The hidden meanings of birds in the movies When Nelly Furtado sang she was like a bird, we all knew she meant it metaphorically. The next lines were about not knowing where her soul was, which doesn’t strike me as typical bird symbolism, but birds mean a lot of things to a lot of people. DVD and BLU-RAY REVIEWS INDEX Alphabetical listing, divided by studio, of all our DVD and Blu-ray reviews. One Hundred and One Dalmatians, often abbreviated as 101 Dalmatians, is a 1961 American animated adventure film produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1956 novel. With Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, Sterling Holloway, Scatman Crothers. With the help of a smooth talking tomcat, a family of Parisian felines set to inherit a fortune from. We humans put all sorts of meanings on the behaviour of birds when they’re busy sitting in cages, building nests, laying eggs and so on. Film directors are no different. If you see a bird on the screen, chances are it’s going to be there to represent one of the following things: This little birdie has a superiority complex. In movie metaphors, birds can represent people who think they are above fate, or even fate itself. Let’s start with the bigheads and work up. Russian director Sergei Eisenstein is probably best known for Battleship Potemkin, but his film October (1. Winter Palace in St Petersburg. Eisenstein explored how symbolism can work through the interconnection of images in October. In one scene he shows us the head of the provisional government enjoying the Winter Palace, and then he cuts to an image of a preening mechanical peacock. We make a connection between the two pictures: vanity. Ian Richardson, Actor: Dark City. A classical actor (and founding member in 1960 of the Royal Shakespeare Company), Richardson earned international fame as the. 102 Dalmatians is a 2000 British family comedy film directed by Kevin Lima in his live action directorial debut and produced by Edward S. Feldman and Walt Disney Pictures.I bet you never thought there was a connection between Eisenstein and Kung Fu Panda 2, but here it is – Lord Shen is a white peacock. The peacock represents divinity, rank and power, while the colour white symbolises death in Chinese culture. It’s no wonder that Lord Shen is a kick- ass bad guy. Birds make great symbols of extreme, almost godlike, power. The eagles in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy are the only creatures capable of taking on Nazgul, leading to the popular internet question – why didn’t they just fly Frodo to Mount Doom in the first place? And both Harry and Voldemort’s wands contain phoenix feathers. Hitchcock gives us the strongest picture of the flipside of this power in The Birds (1. What if all birds were to turn against us? When we are given a bird’s- eye view of the town of Bodega Bay, California, we look down upon it as gas stations explode and everything goes up in flames, and the chilling realisation is that we are not capable of protecting ourselves from such an attack. The birds win, and we don’t stand a chance. This little birdie means freedom. In 1. 91. 8, Maurice Tourneur directed The Blue Bird. It’s a fairy story that is charming, surreal, and scary. Two children, Tyltyl and Mytyl, are sent on a journey by a fairy to find the bluebird of happiness. They look in some incredible places, and its impossible to watch it now and not think of The Wizard Of Oz. Rarely do films get that mixture of innocence, strangeness and threat so perfectly balanced. The blue bird of happiness is found a number of times, but it cannot be caged. Happiness must come and go from us freely. Children’s films love the connection between freedom and birds. For instance, Disney’s Aladdin (1. Jasmine in her prison of a palace, rich and bored. She releases her pet birds from the aviary and watches them fly up to the sun. Chicken Run (2. 00. The Great Escape with poultry possible. All the Harry Potter films are awash with imagery of birds and flying. Perhaps my favourite moment is in the first film, The Philosopher’s Stone (2. Harry finds the mirror of Erised. It shows him his dead parents, and it’s a moment of deep sadness when Dumbledore explains that the mirror must be moved so that Harry does not become obsessed. The next shot takes place in the snowy courtyard at Hogwarts. Harry has his owl, Hedwig, on his arm. He lets it fly up into the snow, and we follow the bird away from sadness and worry; we know Harry will be fine. And then there is Kes. Made in 1. 96. 9 by Ken Loach, the kestrel that 1. Billy Caspar trains represents his only escape from a life of serious bleakness. He's bullied at home and at school, and the only time we see him smile is when he watches Kes fly. One of the great films made for young adults, it doesn’t sugar- coat life. The bird is only a temporary escape; flying away from your problems offers no real solution. There are plenty of adult films in all genres that use the bird/freedom connection: The Thin Red Line, Love Happens, Ladyhawke, The Happy Time, Black Narcissus. Take Ginger Rogers' beautiful feathered dress in Top Hat (1. Now that’s freedom of movement, even if it did continually shed all over Fred’s suit. This little birdie is mentally unstable. The first time that the psychopath became the star of the film was in Hitchcock’s Psycho. The heroine doesn’t even make it through the first half of the film, but she’s around long enough to see Norman Bates’ collection of stuffed birds. They look down on Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and on us from around the room behind the reception area of Bates Motel, and represent Norman’s fascination with death and passivity. The mental unbalance of the killer is more interesting than the personality of the victim. He talks about why he loves to stuff birds in particular. We’re being asked to look inside his head, and what we see is fascinating, and terrible, and involves dead eyes and rigid bodies forced into uncomfortable poses. Rather like Marion in the shower only a few hours later. I’m not sure why liking birds or keeping birds became a symbol of craziness in movie language, unless it’s entirely due to the effect of Hitchcock’s stuffed victims. Think of The Producers (1. Nazi Franz Liebkind (Kenneth Mars) keeps pigeons up on the roof of his apartment block. In the 2. 00. 5 remake Will Ferrell plays Liebkind, and in that version he’s even trained the pigeons to give him a Nazi salute. Iron Man 2 (2. 01. Mickey Rourke take on the bad guy role as Ivan Vanko. Apparently it was Rourke’s own idea to give the character more personality by playing the role with gold teeth and a pet cockatoo. Unfortunately the cockatoo doesn’t give the impression of deep character traits so much as general craziness. Yes, a bird on the shoulder equals an unhinged piratical personality in movie terms. The father of them all is Long John Silver, of course, played complete with parrot in the 1. Treasure Island (and a sequel) by Robert Newton. Then the pirate with the parrot makes an appearance in the Pirates Of The Caribbean films, and even poor Captain Hook ends up with one in the 2. Peter Pan. If you want movie shorthand for weird, stick a bird next to your ear. Sometimes the bird represents that everyone else is crazy. The parrot in The Ladykillers (1. When it flies off, who can blame it? My favourite moment is when Mrs Wilberforce has just let the room to Professor Marcus (the brilliant Alec Guinness), and she returns to her sitting room to tell the parrot – “We’re going to have a guest in the house!” The parrot replies with a low, menacing chuckle. It already knows things aren’t going to go well. But they are going to be very dark, and very funny. This little birdie can be a comedy sidekick. Are birds comedic? I don’t tend to think of them that way, but someone in Hollywood must, because birds keep cropping up to offer comic relief. Often there’s a degree of anthropomorphism; the birds are given personalities. Sometimes they are even the star of the show, as in Paulie (1. Rio (2. 01. 1). Or they’re one of a cast of animals in busy films that look like a nightmare to shoot, such as both versions of Doctor Doolittle (1. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1. Dalmatians (2. 00. Eric Idle provides the voice for the macaw who thinks it’s a Rottweiler. I have a soft spot for Bubo the mechanical owl in Clash Of The Titans (1. I think that might be purely because of the genius of Ray Harryhausen. Or there’s a truly funny and highly offensive moment in Dumb And Dumber (1. The most intriguing comic oddity might well be Bill And Coo (1. It’s an entertaining movie of everyday life in the town of Chirpendale, which is populated entirely with birds. There’s an approaching threat – a crow known as the Black Menace. Can Bill save the town and his sweetheart, Coo? Bill And Coo is an amazing accomplishment, particularly the crowd scenes and circus scenes, and it also has a historical resonance. The birds flee the Black Menace into underground bunkers, and the sound of the crow approaching is a low drone, like an overhead bomber. World War Two has been over for humans for two years, but the poor birds of Chirpendale appear to still be living through it. Bill And Coo won a special Oscar in 1. In which artistry and patience blended in a novel and entertaining use of the medium of motion pictures”. It is a great reminder of how inventive Hollywood can be when it puts its mind to it. There are so many films that use the symbolism of the bird that it’s impossible to begin to cover them all, but hopefully these categories have given some idea of what exactly that bird is doing onscreen. That’s right – it’s a vain, comedic psychopath that’s wishing for freedom. You have to feel sorry for the birds, really. Well, apart from the ones in Hitchcock’s The Birds, who are going to end up ruling the planet. Then we’ll be the ones being made to perform in movies for little more than a handful of seed and a cuttlefish. And be our Facebook chum here. One Hundred and One Dalmatians . For the live- action remake, see 1. Dalmatians (1. 99. For the television series, see 1. Dalmatians: The Series. One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Editor(s)Roy M. Brewer, Jr. Donald Halliday. Gross revenue$2. One Hundred and One Dalmatians, often abbreviated as 1. Dalmatians, is a 1. American animated film presented by Walt Disney and based on the novel of the same name by Dodie Smith. Seventeenth in the Disney Animated Canon, it was originally released to theaters on January 2. Buena Vista Distribution. The plot centers on the fate of the kidnapped puppies of Pongo and Perdita. Adjusted for inflation it is the 1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it is also a critical gem, as critics praised it for defying Disney convention and for its character animation. Bored with bachelor life, unlike Roger who spends his days writing music, Pongo decides to find a wife for Roger and a mate for himself. While watching various female dog- human pairs out the window, he spots the perfect couple, a woman named Anita and her female dalmatian, Perdita (or Perdy for short) heading to Regent's Park. He quickly gets Roger out of the house and drags him through the park to arrange a meeting. After an awkward and unusual meeting that goes awry, Pongo's efforts pay off and had accidentally caused both Roger and Anita to fall into a pond, but it works out well as they fall in love. One appears to be stillborn, but Roger is able to revive it by rubbing it in a towel (because of which, they name it . That same night, they are visited by Cruella De Vil, an eccentric and wealthy social parasite known to Anita from their school years. She offers the Radcliffes to buy the entire litter for a large sum, but Roger says they are not selling any of them. Weeks later, she hires Jasper and Horace to kidnap them all. The humans try every effort to locate them but to no avail. When Scotland Yard is unable to prove she stole them or find them, Pongo and Perdita use the . The first one to answer the call is the Great Dane. Tibbs learns they are going to be made into dog- skin fur coats and Colonel quickly sends word back to London. Upon receiving the message, Pongo and Perdita immediately leave to retrieve their puppies. Meanwhile, Tibbs overhears Cruella ordering Jasper and Horace to kill and render them that night out of fear the police will soon find them. In response, Tibbs attempts to rescue them himself while Jasper and Horace are watching the television, but they finish their show and come for them before Tibbs can get them out of the house. Pongo and Perdita burst through a window just as Jasper and Horace have cornered them and are about to kill them. Horace is knocked into the fireplace and Jasper gets his pants pulled down while Colonel and Tibbs guide the puppies from the house. Shocked after learning of her plans, Pongo and Perdita decide to adopt them all, certain that Roger and Anita would never reject them. They begin making their way back to London, aided by other animals along the way; including the Collie and the cows who give them shelter and food. However, Cruella, Jasper, and Horace are in hot pursuit of them and will stop at nothing to catch them. In order to try and fool them, they cover themselves with soot so they appear to be Labrador retrievers. As it is leaving, melting snow cleans off the soot and Cruella, Jasper, and Horace see them through their disguises. In a maniacal rage, Jasper and Horace in their truck and Cruella in her car follow the van with the dogs inside. Cruella repeatedly rams it off the road (promptly damaging her car in the process), while Jasper and Horace try to cut it off from another direction. They nearly succeed, but just as they are about to do so, a panicked Horace accidentally tears the steering wheel from the truck's dashboard, causing the vehicle to swerve out of control. Because of this, they end up colliding with Cruella and her car, sending both vehicles crashing into a deep ravine. Comically, they are shown and well among the wreckage of their demolished vehicles. As Cruella screams in anger and frustration and berates Jasper and Horace for ruining everything, she begins weeping over the loss of her dear car and her dream coat, as the van drives away. Suddenly, barking is heard outside and after their nanny opens the door, the house is filled with dogs. After wiping away more of the soot, they are delighted to realize the dalmatian clan has returned home. They decide to use the money from the song to buy a large house in the country so they can keep all 1. It was the first Disney animated feature to be set in a contemporary setting. It was also the first one created by a single story man (Bill Peet). Ub Iwerks, in charge of special processes at the studio, had been experimenting with Xero photography to aid in animation. Rotoscoping, a technique formerly used for tracing live- action human characters into animated drawings, became less important. With the hand inkers gone, the animation remained as the animators drew it. Later it became common to do clean- up on paper before the animation was copied, and with time and experience, the process improved. Walt Disney, who for some years had spent his attention more towards television and his Disneyland amusement park and less on his animated features, disliked this development. In later animated features, the Xeroxed lines could be printed in different colors. Songwriter Mel Leven had, in fact, written several additional songs for the film including . Actress Helene Stanley performed the live- action reference for the character of Anita. She did the same kind of work for the characters of Cinderella in the title movie and Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. The animators did not like this way of working, feeling it detracted from their ability to create character. After its initial theatrical run, it was re- released to theaters four more times: January 1. June 1. 97. 9, December 1. July 1. 99. 1. It was reissued to theaters in 1. The 1. 99. 1 reissue was the twentieth highest- earning film of the year for domestic earnings. It currently holds a 9. IT did receive some negative criticism. Phillip Martin of the Arkansas Democrat- Gazette only gave the film 2/5 stars. Making a coat out of dogs? But worse than Cruella de Vil’s fashion sense is the fact that your children will definitely start asking for a dalmatian of their own for their next birthday. The earliest of these endeavors was the live- action remake, 1. Dalmatians starring Glenn Close as Cruella De Vil. None of the animals talked in it. Its success in theaters led to 1. Dalmatians, released on November 2. The designs of the characters were stylized further, to allow for economic animation, and appeal to the contemporary trends. She has always been one of my favorite Disney Villians. I actually have always prefered the live- action versi..
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