PBS "American Experience" Walt Disney doc to air next year

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by guy incognito, Jul 23, 2014.

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  1. guy incognito

    guy incognito Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Mee-chigan
    http://www.pbs.org/about/news/archive/2014/american-experience-disney/

    I have a feeling this is going to be pretty great.
     
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  2. OldSoul

    OldSoul Don't you hear the wind blowin'?

    Location:
    NYC
    Oh no, I'll be in swamped with college work when it comes on. Haha
     
  3. BurgerKing

    BurgerKing Forum Resident

    Good. Need something to balance out Mr. Banks...
     
  4. C6H12O6

    C6H12O6 Senior Member

    Location:
    My lab
    Those guys are a mixed bag with their film-related docs. Their Oscar-nominated Battle Over Citizen Kane (how it was eligible when it was made specifically for their TV show, I have no idea) is not only the most atrocious Orson Welles doc I've ever seen, it's one of the worst Oscar nominees of the past 25 years.
     
  5. The Spaceman

    The Spaceman Forum Resident

    It'll give you something to watch while studying. :)

    I used to watch TV, play my records, and eat all at the same time while doing college work. I was even a Mathematics Major! :laugh:
     
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  6. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    Use of archival footage from Disney vaults = "you will not say anything bad about Uncle Walt, no matter how true it is"
     
  7. indy mike

    indy mike Forum Pest

  8. skisdlimit

    skisdlimit Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bellevue, WA
    Did anybody see this?

    It recently premiered earlier this week (9/14 - 9/15), and will repeat in its entirety on my local PBS channel (KCTS-9) tomorrow night @ 8pm PDT. I'm not sure about other locations, so I'd definitely recommend checking your local listings.

    For what it's worth, I enjoyed this documentary, and thought it was nearly as good as, if not even better than, some of the Canadian documentaries I saw on Walt Disney many years ago, which tended to be more revealing than their American counterparts. A fascinating subject to be sure!
     
  9. guy incognito

    guy incognito Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Mee-chigan
  10. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    Yes, saw half of the second part, more revealing than I had expected. I wished they'd cover the start of the cartoons' quality descent after Mary Poppins, but they only had so much time I guess.
    They showed scenes from Song of the South! My wife was almost in disbelief.
     
  11. I thought this was pretty good - FWIW I got to see Song of the South in the theater in 1970's - probably in its last run? After checking Wikipedia I probably saw it in the 1980 re-release. 1986 was the last theatrical re-release
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2015
  12. sixtiesstereo

    sixtiesstereo Senior Member

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    Overall, I thought it was terrific, but it should have been six hours (three parts) instead of four hours.
    There was just too much to cover, and the second part really left out way too much from the sixties.
    That being said, as a "child of the 50's" (I was born in 1950) this reminded me of all of my great memories
    of the fifties and Disney, and what a huge part he, and his legacy, played in my childhood.
    I really miss those years......
     
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  13. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    I, too, thought that part two covered waaaaaaaaaay too many years in way too short a time. Part one seemed to be paced correctly, then part two just zoomed through 25 incredible years in two hours.
     
  14. chacha

    chacha Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    mill valley CA USA
    I saw part one and thought it was fantastic.
     
  15. Alan G.

    Alan G. Forum Resident

    Location:
    NW Montana
    One thing I thought they would convey in part one wasn't. When Walt was trying to finish Snow White, he needed ANOTHER loan. Roy calls BofA and they say they want to see what they're loaning to. A guy comes to the studio, stern-faced (I'm picturing him looking like character actor Fred Clark) and the brothers show him what they've got in a screening room. The guy has no expression and he walks out. Walt is sweating big. He follows him out to the car and the guy turns and says, "This thing is gonna make a hatful of money." They got the loan.
     
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  16. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Wow, fans on Facebook are screaming that the show was much too negative and cast aspersions on Walt. I've read about 50 books on Disney before, and I had heard 90% of these stories before. To me, I think the show had a negative slant but everything they said was true. I think people are overreacting to the truth, but it's always a value judgement as to how much the show can be balanced in terms of glorifying what happened vs. over-emphasizing the negative. But I didn't see any outright lies at all. It isn't often you see a show that gets to use this many Disney animation clips and yet also mention how much Walt despised unions and equated them with Communists (as one example).

    To me, I think the documentary was well-done, but I concede it's a "warts & all" depiction that many may find oft-putting. I think Brian Lowry's review in Variety is very close to my opinion:

    http://variety.com/2015/tv/reviews/...s-american-experience-documentary-1201584241/

    Longtime Disney animator Floyd Norman (who was interviewed for the show) is dismayed at how the documentary turned out, and insists that Walt was not the dark, tormented individual portrayed in the story:

    http://floydnormancom.squarespace.com/blog/2015/9/17/my-review-of-the-walt-disney-documentary
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2015
  17. Jack White

    Jack White Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    Actually no. Plenty of clips including some from the earliest short films he made in KC, 'Song of The South', and some production 'work in progress' set ups, amongst other stuff. And as far I could tell it didn't pull that many punches, if any at all. [see below]


    It was more balanced than I thought it would be - although overall, I felt, slanted to the negative. The basic criticisms of him were that he was a flawed genius, a control freak who had to always 'get his way', and took a greater share of the credit and the money than he was entitled; lack of empathy for others, especially those who worked with him and later for him and someone who lacked a full self appraisal of his own character flaws; was anti-union and anti-Communist [it noted a natural break in Walt's career at the time of the strike in 1941 and drew a clear distinction between the 'before the strike Walt' and the 'after the strike Walt'] ; had no real friends outside of close family members. The doc spent a disproportionate amount of time [imo] on 'Song of The South', emphasizing the racist allegations against it. It didn't come out and call Disney a racist, but I can see where someone would interpret that was the point viewers were suppose to take away from that segment. I was surprised that no reference to claims that he was antisemitic were made or implied.

    On the other hand it declared him a unique genius and visionary several times through-out the 2 part documentary, and showed him to be a loving husband and father. Although every time it showed him in a positive light there was an accompanying one or more negative aspects presented.
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2015
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  18. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    yea, I saw it (see above). agree, glad I was wrong
     
  19. Mirrorblade.1

    Mirrorblade.1 Forum Resident

    I enjoyed the first part the second was rushed.
    It made me sad , how animation kinda took a nose dive after Dumbo.
    Walt was not perfect, I don'why so may put him a pedestal still.?
    He was human made mistakes, and he was ego centric .
     
  20. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I think Disney was a very complicated man who was also a temperamental artist who had some major issues. But there's no denying he was a genius many times over who changed the world with animation, filmmaking, and theme parks. Amazing man.

    It's interesting that none of the ideas he wanted to exploit with EPCOT ever got off the ground. That's a fairly involved story right there, how "1984"-ish the whole EPCOT thing would have been if they had implemented it the way he saw it in 1965-1966. It's one of those very interesting, futuristic ideas that turned out to have a great deal of logistical, legal, and moral flaws to it.
     
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  21. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident

    It's not listed as appearing on the PBS stations here in New York but if I am reading their website correctly, it will be there until October. I'm not neither a huge Disney fan or detractor, although I respect someone who was a success in two different fields: animation and amusement parks.
     
  22. detroit muscle

    detroit muscle MIA

    Location:
    UK
    I wonder why it's got such a short availability. Other programs in the American Experience series are available for years.
     
  23. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident

    Perhaps licensing from Disney. They really seem to hold onto their stuff and won't let its ESPN broadcasters appear on other competing sports talk shows.
     
  24. bartels76

    bartels76 Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    CT
    It's ON DEMAND too if you have that.
     
  25. vince

    vince Stan Ricker's son-in-law

    I liked it!
     
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