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Overview
The imagination of Walt Disney (1901-1966) is still seen in theme parks throughout the world bearing his name, on numerous live-action films and television specials, on toys and assorted merchandise, and on an international corporation known both for the high quality of its creative output and its ubiquity.
Walt Disney: Conversations collects interviews and profiles of the man who created Mickey Mouse, and produced such full-length animated classics as Snow White, Cinderella, Fantasia, Bambi, The Lady and the Tramp, Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan, and Pinocchio, along with countless short cartoons.
Bringing together over twenty pieces from the late 1920s to the late 1960s, this book traces Disney's career from the early classic Steamboat Willie to the construction of Disneyland, and the live-action ventures The Mickey Mouse Club and Mary Poppins. Walt Disney: Conversations shows how Disney saw his productions as shapers of popular culture and reveals how firmly he understood the issues of his time.
Featuring an interview conducted by producer Cecil B. DeMille, Disney's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and rarely seen pieces from the Disney corporation's archives, Walt Disney: Conversations reveals a complex visionary whose impact on animation, live-action film, television, and theme parks has never been equaled.
Kathy Merlock Jackson is professor and coordinator of communications at Virginia Wesleyan College. Her works include Walt Disney: A Bio-Bibliography and Images of Children in American Film: A Socio-Cultural Analysis. She has also been published in the Journal of Popular Culture, the Journal of American Culture, and the Journal of Popular Film and Television. She lives in Virginia Beach.
Synopsis
A collection of interviews and profiles of the man who created Mickey Mouse, and produced such full-length animated classics as Snow White, Cinderella, Fantasia, Bambi, and Pinocchio, along with countless short cartoons
Publishers Weekly
Jackson explores the man behind the Magic Kingdom, evoking Disney's folksy yet driven personality through interviews he gave and speeches he delivered between 1929 and 1966. From a Ladies' Home Journal celebrity profile (entitled "Mr. and Mrs. Disney") to an informative dialogue from the Disney archives, it's clear that Disney's leading quality was persistence. Though Disney was criticized for his films and underpaying employees, this work defends his taste and management style. Most interesting are the contradictory critiques of his work. Told his films are maudlin, Disney responds: "Millions of sentimentalists have taste as schmaltzy as mine." When slammed for the darker elements of his works (the witches, ogres and dragons), he claims all his films illustrate that "[l]ife is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows." Of particular note is Disney's testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, where he named suspected Communists. Aside from a brief intro, Jackson, a communications professor at Virginia Wesleyan College, doesn't put Disney's remarks in context, leaving readers to assemble a full portrait of the man on their own. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.