The story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is commonly thought of by many as an original masterpiece written by the Walt Disney Company. However, it would seem that Walt Disney’s well loved tale was just an interpretation of an existing story; as was the case with many other timeless Disney classics. Many descended from word of mouth fairy tales recorded by The Brothers Grimm as they were told by the people of small villages in Germany. The Brothers Grimm captured these stories and compiled them into a series of books published in the early 1800’s to preserve the folk tales which had been passed down for generations, stories which would have otherwise been unrecorded and eventually forgotten. The Brothers Grimm captured the true essence of these stories, occasionally changing the content in response to their own moral values. The stories were often tales of death and intolerable cruelty, far more complex and adult orientated than the ones more commonly known. Walt Disney on the other hand, inspired by an early silent film based on the story released a toned down, more family friendly cartoon version in 1937. Prior to this, cartoons were merely in the form of ‘shorts’ to encapsulate audiences before the main feature. Disney took it upon himself and his animators to produce a revolutionary cartoon version of the tale in the form of a full length feature film which had never been done before, and in doing this rekindled the art of the fairy tale.
Bibliography
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/grimm/bl-grimm-snowwhite.htm
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