{"id":87567,"date":"2020-10-12T22:00:25","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T19:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/revisiting-frank-and-ollie-disneys-nostalgic-documentary-film\/"},"modified":"2020-10-12T22:00:25","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T19:00:25","slug":"revisiting-frank-and-ollie-disneys-nostalgic-documentary-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/revisiting-frank-and-ollie-disneys-nostalgic-documentary-film\/","title":{"rendered":"#Revisiting Frank and Ollie, Disney&#8217;s Nostalgic Documentary \u2013 \/Film"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a406f97972f2\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a406f97972f2\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/revisiting-frank-and-ollie-disneys-nostalgic-documentary-film\/#The_Pitch\" >The Pitch<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/revisiting-frank-and-ollie-disneys-nostalgic-documentary-film\/#The_Movie\" >The Movie<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/revisiting-frank-and-ollie-disneys-nostalgic-documentary-film\/#The_Legacy\" >The Legacy<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#Revisiting Frank and Ollie, Disney&#8217;s Nostalgic Documentary \u2013 \/Film<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>                            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-640344 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/Frank-and-Ollie-700x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Frank and Ollie\" width=\"700\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/Frank-and-Ollie.jpeg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/Frank-and-Ollie-360x154.jpeg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><i>(Welcome to\u00a0<strong><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/slashfilm.com\/tag\/out-of-the-disney-vault\">Out of the Disney Vault<\/a><\/strong>, where we explore the unsung gems and forgotten disasters currently streaming on Disney+.)<\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Disney Renaissance was a heady time, not just for the animation industry at large but for the Walt Disney Company. The 1980s began as a dark time for Disney but concluded as the company began to ascend new heights of creative and financial success, largely thanks to the innovative animation at the heart of films like <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Little Mermaid<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The 1990s were an even more exciting time for Disney: the studio netted its first Best Picture nominee for animation, and films like <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Aladdin <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Lion King<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> were massive box-office successes. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It stands to reason, then, that the company was willing to do what it did best: take a look back in nostalgia.<\/span><br \/>\n<!-- SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post --><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Pitch\"><\/span><strong>The Pitch<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This time, though, Disney would look back at itself as opposed to historical eras or well-known fables and fairy tales. There were, among those in the know, some truly legendary animators who worked at Disney during its Golden Age all the way through the passing of Walt himself. A couple handfuls of them had been dubbed the Nine Old Men, primarily because they\u2019d been part of the studio for decades. Two of those nine, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, became the subject of Disney\u2019s documentary <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frank and Ollie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Directed by Theodore Thomas (Frank\u2019s son), <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frank and Ollie <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is intended to be a lighthearted look back at the lives of two best friends who were fortunate enough to be at the center of one of American popular culture\u2019s most important creative flashpoints.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Movie\"><\/span><strong>The Movie<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As you can imagine, with the son of one of the subjects directing the film, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frank and Ollie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is not a challenging or contentious affair. (You may scoff at the very notion that a Walt Disney Pictures documentary could be remotely challenging or contentious. I invite you to watch <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, in which we learn that Richard and Robert Sherman, brothers and immensely talented songwriters, didn\u2019t exactly get along. It\u2019s not the roughest documentary you\u2019ll watch, but considering that it\u2019s a Disney title, it\u2019s more uncomfortable than you might think.) While <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frank and Ollie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the cinematic equivalent of easy listening, it\u2019s all the more fascinating to watch and understand how such unassuming-looking men were responsible for some of the funniest, most memorable, most vividly emotional moments in feature animation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That, by the way, is the true throughline of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frank and Ollie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, even more so than the documentation of their decades-long friendship. It\u2019s that Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston are celebrated here for their immense, distinctive talents as animators. The first 30 years of Disney\u2019s animated features are marked by the presence of Frank and Ollie: everything from the silly dwarfs in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to the climactic moments of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Jungle Book <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">bears their signature. The great strength of this film isn\u2019t in its warm and cheerful depiction of how Frank and Ollie get along so well after so many years together as friends (though Andy Gaskill, a production designer on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Lion King<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which arrived in theaters just a few months before this premiered at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, notes that he can\u2019t recall having such a solid relationship with another man). It\u2019s in pinpointing how the animation from Disney\u2019s Golden Age and beyond was cemented by these men and others gave life to characters in ways that voice work can\u2019t suffice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The legend goes that Walt Disney introduced his animators to the idea of making a full-length adaptation of the Snow White fairy tale by performing every part of it, over a three-hour nighttime presentation. The performative element of character animation is easily overlooked by viewers. When you watch <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you may recall the image of the horrid old hag (the Evil Queen in disguise, of course) as she offers a \u201cnice, juicy <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>le\u201d to the fair maiden who doesn\u2019t realize it\u2019s poisoned. But you may fixate more on the quavery voice uttering those words, and less on the artistry involved in making each facial expression, each physical movement as recognizable and alive.<\/span><br \/>\n<!-- SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post_2 --><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s where animators like Frank and Ollie stepped in. Throughout <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frank and Ollie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the remembrances each man shares of various features they worked on at Disney Animation are intercut with moments of the elderly animators performing bits of those very features that they animated. At first glance, it seems a little quaint and cutesy to watch an old guy pretend, for example, to be the Queen of Hearts as she\u2019s in the middle of one of her temper tantrums. But as more and more of these moments are displayed, it becomes much clearer how many Disney classics relied on men like Frank and Ollie (and sadly, it was mostly just men) capturing the drama of the characters through watching their own actions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frank and Ollie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is pleasant enough to watch with or without these bits of humane acting, but watching the two men go through \u2013 with genuine energy and emotion \u2013 some scenes in Disney history is itself a thrilling lesson in art. What occurs around these pieces isn\u2019t a jaw-dropping expose into the past of the Walt Disney Company. It\u2019s charming and light and easy enough to watch without being pressed into deep thought. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frank and Ollie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, fittingly enough, comes alive most often when it asks the men of the title to do the same.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Legacy\"><\/span><strong>The Legacy<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Walt Disney Pictures was no stranger to documentaries before the release of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frank and Ollie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in 1995, but they hadn\u2019t spent a lot of time releasing <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">movies<\/a> about the Walt Disney Company. Since then, there have been a few such films, from the recent <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Howard<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> about the excellent lyricist Howard Ashman to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Boys<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waking Sleeping Beauty<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the film documenting the heady experience of working through the Disney Renaissance of the 1980s and 1990s.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the real legacy left behind is that of the work that Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston created during their time at Disney Animation. It\u2019s present every time that you watch <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Snow White<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bambi<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Jungle Book<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on Disney+. And, in its own way, it\u2019s an incalculable legacy that Disney has tried to repeat over the last decade. In the same way that Disney didn\u2019t use to gaze upon itself in documentary form, this movie arrived before the era of Disney remaking its own content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Watching <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frank and Ollie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a reminder of something that the two men spoke about in, admittedly, a much different context: their brief cameo at the end of Brad Bird\u2019s first film with Pixar, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Incredibles<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. You may recall, after the climax in a metropolis where Bob Parr and his family stop the nefarious Syndrome, seeing two old men look on, impressed. \u201cThat\u2019s the way to do it. Old school,\u201d one man says to the other. \u201cNo school like the old school,\u201d the other replies, chuckling. Those two men were voiced by Frank and Ollie, animators who had inspired Bird and countless others with their methods, captured in the book <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Illusion of Life<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<!-- SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post_3 --><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you watch even the clips of the films Frank and Ollie worked on, and think about how Disney has remade a number of those films (or, in the case of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Snow White <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bambi<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, merely threatened to do so), it\u2019s easy to agree. There really <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> no school like the old school. The work that Frank and Ollie created, so lovingly brought back to life in the film bearing their names, was unrepeatable. It\u2019s beyond duplication. They achieved so much beyond words in their time at Disney. There\u2019s a reason why so few animators since their time have ever achieved such legendary, iconic status.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>                            <strong>Cool Posts From Around the Web:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>                            <!-- \/post -->\n                        <\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/social-media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/frank-and-ollie\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Revisiting Frank and Ollie, Disney&#8217;s Nostalgic Documentary \u2013 \/Film&#8221; (Welcome to\u00a0Out of the Disney Vault, where we explore the unsung gems and forgotten disasters currently streaming on Disney+.) The Disney Renaissance was a heady time, not just for the animation industry at large but for the Walt Disney Company. The 1980s began as a dark&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/Frank-and-Ollie.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1568,1498,1569,1570,75484,1572],"class_list":["post-87567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-featured-stories-sidebar","tag-disney-pixar","tag-disney","tag-features","tag-frank-and-ollie","tag-out-of-the-disney-vault"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}