Undercover Authorship

The above image by Tim Burton expresses the young animator's frustration at the Disney Studio's insistence on conformity and determination to force individual talent into pre-set expectations. If you wanted to work at Disney in the 1980s, then you had to obey the strict rules of what constituted the 'Disney Brand'. Burton's unique style did not suit the studio much at all (though, given that fact, he did do rather well out of them - being able to make the decidedly un-Disney shorts Vincent, Frankenweenie and Hansel And Gretel) and he eventually left to pursue his own artistic agenda. This panned out quite well for Burton himself, but also rather well for Disney in the long-run, who have made a fortune out of Nightmare Before Christmas and have repeatedly tried to entice Burton back to put his own stamp on their established properties (successfully with Alice In Wonderland, unsuccessfully with Maleficent). Another frustrated animator with artistic dreams that ran against the grain of 80's Disney was John Lasseter, who likewise left Disney to follow his own star, only to find that that star brought him right back to making money for Disney again.

In both cases, individuals with a clear artistic stamp were forced out of the studio for not conforming to the status quo and were only incorporated back into the fold once their idiosyncrasies had proven themselves out in the real world. But what about those that were left behind? The other Disney animation directors of the 1980s that managed to toe the line and produced material that the studio executives were happy with? Were they in some way less artistically-minded? Did they simply keep their heads down and get on with what they were told?

I shan't try and offer up an overview of the people at work in Disney during the decade, but what I will do is look at the films of John Musker and Ron Clements in the context of 'authorship'. When we look at their filmography, we're struck with how mainstream it appears to be - you can't find another pair of directors from this period with as successful a track record as these two. The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, Treasure Planet, and The Princess And The Frog - each would seem to be 'Disney movies' first and foremost, providing us with all of the things that we would expect from the studio rather than any individual person (or persons). But when we look closer we can see a pattern of elements in their films that link them into a unified whole. It's not that these elements are missing from other Disney films, but no-one else combines all of these particular elements together in the way that Musker & Clements do.

While the previous post on Burton explored the concept of authorship largely in relation to aesthetics - the look of the films - with Musker & Clements we need to focus on the narrative structure and themes to see an authorial pattern. First off, the cast of characters; Musker & Clements movies will nearly always feature a hero/heroine, a love-interest, two comical sidekicks and a villain. At first glance, this might appear to describe any Disney cast, but bear with me. The hero/heroine and love-interest are of least interest here, not only do we find them in the majority of Disney films, we also find them in 95% of all Hollywood films. The other two categories are slightly different, though. All Disney movies have comic relief characters, but Musker & Clements have a particular affinity for the 'removable double-act' - two characters whose role is mainly to communicate with one another, rather than to contribute much to the plot. We can easily take Sebastian and Flounder out of The Little Mermaid and it will have little bearing on the way the narrative pans out. The same goes for Abu and the Carpet in Aladdin, Pain and Panic in Hercules, or Louis and Ray in The Princess And The Frog. Now, of course, it's not that these characters contribute nothing to proceedings, but that their roles (if any) are largely functional and could be performed by any random character. The botched murder of baby Hercules could have been given to undifferentiated goons, Aladdin's escape from the Cave of Wonders requires a flying carpet - but there's no reason for that carpet to be a character.

Two obvious counter-examples here might be Timon and Pumbaa from The Lion King and Lumiere and Cogsworth from Beauty And The Beast, neither of which are directed by Musker & Clements. But although they are both comical double-acts, they differ from the above examples. In the first, Timon and Pumbaa are integral to the narrative; it is their philosophy to life that changes Simba in the second half of the film (it's not about their function in the story, but their personalities). In the other, the two belong to a wider cast of enchanted-object characters, Mrs. Potts most prominent among them. The dynamic is in fact a three-way one, with the more down-to-earth Potts acting as a buffer between the two in their constant bickering. Other examples of the character type - Mushu and Cri-Kee from Mulan and Meeko and Flit from Pocahontas - do serve the same function as in Musker & Clements films, but the films lack the other recurring elements (that I will discuss below).

The other character type is the villain. Now, Disney has a long tradition of famous villains - they've even become their own meta-franchise recently - but these villains are of a very particular type. Modeled mainly on James Bond bad guys, Musker & Clements villains are intelligent, sarcastic, have very specific multi-staged schemes, are obsessed with taking over whatever portion of the world they happen to inhabit (all of 'mousedom', the seas, Agrabah, the cosmos, New Orleans), and very often have some powered-up final form, like a video game boss (Ratigan and Ursula grow in size, Jafar becomes a giant snake, Hades calls upon the hired muscle of the Titans). While Gaston from Beauty And The Beast is clearly the antagonist of the film, he doesn't possess any of the above attributes. Neither does Ratcliffe from Pocahontas, Shan Yu in Mulan, Frollo in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, or Clayton from Tarzan. Once again, The Lion King seems to give us the exception - Scar fits the bill perfectly, and we have to reiterate the fact that it is not that each of these individual elements are unique to Musker & Clements, but that only they use this exact combination of elements.

But most striking device in the Musker & Clements tool-kit of animation filmmaking is not character types but a particular narrative approach; the two-goal structure. In most Hollywood films, the story is motored by the central character's desire to achieve their goal - to get the girl, to save the world, to find the treasure, to pilot the giant robot. This goal is established early in the film, and then circumstances and antagonistic characters thwart the hero/heroine's attempt to achieve this dream. But in Musker & Clements, the story is propelled by a character attempting to achieve a goal, which they do achieve at around the mid-point of the film, only to find that that goal has been transformed or replaced into a second goal, which now takes over as the focus of the story. Ariel is initially motivated to be a part of the surface world, and she achieves this goal only to have it be replaced by the more pressing goal of getting Eric to fall in love with her. Aladdin's goal in life is to become more than a thief and be a success - which the Genie makes a reality, only for the schemes of Jafar and the heart of Jasmine to take centre-stage. After finding out his true heritage, Hercules is motivated by one thing only: to become a hero. This he does by the film's second act, only for the sultry Meg to change the direction of his attentions. As is probably apparent from these descriptions, the second goal is always that of finding romance.

The Princess And The Frog is probably most overt in this respect, highlighting as its central theme the difference between what you want and what you need. The first goal is always what the character wants, a somewhat short-sighted or superficial desire. Once this has been obtained, its shortcomings become apparent (to the audience if not always the character) and so the second goal of settling down in a heterosexual relationship takes its place as the new, more worthy goal. You might want fame or money or legs, but what you need is the love of a good woman or man. As always, we could argue that The Lion King fits the Musker & Clements bill despite not being a Musker & Clements film. It has a comical double-act, a sarcastic and scheming villain and is very definitely a film of two distinct halves. But Simba has no immediate first goal. Although he certainly wants to be king (he just can't wait for it), he does not need to do anything to achieve this. It is not a goal but an eventuality. Only in the second half of the film does he develop a clear idea about what he needs to do and finds the resolve to do it.

The films of Musker & Clements allows us to see that an authorial stamp does not have to be as obvious as a particular aesthetic or overt thematic concerns, it can take the form of completely mainstream, commonly found elements (which at first appear to be no different to any other film) combined in a particular way to highlight a storytelling preference. John Musker and Ron Clements make their own films featuring comic relief characters that have little bearing on the narrative flow, witty and Machiavellian villains that tend to up the stakes at the finale, and heroes and heroines that pursue slightly selfish ends only to discover the joys of the opposite sex. But they also quite definitely make Disney films

                                                                                                                             - P. S.