At long last the man who killed Bambi’s mom has left this earth. It is not a cause for celebration, but for quiet reflection and deep appreciation of a life well lived. Ollie Johnston, who passed away on April 14 at the age of 95, was the last of the “nine old men” – the original crew of great Disney animators. But Mr. Johnston in particular was quite important. It’s not that he killed Bambi’s mom. It’s the way he did it.
An unsuspecting Bambi and his mom
Traditionally, American character animation is constructed “pose-to-pose”: A character’s behavior through time is built out from a succession of carefully planned “hero” poses, which are then “in-betweened” to create the illusion of continuous movement. This approach provides a reliable way for the audience to get inside the character’s head: Because each successive pose distills a precisely delineated moment of thought or intention, an audience finds it very easy to visually read a character’s intentions.
On the other hand, pose-to-pose can lead to a kind of emotional distancing. On a subliminal level you are continually being cued in that you are watching something that is not really happening. This generally works quite well for comedy, but can tend to limit the emotional impact of drama. One recent example of comic use of pose-to-pose style is found in Madagascar from DreamWorks Animation:
Striking a pose
Animation students are often taught to develop their character by starting with a set of hero poses, and then proceeding from there. This way of thinking about animation has much in common with the style of much nineteenth century American stage acting, the influence of which could still be seen in many films of the silent era. This stylized approach to acting quickly passed out of favor in live action films with the advent of talkies. A silent-era performance by Pola Negri or Theda Bara that was highly acclaimed in its time will now come across, to modern audiences, as stilted and overly melodramatic:
Theda acting
Ollie Johnston was always a force away from from pose-to-pose animation and toward a deeper – and much more difficult to master – approach, in which all action must come from continuous shifts in the underlying thoughts and motivations of the character, as well as the emotional dynamic between characters in a scene.
I think this is one reason that the death of Bambi’s mom was such a powerful and even pivotal moment in the history of American character animation. Audiences who were watching Bambi in that scene were not seeing a pose-to-pose style. Rather, they were seeing a tragedy acted out, in an uncommonly subtle and naturalistic way, and therefore were not positioned at a safe distance from that tragedy. To this day, that scene can make people break into tears.
In modern American character animation I think that the natural heir to Johnston is Brad Bird. Yes, of course The Incredibles is a great film. But perhaps the greatest scene in that film, certainly the most stylistically transgressive scene, for my money, is the one in which we first see Mr. and Mrs. Incredible having a serious argument. This is the first point at which the audience becomes aware of the depth of the emotional cracks in their marriage, of the possibility that they may not survive as a couple:
A relationship on trial
There are no special effects in this scene, no super powers, gorgeous painted backdrops or fancy camera moves. Just rich characters, subtle shades of emotion, and carefully observed acting and directing. And that, my friends, is part of the legacy of the late great Ollie Johnston.