don't shy away from the previously verboten "controversial" moments behind the scenes.

Jeffrey Katzenberg is hit the hardest in Waking Sleeping Beauty, in part because he was the man out front, seizing upon every opportunity for self promotion in a way that Eisner and Roy Disney held back from. To his credit, Katzenberg doesn't shy away from addressing the internal conflicts with Eisner and Disney, nor do the other members of the triumvirate. The most surprising revelation, however, comes from the "face" of Walt Disney after Walt's death; at Frank Wells' memorial service (which is on tape), Eisner begins with a moving tribute to Wells and introduces Roy Disney. Disney walks out and, bristled by his introduction, looks at Eisner and jokes "that's it?" A visibly flustered Eisner walks across the stage, give Roy another, more glowing introduction, and quickly walks off. It's a telling moment, both with the respect to the power struggle between Eisner, Disney, and Katzenberg, but also is amazing considering that no Disney has ever publicly appeared so callous.

Waking Sleeping Beauty is, hopefully, the first step in a shift in Disney's ability to present itself, warts and all; the documentary is a fascinating glimpse behind the curtains that strengthens, in many ways, my regard for the studio. There are dozens of other stories, snippets, and tidbits of information in this 85 minute film that I simply don't have the space to mention. That Don Hahn and producer Peter Schneider were able to find footage that illuminate the candid comments from practically everyone involved with Disney during the decade (including the late Roy E. Disney, Michael Eisner, and Jeffrey Katzenberg) is a minor miracle, and perhaps a sign of things to come in Disney-related documentaries. Waking Sleeping Beauty comes highly recommended.

One final note: the film closes on a high note, and as the credits begin rolling, "Zip-a-dee Doo Dah" plays over an extended section of home video footage. The song is, as many of you may know, from Song of the South, a film that Disney has notoriously refused to release in any format since the mid-1980s. I do wonder, considering the honesty on display in Waking Sleeping Beauty, if this isn't some comment on the fact that the studio has no plans to release Song of the South any time soon, and consistently avoids discussing in any of their documentaries.