Why did Tolkien dislike Disney?

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Anyone who cannot appreciate Fantasia must have some kind of ideological blinders.

Fantasia is immune to the criticisms one can make of the later Disney

See http://www.brainpickings.org/index.p...-philip-glass/ for an account in which Igor Stravinksy strongly blames Disney for what Disney did to his Rite of Spring in Fantasia. Stravinsky called Disney’s transformation in that film an “unresisting imbecility.”

Again and again I have seen complaints of a work being untrue to the original. There are almost always those who support the original and those who support the adaptation and can’t understand what the fuss is about.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Tolkien's children will have had access to Rupert the Bear and DC Thomson titles such as The Beano and The Dandy, amongst others.

Rupert the Bear first appeared in 1920 and so was probably known to the Tolkien family, but in May 1937 The Dandy and The Beano could not be. The Dandy was first published later that year in December and The Beano was first published the following year. Something in May 1937 or before had made Tolkien think that there was a real danger of American childrens’ book illustrations being influenced by the Disney studios.

Disney films were also not included on North American networks, other than portions of them in some of Disney’s own programs: Disneyland (renamed later) and Micky Mouse Club, and on a few other later Disney programs. Disney, unlike other film production companies, refused to sell any television rights to his older films.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by jallanite

See http://www.brainpickings.org/index.p...-philip-glass/ for an account in which Igor Stravinksy strongly blames Disney for what Disney did to his Rite of Spring in Fantasia. Stravinsky called Disney’s transformation in that film an “unresisting imbecility.”

Again and again I have seen complaints of a work being untrue to the original. There are almost always those who support the original and those who support the adaptation and can’t understand what the fuss is about.

When artists believe they have sole claim to interpretation or meaning, their own artistic ego creates an ideological blinder.


This is a fascinating link. I like the discussion about the nature of creativity. I'm one of the ones who accepts that an artist can make the interpretation he or she sees fit, but that doesn't mean the audience has to have a similar perspective: the comparison of the two become simply another subject of artistic discussion. I also don't necessarily grant that the artist or author has sole authority over interpretation.

In the case of Jackson, I think the problem was exacerbated by his initial claims of how faithful he was to Tolkien. That set up expectations which the films undermined. It is therefore interesting that so far the posters I've seen for TH don't even mention Tolkien.

off topic, but Stravinksy's attitude that "the mass adds nothing to art" strikes me as being the very opposite of Tolkien's attitude towards general readers. Stravinsky is as much a snob as Lewis. His complaint about the "execrable" musical performance also reminds me of the literati's objections to Tolkien's work.

Whether Fantasia's version of Bald Mountain is consistent with Stravinsky's idea is grounds for discussion but that difference doesn't denigrate the creativity of Fantasia, how it inspired audiences. Much as I dislike the films, they have at least brought many, many people into contact with Middle-earth and at least some of those have gone on to appreciate the books. The same can be said of the Harry Potter books, that they hooked children on reading in a way that teachers and schools were unable to.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Whether Fantasia's version of Bald Mountain is consistent with Stravinsky's idea is grounds for discussion but that difference doesn't denigrate the creativity of Fantasia, how it inspired audiences.

Night on Bald Mountain was a tune by Modest Mossorsky and has nothing to do with Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, save that both were used in different parts of Walt Disney’s Fantasia.

About rights to reuse, that Stravinsky did not sue suggests that Disney had full rights to adapt Rite of Spring as he saw fit. Similarly Jackson had full rights to make any changes in The Lord of the Rings that he wished to. Similarly William Shakespeare had full rights to modify the tales of Hamlet and King Lear into tragedies (though the earlier tales he adapted had happy endings). Similarly Columbia Pictures were fully within their rights in taking a serious minor western tale called Cat Ballou and changing it into an enormously successful comedy film.

Nahum Tate in 1621 modified King Lear to have a happy ending, and dropped the fool from the play, and married Edgar and Cordelia. This was the version presented until 1838 and reduces any changes that Jackson made in The Lord of the Rings to almost nothing. This version appears to have inspired many viewers, including Samuel Johnson.

The film director Akira Kurosawa modified Shakespeare’s original Macbeth and King Lear into his films Throne of Blood and Ran.

In short, that adapters have full rights is generally a given. The question which may be discussed is whether the adaptation was a wise one. I have seen this account of Stravinsky complaining before but not seen any discussion about whether Stravinsky has a point. This tends to suggest that Stravinsky does not, or perhaps rather that people who discuss the film Fantasia tend to be more knowledgeable about animation than about music.

Although see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rite_of_Spring :

Among those impressed by the film was Gunther Schuller, later a composer, conductor and jazz scholar. The Rite of Spring sequence, he says, overwhelmed him and determined his future career in music: “I hope [Stravinsky] appreciated that hundreds—perhaps thousands—of musicians were turned onto The Rite of Spring ... through Fantasia, musicians who might otherwise never have heard the work, or at least not until many years later”.

[Morthoron]

For the record, it was Leopold Stokowski who adapted The Rite of Spring for Fantasia, distilling a 40+ minute composition down to the 22:34 minutes needed to fit the parameters of the film. I think Disney dabbled on the piano a bit, but he couldn't really score classical compositions.

In any case, Disney used the adaptation of The Rite of Spring and paid Stravinsky for the privilege, even though Disney was not legally bound to pay him at all. You see, copyrights from Imperial Russia were not recognized by the United States and several other countries; therefore, Stravinsky's 1913 piece was considered in the public domain, "but permission was required for distribution in countries where Stravinsky enjoyed copyright protection":

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/...3.96-9205.html

Stravinsky, a man who enjoyed living the high life but who knew full well he couldn't have his champagne and caviar from composing, readily took the money ($6000), and did just about anything else to keep up his celebrity lifestyle, even appearing "in a magazine ad for a record player":

http://www.classical.net/music/books...520256158a.php

Stravinsky did not object to the use of his work in Fantasia at the time of its release, but only many years later, after he was embittered and denied further funding when a planned use of Stravinsky's burlesque opera-ballet Renard by Disney never came to fruition.

So let's not make Stravinsky out to be some kind of musical purist, please. In contrast to Tolkien, who took the money for film rights to The Lord of the Rings but never believed his work could be made into a movie, Stravinsky was completely aware that his composition would be adapted for Fantasia.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

"You see, copyrights from Imperial Russia were not recognized by the United States and several other countries; therefore, Stravinsky's 1913 piece was considered in the public domain, "but permission was required for distribution in countries where Stravinsky enjoyed copyright protection""

But surely Le Sacre du Printemps was copyrighted in Switzerland where it was written or France where it was premiered, wasn't it?

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

But surely Le Sacre du Printemps was copyrighted in Switzerland where it was written or France where it was premiered, wasn't it?

The Rite of Spring was originally copyright in Germany by Russischer Musik Verlag in 1913. The copyright was transferred to Boosey and Hawkes in 1947.

I have no idea what rules of copyright Stravinsky was allegedly referring to which would possibly put the work into public domain in the U.S. in 1940.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

"You see, copyrights from Imperial Russia were not recognized by the United States and several other countries; therefore, Stravinsky's 1913 piece was considered in the public domain, "but permission was required for distribution in countries where Stravinsky enjoyed copyright protection""

But surely Le Sacre du Printemps was copyrighted in Switzerland where it was written or France where it was premiered, wasn't it?

As far as I know, the copyright was by music publisher Fabien Sevitzky's Russische Musik-Verlag in Russia in 1913. Several sources indicate it was a Russian copyright, but I can't verify it (the composition itself was sketched in St. Petersburg, written in Switzerland and finished somewhere in France on a train ). Here is the front cover of the 1914 4-hand piano reduction of the score written in both French and Russian:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Spring1913.jpg

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Night on Bald Mountain was a tune by Modest Mossorsky and has nothing to do with Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, save that both were used in different parts of Walt Disney’s Fantasia . . . . Among those impressed by the film was Gunther Schuller, later a composer, conductor and jazz scholar. The Rite of Spring sequence, he says, overwhelmed him and determined his future career in music: “I hope [Stravinsky] appreciated that hundreds—perhaps thousands—of musicians were turned onto The Rite of Spring ... through Fantasia, musicians who might otherwise never have heard the work, or at least not until many years later”.

Note I didn't say Stravinsky wrote NoBM. I referred to it because it has undergone adaptations similar to that Stravinsky was complaining about, but even more so, from Mussorgsky to Rimsky-Korsakov to Leopold Stokowski and so is an even stronger case for the recreativity that Philip Glass and Beck were referring to in your link. It also happens to be the section of Fantasia that had the strongest impact on my children and I began my entry with with its effect on my children, my point being similar to that made by Gunther Schuller about RoS.