Why "The Lion King" is the best cartoon ever

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

In the summer of 2019, the legendary cartoon will turn 25 years old. Disney is preparing a remake for this date, but for now we will remember why we love the original so much.

Perfectly aligned composition

Why is The Lion King the best cartoon ever? First of all, because it is perfectly aligned - clearly and correctly. There is nothing superfluous in it, empty, missed the mark. All episodes and details are in their place, have semantic and artistic functions and are organically connected with each other. He is like a conscientiously designed mechanism, as a result of the flawless operation of which magic is born.

Talking to little Simba, his father, Mufasa, says: "Someday my sun will set." When Mufasa dies and, pursued by guilt and hyenas, Simba runs away from his native lands, he heads into a blood-red sunset: this, as predicted, is the setting of the Lion King's sun. Growing up, Simba returns home and this time runs towards sunrise - the King's sun rises again.

In the film, there are many such paired moments that rhyme with each other, generating semantic attraction. "What will mom say?" - says the villain Scar to Simba, and the expulsion of the hero begins with this question. "What will mom say ?!" - says the lioness Nala, meeting a living Simba a long time later, and this time his return begins with this remark.

Another pair scene: Mufasa before his death and Simba before the final battle

A wildly rushing herd of wildebeests, under whose hooves Mufasa dies, is depicted as a stormy water stream: the herd runs along a narrow gorge with steep slopes, where water spills during the rainy season, and little Simba, like a real drowning man, escapes, holding on to a twig. The panicky running of antelopes here is a spectacular metaphor for uncontrollable water chaos, a flood, albeit not worldwide, but quite enough to destroy the little world of a lion cub and its native pride.

In The Lion King, all the details work, everything makes sense, it's not just that. And in order to see this, it is not necessary to resort to cinematic analysis: "The Lion King" is ingeniously invented and complexly built, but expresses itself in a simple film language, understandable to any viewer - both an adult and a child. Here the matured Simba flops on the grass in anguish, leaves and flower petals are thrown into the air, and the wind carries them to the wise shaman-mandril Rafiki - so Rafiki learns that the heir to the head of the pride is alive, and goes in search of him. Each episode is linked to the others and moves the action forward, preparing future events.

The only outwardly static scene where nothing seems to happen is when Simba, Timon and Pumbaa lie under the night sky and reflect on the nature of the stars. Timon claims that the stars are fireflies stuck to the firmament. Pumbaa, with a shrewdness unexpected for a simple-minded hog, puts forward the hypothesis of red-hot balls of gas many millions of miles from us. And Simba repeats what his father told him that the stars are the kings of the past, watching us from the sky. Friends laugh at him, and here the viewer (and Simba with him) feels that although Timon and Pumbaa are a great company, the lion cub among them is still a little alien. And that while Akuna Matata is a comfortable life philosophy, it is not his philosophy. So the outwardly eventless episode, in fact, turns out to be a turning point: at this point, the plot, having reached the highest point of rest (everyone lies, chatting relaxed about the stars, no one is in a hurry), begins at first almost imperceptible, but gradually more and more accelerating backward movement - to return Simba from exile and restoring order in the pride.

A plot based on myth and classic tragedy

The filmmakers admit that they were inspired by Hamlet. Indeed: the king was insidiously killed by his own brother, the crown prince, having gone through doubts and uncertainty, decides to take revenge and regain the throne - "The Lion King" can be seen as a kind of paraphrase of Shakespeare's tragedy. But it also clearly shows the structure of the ancient myth.

“Look around,” Mufasa says to his son. "Everything where sunlight falls is our kingdom." And where it does not fall is not ours, and there is no need to go there. For example, in the Northern Limit, where the elephant cemetery is located, hyenas live and where the villain Scar easily visits. If Mufasa and Simba are associated with the sun, then Scar is with darkness: he is always shown either in the semi-darkness of a cave or at night, and in the finale of the musical number Be Prepared, the figure of the antihero fits right into the crescent moon sparkling in the night sky. When the sun of Mufasa went down and Scar became king, it was as if eternal darkness reigned over the lands of the pride, the herds left, nature died and bones are scattered everywhere - an attribute of death. Only when, having defeated the usurper, Simba climbs the Rock of Ancestors and utters a desperate roar, the clouds dissipate, the sun appears in the sky, nature comes to life again.

We can say that we have before us an ancient story about the change in the calendar cycles of nature, about how day replaces night, and fertile seasons replace infertile ones. About the struggle between solar and lunar characters, life and death. About the dying and resurrecting deity of light and fertility (the wise Rafiki directly says that the deceased Mufasa continues to live in Simba, he just needs to take the place of the leader of the pride destined for him).

In the finale of The Lion King, as it should be in a fairy-tale mythological narration, the lost harmony seems to be completely restored. But let's not forget about Hamlet's motives. Simba went through the experience of doubt and apathy, and in him there is neither the calm confidence of his father (his big eyes look too timidly and guiltily), nor his strength (Simba is not the strongest lion: he can hardly defeat the weakling Scar, and he himself is laid three times on the shoulder blades the lioness Nala - for Mufasa, of course, this is impossible even to imagine). On the one hand, happiness and harmony have been restored, but on the other, there is at the end of this story some inescapable feeling of fragility, fragility, loss: everything is as before, but not quite. And this barely perceptible ambiguity of the ending gives the story of the Lion King a downright mesmerizing depth.

Persuasive characters

A fairy tale, whatever one may say, is a formulaic genre: flat heroes-functions operate according to an easily predictable pattern. But the creators of The Lion King managed to combine the fairytale genre with high-quality psychological portrayal of the characters.

All the characters in The Lion King have their own full-fledged characters, and this makes them interesting and convincing. Moreover, it makes them personalities - they have, let's say, free will, and if you watch the film for the first time, you cannot predict with certainty how they will act in a given situation. Will Nala be delighted to meet Simba after a long separation? Will Timon and Pumbaa help Simba in his fight for the pride, or will these two individualists prefer to stand aside, ironically commenting on what is happening? Will Scar, after gaining power, finally become calm and contented, or will he continue to whine alone? That is, of course, Nala will be delighted, and Timon and Pumbaa will help a friend. But suddenly, but suddenly …

Behind each hero his personal story is guessed, which made him what he is. Scar has a history of powerless despair and defeat, in which he may have received his scar. (Didn't his older brother reward him? That would explain a lot.) Mufasa's secretary of the rhinoceros Zazu has a story of a good-natured and restless careerist who, more than anything else, thirsts for the approval of his superiors. And interest in the fate of Timon and Pumbaa subsequently spawned a full-length spin-off about the duet of a meerkat and a warthog and three seasons of the television series.

And very charming actors were invited to speak for the characters. Scar is voiced by Jeremy Irons, hyena Shenzi by Whoopi Goldberg, Timon and Pumbaa by comedians Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella, Zazu by Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean), and Mufasa by Darth Vader's James Earl Jones. The animators even tried to give some of the characters a portrait resemblance to their voice actors. Therefore, in the face of Scar there is something of the attractively vicious appearance of Jeremy Irons, and Zazu, with his black thick eyebrows, really looks ridiculously like Mr. Bean.

Realistically depicted animals

To achieve realism in the depiction of animals, animators studied their behavior, movements, anatomy and psychology. The film crew was consulted by biologist Stuart Sumida, traveler Jim Fowler and trainer David McMillan, who came to the set with his lion Poncho - a live model for Mufasa and adult Simba. The film was originally planned to be The Lion King: A Memoir with Don Hahn | Making of the Movie to make the most believable, almost "documentary" picture about the life of lions in the wild. However, then the concept changed, the characters and the plot were decided to humanize a little - to add anthropomorphic features to the animals.

And this is one of the main advantages of "The Lion King" - in the ideally found point of balance between the accurate depiction of animals and their humanization, necessary for a Disney cartoon. The movements of Mufasa and Scar are the same as real lions should have, but to convey the character of the characters, the movements of Mufasa were added to the heaviness and proud confidence, and to the Scar - slack grace, almost feminine. The anthropomorphization in The Lion King is accomplished with a few delicate and surgically precise strokes that hardly violate the zoological plausibility. For example, when at the end of the song Hakuna Matata Simba walks off into the distance along the path, his gait is a realistic lion gait, but the animators slightly turned his feet in different directions, and it turned out that he was dancing.

And of course, in the film, the correspondences between the behavior of animals in nature and their role in the plot are fascinatingly played. Mandrills (monkeys of the monkey family living in Central Africa, close to baboons) have a characteristic bright color on their faces, which in Rafiki becomes the ritual coloring of a shaman. Feeling safe, monkeys sometimes love to bully other animals, including large predators, for fun - this feature inspired the scene of the meeting between Simba and Rafiki, where Rafiki acts as such an eccentric sage who enlightens the young hero, teasing him and weighing light cuffs … When the lion seizes power in the pride, it usually kills the cubs of its predecessor - so Scar's attempt to kill Simba is consistent with the real mores of the animal society. And if the lionesses are unhappy with the head of the pride, they can overthrow him, taking the side of a new, more attractive male - this happens at the end of the film.

Good music

Yes, The Lion King has good music, and this is an important circumstance for a Disney cartoon. Five compositions were written by Elton John, three of them - Circle of Life, Hakuna Matata and Can You Feel the Love Tonight - became hits and competed with each other in the Oscar nomination for the best song. Naturally, the lyric Can You Feel the Love Tonight won: by the time of the Oscar, it had already taken the fourth line in the Billboard charts and Elton John managed to get a Grammy for her.

The rest of the music was written by the young German composer Hans Zimmer, also awarded an Oscar for his work on the film (in the Best Original Soundtrack nomination). In general, this was the beginning of Zimmer's victorious path as the main composer of Hollywood blockbusters - he later wrote music for Gladiator, Pearl Harbor, Pirates of the Caribbean, DC Universe and almost all of Christopher Nolan's films. It is curious that although Hans is regularly nominated for an Oscar as the best film composer, he still has the only statuette for his work on The Lion King.

But good music is not enough for a film; it is also important how it is used. The songs in The Lion King are not just plug-in musical numbers that can be thrown away without compromising the plot. All of them are closely intertwined with the story, move the action, reveal the characters. Take the song Hakuna Matata, which Timon and Pumbaa sing right after they find Simba. Interrupted by short dialogues a couple of times, it lasts four minutes. This episode helps the viewer move from sadness and horror caused by the death of Mufasa to cheerful calmness, balances the tragedy with humor, introduces us to new friends of the protagonist and allows us to show his growing up “on fast forward”. When the song begins, we see Timon and Pumbaa for the first time, and Simba is a little frightened lion cub. When it ends - Simba grows into a maned lion, and Timon and Pumbaa are like family to us. It's hard to believe that just four minutes ago, Simba and I didn't know these two eccentrics.

Beautiful and meticulous drawing

It is believed that in terms of drawing technique "The Lion King" was a step back for Disney animation. Already in the nineties, animation was striving to renew and expand its capabilities, and experiments in this area gradually went beyond the limits of small studios into the commercial mainstream. Disney itself in 1988 released the groundbreaking Roger Rabbit, where, among other things, it came close to a three-dimensional image. And a year after "The Lion King", in 1995, "Toy Story" will be released and will begin a new era - computer 3D animation. Against this backdrop, "The Lion King" with its traditional Disney art may look a little old-fashioned.

Well, so be it. But if this is a drawback, then in "The Lion King" it is compensated by the skill of pictorial solutions and careful study of details. 600 The Lion King - Animators' Production Information, 1,200 hand-drawn backdrops, and this is where the effort pays off.

The startlingly beautiful opening frames are one of the most powerful moments in the history of animation. In a large-scale two-minute scene of the death of Mufasa, each of several hundred rushing antelopes has its own trajectory of movement. As a result, their running looks chaotic, unpredictable, which increases the feeling of horror and disaster.

Or here's a completely ordinary scene where Simba and Nala pass through two rows of zebras stretched out in a frunt. Zebras seem to be the same and are drawn in a carbon copy. But if you look closely, each is slightly individualized: they have different leg positions and stripes are drawn in different ways. Such small and seemingly unnecessary details also make The Lion King feel alive and real.

The best cartoon ever.