This isnât specifically about stop motion but it is about how sad or scary parts of movies arenât really all that bad- IE the 80âČs movies, particularly Don Bluthâs films. (X- The Melancholy of Don Bluth, by Meg Shields )
How the childrenâs animation of the 80âs made room for sadness, and what that taught us.Â
There was a time when McDonalds used to give away VHS tapes with happy meals, and by some stroke of luck, one day my mom picked The Land Before Time. It was the first film to etch itself onto me â the way film tends to with kids. I would recreate the plot with stuffed animals and parrot the lines to whoever would listen; I pawed that VHS box until the cardboard went soft.
A couple years ago, I saw that Land Before Time was playing on t.v. and couldnât remember the last time Iâd watched it all the way through. Within five minutes I was completely obliterated and sobbing into a throw pillow. This is a shared experience for children raised with Don Bluth: that as a kid, I could only clock a hazy sense that his films felt different from Disney fare, but that the articulations of this difference, and their ability to emotionally floor me, are something Iâve only become aware of in retrospect.
There was a regime change in animation during the 80âs. Quite literally in the form of Bluthâs official break with Disney in â79, but in a more elusive sense with the landscape of what childrenâs animation during that decade felt like. For whatever reason, be it Bluthâs departure or a diseased managerial ethos in the wake of Waltâs passing, the 80âs were a mixed bag for Disney. Donât get me wrong, theyâre amiable and charming films, but The Fox and the Hound and The Great Mouse Detective are not classics. And for all its ambition, The Black Cauldron cannot be redeemed on technical merit. Disney would eventually yank itself out of its slump in â89 with The Little Mermaid â but animation during the 80âs, along with the childhoods of a slew of millennials, were definitively shaped by Bluth.
That there is a dark tenor to Bluthâs work has been thoroughly, albeit perhaps vaguely, noted, often citing individual moments of terror (cc: Sharptooth, you dick). While I donât doubt that frightening and disturbing scenes contribute to an overall sense of darkness in Bluthâs work, Iâm unconvinced that theyâre at the root of what distinguishes his darker tone. There is, I think, a holistic sadness to Bluth films; a pervasive, and fully integrated melancholy that permeates his earlier work.
These stories are full of crystalline moments of narrative sadness; specific story moments at which I inevitably mutter a âfuck you Don Bluth,â and try not to cry. Thereâs Littlefoot mistaking his own shadow for his dead mother; Fievel sobbing in the rain (a Bluth mainstay) convinced that his family has abandoned him; Mrs. Brisby shuddering helplessly after she and the Shrew temporarily disarm the plow. Other plot points are less tear-jerking so much as objectively miserable: the cruelty of the humans in The Secret of NIMH; An American Tailâs intelligent allegory for Russian Jewish pogroms and immigration; Carface getting Charlie B. Barkin drunk and murdering him at the pier.
You knowâââFOR KIDS!Â
Thematically, there is an ever-present air of death about Bluthâs work that is profoundly sad. Bones litter certain set-pieces; illness and age are veritable threats (shout out to Nicodemusâ gnarly skeleton hands); and characters can and do bleed. Critically, Bluth films donât gloss over grief, they sit with it. From Littlefootâs straight up depression following the on-screen death of his mom, to Mrs. Brisbyâs soft sorrow at finding out the details of her husbandâs death.
There is a space for mourning in Bluthâs stories that feels extra-narrative, and unpretentious. Critically, this is distinct from, say, wallowing. Bluthâs films have a ridiculously productive attitude towards mourning, most lucidly articulated through Land Before Timeâs moral mouthpiece Rooter: âyouâll always miss her, but sheâll always be with you as long as you remember the things she taught you.â Disney meanwhile, tends to treat death as a narrative flourish, or worse, a footnote. And in comparison, even notable exceptions like Bambi and The Lion King seem immaturely timid to let palpable grief linger for longer than a scene, let alone throughout a filmâs runtime.
Look at all the fun times theyâre missing.Â
Musically, James Horner and Jerry Goldsmithâs impossibly beautiful scores are laced with a forlorn undercurrent. In particular, Hornerâs tonal dissonance in The Land Before Time theme punches the Wagner-lover in me in the throat (admittedly, a good thing). Further to this, the first half of Goldsmithâs âEscape from N.I.M.H,â is reminiscently Tristan and Isolde-y. And while Iâm here, I would also like to formally issue a âfuck you for making me cry in publicâ to American Tailâs âThe Great Fire,â which when combined with visuals, is nothing short of devastating.
Speaking of visuals, backdrops of grim and vast indifference dot Bluthâs work; from the twisted Giger-esque caverns of the ratsâ rosebush, to the urban rot of a thoroughly unglamorous New York and New Orleans. That these landscapes are in a state of decay is particularly dismal; there is a tangible barrenness, a lack of the warmth our characters are desperately hoping to find by their filmâs end. These are depressed and morose spaces â and that they are so seemingly unnavigable and foreboding makes them all the more compelling, and narratively resonant.
The way Bluth uses color is also notable, with dark, earthy tones prevailing throughout only to be blown out quite literally with the golden light characteristic of Bluthâs hard-earned happy endings. Before Littlefoot and friends reach The Great Valley, an event marked by gradually illuminating god-rays, they must slug it out through the parched browns, blues and pitch of their prehistoric hellscape. Like Charlieâs final ascendance into heaven, Fievel must endure similarly muted shades until he is finally (finally) reunited with his family and soaked in glitter â a level of Don Bluth conclusion-sparkles perhaps only rivaled by the radiance of Mrs. Brisbyâs amulet as she Jean Greyâs her homestead to safety at the end of NIMH. Because Bluth leans into darker, less saturated tones, these effervescent conclusions are all the more impactful, which speaks in part to the methodology of Bluthâs melancholy.
The plucky leads of Bluthâs early films are all fighting for the same thing: family. From Mrs. Brisbyâs persistence to protect her children, to Charlieâs (eventually) selfless love for Anne-Marie, these are characters in search of home. Invariably, each of these characters gets their happy ending, but they have to go through hell to get there, literally in Charlieâs case. In a recent interview, critic Doug Walker asked Bluth if there was any truth to the rumor that he thinks you can show children anything so long as thereâs a happy ending, to which Bluth replied:
â[If] you donât show the darkness, you donât appreciate the light. If it werenât for December no one would appreciate May. Itâs just important that you see both sides of that. As far as a happy endingâŠwhen you walk out of the theatre thereâs [got to be] something that you have that you get to take home. What did it teach me? Am I a better person for having watched it?â
Melancholy isnât just a narrative device for Bluth, itâs a natural part of navigating life, of searching for wholeness, and becoming a better person. Bluth acknowledges sadness in a way that never diminishes or minimizes its existence; he invites melancholy in, confesses its power, and lets it rest. Sadness is, for Bluth, an essential characteristic of the world and living in it. That is a wholly edifying message for kids, delivered in a vessel that is both palatable and unpatronizing. For this reason, among innumerable others, Bluthâs work has immense value as childrenâs entertainmentâŠeven if it means crying into a throw pillow twenty years later.
