Mass-market Monday | Vance Randolph's Pissing in the Snow & Other Ozark Folktales
Pissing in the Snow & Other Ozark Folktales, collected and transcribed by Vance Randolph with annotations by Frank A. Hoffmann. Avon Bard (1977). No cover artist credited. 239 pages. A tale from the collection:
“Have You Ever Been Diddled?”
Told by J. L. Russell, Harrison, Ark., April, 1950. He heard this one near Berryville, Ark., in the 1890’s.
One time there was a town girl and a country girl…
Animated films released based on folktales or traditional fairy tales whose authorship are unknown.
A few days ago, I read an article about the interview with John Lasseter, who is Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney and Pixar. According to him, Disney will be supposed to create two or three animated films more related to fairy tales. So, he said that his development team has been researching various folktales and traditional fairy tales spreading across the world.
Reading the article, all of a sudden, I came up with an idea of writing a blog post about animated films released based on, not fairy tales written by the Grimm Brothers or Andersen, but folktales or traditional fairy tales whose authorship are unknown.
First, the most famous animated film that we member should be “Mulan” produced by Disney in 1998. The movie is based on the long poem of unknown authorship titled “Hua Mulan” from Chia about 1500 years ago.
The similarity of the animation and the original is that Mulan ended up enlisting in the army for her sick father. The difference between the film and the poem is that Mulan ends up killing herself at the end in the poem. Based on the origin, Mulan distinguished herself in many battles for over 12 years. The emperor of Chia wanted to give her the high government position, however, she declined his suggestion and came back to her hometown. After that, the emperor became aware that she was actually a girl, and demanded that she has to come back and serve him tenaciously. Mulan tried to rebuff him, but could not get no-where, and decided to take her own life eventually. The emperor felt great sorrow for her death and awarded the honorary title of general. The people in her hometown also established the Court to honor her, and hold a memorial service on her birthday.
As we all know, Disney successfully adapted this sad original story to an animated film.
Second, the story of the animated film titled “The Book of Life”, which was recently released, was derived from the origin of “Day of the Dead” of Mexico dating back up to Aztec civilization of pre-Hispanic.
The Aztec peoples believed that the dead by unfortunate accidents or diseases are supposed to go to Teullarokan where Tlaloc God welcomes them. The dead men’s spirit is supposed to spend permanent blissful time there. However, for the dead by natural causes to get Teullarokan, the Aztec people believed that they must accomplish their tough journey for 4 years overcoming all kinds of hardships. During that period, the dead can stay at their home only once a year around the beginning of November. The Aztec people prepared food and drink that their dead friends or family liked when they were alive. Christians has kept this tradition and called the first day of November “Dia de Todos los Santos” and the second day “Dia de los Fieles Difuntos”. We call these two days combined “Day of the Dead”.
An ancient Mexican people believed that life and death should be considered into one eventually. So, they thought that death is not the end of life, but the gateway to pass through to get to the better place. Jorge Gutierre wrote the script of the background story of “Day of the Dead” to fit into an animated film. We seem to wait to figure out how much this movie would make a hit.
Third, the animated film tilted “The Tale of The Princess Kaguya” was produced by Studio Ghibli in 2013 based on the oldest folk tale in Japan, which is “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter”.
Its story is very simple. There was an old couple cutting bamboos to earn their bread and butter. One day, the husband found out a little baby in a bamboo in finger size, and they decided to raise her and named her Kaguya. Kaguya grew rapidly into a beautiful girl in three months. Having endless suitors thanks to her beauty, the couple moved out to the capital of the city to find the best husband for her. However, leaving the nature, and being surrounded by a bunch of tenacious suitors including the king everyday, Kaguya became tired of the city life and depressed. She eventually revealed that she originally was from moon to her adoptive parents, and ended up leaving for moon in deep sorrow.
Through matchless and creative drawing skills, Ghibli studio successfully brought this dreamlike and arcane story into the screen. Each scene of the film can even considered as a great work of art.
Lastly, as a Korean, I have thought what could be a great topic to produce an animated film among Korean traditional fairy tales or folktales.
A nine-tailed fox is a mysterious legendary animal, which appears in folktales from China, Japan and Korea in common. Typically, a nine-tailed fox appearing in Korea folktales is ten-hundred-year old, and it is in the person of a beautiful woman. It has a strong wish to be a human being. There are various versions of its story. Commonly, the nine-tailed fox falls in love with a man and gets married with him. To become a human, she must not reveal her true identity to her husband for 100 days. However, she always happens to be disclosed by her husband the day before the very day, and ends up leaving her beloved.
I am very curious about how it would be like if a story of a nine-tailed fox, which really wants to be a human, but never achieves its earnest wish, is shown in a screen as an animated film.
