Walter Elias Disney was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, he holds the record for most Academy Awards earned (22) and nominations (59) by an individual. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and have also been named as some of the greatest films ever by the American Film Institute.
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war films often end with them. Themes explored include combat, survival and escape, camaraderie between soldiers, sacrifice, the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, and the moral and human issues raised by war. War films are often categorized by their milieu, such as the Korean War; the most popular subjects are the Second World War and the American Civil War. The stories told may be fiction, historical drama, or biographical. Critics have noted similarities between the Western and the war film.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis from a screenplay written by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman. It is loosely based on the 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf. The film stars Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Stubby Kaye, and Joanna Cassidy, along with the voices of Charles Fleischer and an uncredited Kathleen Turner. Combining live-action and animation, the film is set in an alternate history Hollywood in 1947, where humans and cartoon characters co-exist. Its plot follows Eddie Valiant, a private investigator with a grudge against toons, who must help exonerate Roger Rabbit, a toon framed for murder.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the 1812 German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, the production was supervised by David Hand, and was directed by a team of sequence directors, including Perce Pearce, William Cottrell, Larry Morey, Wilfred Jackson, and Ben Sharpsteen. It is the first animated feature film produced in the United States and the first cel animated feature film.
Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction. He has also won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. As of 2023, Powers has published thirteen novels and has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford University. He won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory.
Pinocchio is a 1940 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Loosely based on Carlo Collodi's 1883 Italian children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, it is the studio's second animated feature film, as well as the third animated film overall produced by an American film studio, after Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Fleischer Studios' Gulliver's Travels (1939). With the voices of Cliff Edwards, Dickie Jones, Christian Rub, Walter Catlett, Charles Judels, Evelyn Venable, and Frankie Darro, the film follows a wooden puppet, Pinocchio, who is created by an old woodcarver, Geppetto, and brought to life by a blue fairy. Wishing to become a real boy, Pinocchio must prove himself to be "brave, truthful, and unselfish." Along his journey, Pinocchio encounters several characters representing the temptations and consequences of wrongdoing, as a cricket named Jiminy, who takes the role of Pinocchio's conscience, attempts to guide him in matters of right and wrong.
Arthur Harold Babitsky, better known as Art Babbitt, was an American animator, best known for his work at Walt Disney Animation Studios. He received over 80 awards as an animation director and animator, and also developed the character of Goofy. Babbitt worked as an animator or animation director on films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia and Dumbo, among others. Outside of Disney, he also animated The Wise Quacking Duck for Leon Schlesinger Productions.
Jiminy Cricket is the Disney version of the Talking Cricket, a fictional character created by Italian writer Carlo Collodi for his 1883 children's book The Adventures of Pinocchio, which Walt Disney adapted into the animated film Pinocchio in 1940. Originally an unnamed, minor character in Collodi's novel who is killed by Pinocchio before returning as a ghost, he was transformed for the Disney adaptation into a comical and wisecracking partner who accompanies Pinocchio on his adventures, having been appointed by the Blue Fairy to serve as Pinocchio's official conscience. In the film, he sings "When You Wish Upon a Star", the Walt Disney Company's signature song, and "Give a Little Whistle".
John Cannizzaro Jr., better known as John Canemaker, is an American independent animator, animation historian, author, teacher and lecturer. In 1980, he began teaching and developing the animation program at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts', Kanbar Institute of Film and Television Department. Since 1988 he has directed the program and is currently a tenured full professor. From 2001-2002 he was Acting Chair of the NYU Undergraduate Film and Television Department. In 2006, his film The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, a 28-minute animated piece about Canemaker's relationship with his father, won the Academy Award for best animated short. In 2007 the same piece picked up an Emmy award for its graphic and artistic design.
Richard Owen Fleischer was an American film director whose career spanned more than four decades, beginning at the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood and lasting through the American New Wave.
Wendy Moira Angela Darling is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists of the 1904 play and 1911 novel Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie, as well as in most adaptations in other media. Her exact age is not specified in the original play or novel by Barrie, though it is implied that she is about Peter's age as she is "just Peter's size".
Shot-for-shot is a way to describe a visual work based on an existing work that is transferred almost completely identically from the original work without much interpretation.
Pinocchio is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi of Florence, Tuscany. Pinocchio was carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a Tuscan village. He is created as a wooden puppet, but he dreams of becoming a real boy. He is known for his long nose, which grows when he lies.
Victory Through Air Power is an American animated documentary propaganda film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by United Artists on July 17, 1943. It is based on the 1942 book Victory Through Air Power by Alexander P. de Seversky. De Seversky appeared in the film, an unusual departure from the Disney animated feature films of the time.
The Thief and the Cobbler is an animated fantasy film co-written and directed by Richard Williams, who intended it to be his masterpiece and a milestone in the animated medium. Originally devised in the 1960s, the film was in and out of production for nearly three decades due to independent funding and ambitiously complex animation. It was finally placed into full production in 1989 when Warner Bros. agreed to finance and distribute the film after his successful animation direction for Who Framed Roger Rabbit. When production went over budget and behind schedule, and Disney's similarly-themed Aladdin loomed as imminent competition, Williams was forced out and the film was heavily re-edited and cheaply finished by producer Fred Calvert as a mainstream Disney-style musical. It was eventually released by Allied Filmmakers in 1993 with the title The Princess and the Cobbler. Two years later, Miramax Films, which was owned by Disney at the time, released another re-edit titled Arabian Knight. Both versions performed poorly at the box office and received mixed reviews.
Alice, the main protagonist of Lewis Carroll's novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871), has been adapted to several media.
Roger Rabbit is a fictional animated anthropomorphic rabbit. The character first appeared in author Gary K. Wolf's 1981 novel, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? In the book, Roger is second banana in a popular comic strip, "Baby Herman". Roger hires private detective Eddie Valiant to investigate why his employers, the DeGreasy Brothers, have reneged on their promise to give Roger his own strip. When Roger is found murdered in his home, Valiant sets out to look for the killer, with the help of Roger's "doppel".
Soul is a 2020 American animated fantasy concert comedy-drama film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Pete Docter and co-directed by Kemp Powers, both of whom co-wrote it with Mike Jones, and produced by Dana Murray. The film stars the voices of Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade, Phylicia Rashad, Donnell Rawlings, Questlove, and Angela Bassett. It follows Joe Gardner (Foxx), a middle school teacher and aspiring pianist who falls into a coma following an accident and seeks to reunite his separated soul and body in time for his big break as a jazz musician.
