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Bambi

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All college hoop fans are surely aware of the Big 5, the collection of 5 Philadelphia area based colleges that have been playing basketball in their own association since the 1950′s. It is unique and there is nothing else like it in college basketball. There is another Big 5 out there as well, at least according to film historians and that is the 5 films that form the foundation of the Disney Empire. Those films are Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi and Dumbo. The first three of this so-called Big 5 have already made their way to Blu-ray. The fourth, Bambi, is finally making its debut on Blu-ray as well.

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Disney restorations of their classic film have generally drawn their share of praise as they really do look and sound terrific. However, as with anything, they also have their share of detractors. The issues those detractors have is with the removal of all grain from the images and the use of more vibrant colors than the detractors claim were present in the originals. How they know that is not quite clear as there is no way anyone can really recall what a film looked like in the theater 2 years ago let alone 60 year ago.

Making comparisons between the Blu-ray and prior DVD or even laserdisc and VHS copies of the films doesn’t strike me as all that useful either as that would assume that the masters those editions were made from were true to the original. All we can really do is judge the look and sound of the film as encoded on each individual release, and not make judgments based on our possibly flawed memories of days gone by.

Film 

Bambi was originally released to theaters back in 1942. The film took approximately 5 years to make and due to budget issues at Disney during the war, was scaled back in terms of the original anticipated length and clocks in at around 70 minutes. Over the years, despite its place in the pantheon of animated films, Bambi has taken quite a hit from parental groups due to its subject matter, which some feel is a bit too much for the age of child the film is aimed at. The death of Bambi’s mother is felt to be a little too harsh for young children to consider. Single parenthood is an issue that is at the center of many of Disney’s films and frankly, as a parent, I think some of these groups are taking things a bit to far in their criticism of the film. I would have no hesitation in showing Bambi to a child of almost any age.

Bambi is a sweet and charming film about the beauty of nature and the animals of the forest. It centers on Bambi, a young deer and his friends the rabbit Thumper and the skunk Flower, as they grow up in the forest and learn about life and love and the dangers and tragedies we all encounter during our lives. At it core, the film is pro nature but there are those over the years who feel that is anti hunter, as it is hunters who take the life of Bambi’s mother and whose carelessness burns down the beautiful forest near the end of the film.

While the film can be viewed as having a political message, I chose to look at the film for what is really is, a sweet film about some lovable creatures in a beautiful setting, celebrating life and finding one’s first true love. While a bit dated by today’s standards, Bambi nonetheless is a classic film and one that belongs in the collection of any fan of animated films and is very highly recommended.

Video 

While I am getting older (it sure beats the alternative), I am no where near old enough to have seen Bambi when it was originally released in theaters in 1942 or during its more successful re-release in 1947. Heck, I wasn’t even a gleam in my father’s eye back then. Needless to say, I have no recollection of what the film originally looked like and will not judge this release by that standard. I will say without hesitation that Bambi on Blu-ray looks better that I have ever seen it at home, and by a wife margin. In a move that will no doubt frustrate some film purists, all of the film grain has been removed from the image. The resulting image is there very clear, so clear that one can more fully appreciate the impressionist paintings that form the backgrounds of the animation.

Unlike some of the other classic Disney films, the images here do not leap off the screen, due in part because of the color palette used as well as the impressionist backgrounds. The color palette consists mostly of various shades of brown, tan and gray, with some green, blues, oranges and reds thrown in. While the various characters are beautifully animated, they lack the fine subtle details of some of the other Disney films. The backgrounds in particular lack much in the way of detail and on purpose. Only a hint of a tree or shrub is drawn rather than an accurate representation of one. As a result, the overall image is bit on the soft side. Again this is deliberate, much like a classic Monet painting. Bambi is a highly stylized and truly beautiful piece of animation, with out without the film grain and was a joy to behold on Blu-ray.

Audio 

Given the age of the film, I was not expecting a great sound mix. However, I was more than pleased with the new 7.1 DTS HD Master Audio included with this release. The sound design provides a more than adequate sense of immersion, with quite effective use of the sounds. It is amazing that they were able to squeeze such an effective sound mix out of what I presume were at best two channel masters. Bass response is good as well with the classical music score and sound effects sounding particularly impressive, again given the age of the film and the state of the recording technology of the day.

The only real issue I have with the audio here is the overall fidelity. This is not the fault of the encoding process but the original sound elements, which have the thinness that one normally associates with the sound of the time period the film was made in, lacking the lushness of a newer recording. The technology just does not exist yet to transform those old sound elements into a more modern and more lush sounding aural experience. Given the age of the film, the audio presentation here is excellent and should really impress fans of the film.

Special Features 

Bambi is presented as a combo pack, containing both a Blu-ray and DVD copy of the film. The main extra included here is the Inside Walt’s Story Meetings-Enhanced Edition, which is an interactive feature which runs alongside the running of the film, with voice re-enactments of the actual transcribed production meetings between Walt Disney and his staff, where they discussed how to put this film together. During this feature, the actual film runs on screen in a small box. I found one aspect of this presentation to be quite interesting, namely the use of real animals for the basis of the film’s character animation. Walt Disney did not want the animals to look as cartoonish as they did in Snow White for example so he brought in real deer, rabbits and the like for the animators to study and form the basis of their animations. As a result, although clearly stylized for the purpose of adding personalities, the animal characters look much more life like than they ever appeared in prior Disney animations.

Also included are:

  • Two never before seen deleted scenes, pieced together from the original storyboards for the film found in the Disney archives.
  • Two Disney short cartoons “The Old Mill” and “Ice” featuring Pluto, which were used as templates for scenes in the film, such as Bambi walking over ice for the first time.
  • A deleted song “Twitterpated” which is a term used in the film to describe how one feels at the onset of love.
  • A Disney Big Book of Knowledge Game which uses the film as a learning tool and classic DVD features such as “The Making of Bambi: A Prince is Born” which takes a look at how the film was made, touching on such topics as the animation process, the use of child actors and the like.
  • A “Tricks of the Trade” excerpt from a 1957 Disneyland TV show discussing the multiplane camera used in the production of Bambi. “Inside the Disney Archives” does just that, with Disney Supervising Animator Andreas Deja.
  • Disney Second Screen which requires the use of a laptop or iPad which enables you to stream content about the film from the web as you watch the film. Isn’t just watching the film enough anymore?

Final Thoughts 

Bambi is yet another of the “Big 5″ Disney animated features that has finally made its way to Blu-ray. It features a total restoration of the video elements and a new 7.1 audio mix. This release is not to be missed and is very highly recommended.


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