I just finished writing the introduction of
Walt's People -- Volume 32, which should be released in about 3 to 4 months, and I thought you might be interested in a preview. This one is deeply personal.
[A few
days ago, I had the pleasure of watching Huz, Don Hahn’s new documentary
about animator Ron Husband. As with all of Don’s documentaries, I was glued to
the screen.
The
sequence that moved me the most is one in which Ron—paraphrasing a line from
the movie Chariots of Fire—says, “When I draw, I feel God’s pleasure.” I
identified with this. While I do not draw, when I research or write about
Disney history, I feel God’s pleasure.
This is
ironic, of course, since, unlike Ron Husband, I am agnostic. And yet, when I
think about how I approach Disney history and the place it takes in my life,
the words that immediately come to mind are “religious mission.”
Some
recent crises—among them significant differences of opinion with the Hyperion Historical
Alliance Board about how the HHA should be led—made me decide to greatly reduce
my activities as part of the HHA for the foreseeable future. They also made me
reflect on what I have been trying to achieve, on why I have been trying to reach
those specific goals, and on how I have been approaching the challenge over the
past 35 years.
When,
back in 2007, I met Diane Disney Miller to pitch a concept which became the
Hyperion Historical Alliance, I had two dreams in mind: preserving digitally
all the Disney-related documents not already preserved by the Disney Archives,
and launching a series of books and magazines focused on little-known aspects of
Disney history that would become the definite publications about the subjects
they focused on. These had been my dreams since childhood.
I can
still picture in my mind this very vivid dream: Two or three whole bookshelves
filled with in-depth Disney history art books written by the most serious and
talented Disney historians: Books by J.B. Kaufman about the making of Make
Mine Music, Melody Time, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad,
and more; Elizabeth Spatz’s volume about Kay Kamen and Streeter Blair; Paula
Sigman-Lowery’s book about Robin Hood; Todd James Pierce’s and
Christopher Merritt’s series about Disneyland; Tom Morris’ series about Walt
Disney Imagineering; Joe Campana’s book about Walt Disney and the Space Program;
Michael Singer’s The Making of Walt Disney’s Treasure Island; Kevin Kidney,
Jody Daily and Aaron Willcott’s The Making of Walt Disney’s Swiss Family
Robinson; Jim Hollifield's volumes about some of Disney’s best live-action
projects; and my own books about Mickey Mouse in the 1930s—On Stage and On
Radio, Walt Disney and El Grupo in Mexico and Cuba (1942 - 1944),
co-written with Jim Hollifield and Ted Thomas, Walt Disney’s Adventures in
Music, History and Nature, Walt Disney, Roald Dahl and the Gremlins
(co-written with Fox Carney), and The Making of Darby O’Gill and the Little
People (co-written with Jim Hollifield), to name a few.
I
pictured all those books as being written by true experts who, for years, had accumulated
in-depth knowledge and writing skills. Experts who would leave no stone
unturned, be it in outside archives or within The Walt Disney Company. Experts
who would tell us about the elements that made it to the screen (or into the
parks), about the artists who took the projects from sketches to reality, and
about the roads not taken. True historians who would list their precise sources
of information to allow future historians to retrace their steps and build on
what they had discovered.
In
other words, a Disney history revolution which would further our understanding
of the most important cultural institution of the 20th and 21st century and
which would preserve our knowledge for generations to come.
Why is
this critically important?
·
Because
there has never been, in any organization, past and present, such an
astonishing concentration of great artists working together and inspiring each
other
·
Because
you cannot write a proper art history of the 20th and 21st
centuries without writing a multi-volume history of the Walt Disney Studios and
Walt Disney Imagineering
·
Because
the clock is ticking: the documents that are not preserved at the Walt Disney
Archives are being thrown in the dustbin; the accumulated knowledge of Disney
historians will be lost forever if those Disney historians—who are not getting
younger—do not urgently put it in writing
·
Because
losing that precious history is and will be a disaster for art historians, film
historians and anyone passionate about modern culture.
Which
takes us back to my life-long mission and how, very early on, I decided to
approach it.
I
realized, almost from the start, that this mission was so important to me that
I had to keep it “pure.” In other words, I wanted everyone around me (family,
friends, fellow Disney historians and members of The Walt Disney Company) to
realize that neither money nor ego were at play. The goal, the only goal, was
in-depth Disney history research and preservation.
This
meant that I could not expect any financial rewards to come out of this
endeavor. In fact, I should expect to subsidize most projects from my own
pocket with no hope of ever breaking even.
This also
meant that, given the choice between conducting research that would be released
under someone else’s name and not conducting research at all, I would always choose
the former if needed.
It is
not about fame, about ego, or about image-building. It is, first and foremost,
about preserving Disney history, whatever it takes… (Whatever it takes, that
is, with the exception of going against the wishes of The Walt Disney Company,
which has to be able to control what is said about its own history since its
brand is its most important commercial asset.)
And if
you take money and ego out of the way, the driver becomes the task at hand, the
unadulterated joy of researching and writing. It is as pure as it gets, and it
is at this point that I began to feel God’s pleasure.
Over
the past decade, I have felt God’s pleasure in a particularly intense way,
because I now know exactly where and how to look for new documents and in-depth
information about Disney history, and because I have finally acquired the
writing skills needed to produce books I am really happy with.
However,
there is a dark side to this story. Pure passion is bound to be misunderstood. Someone
undertaking a complex project that does not involve money or ego is suspicious.
One will be suspected of hiding one’s true motives. Or one will be deemed to be
an unrealistic dreamer, which, in the mind of many will be synonymous with madman.
In other words, you frighten them. You see the possibilities; they see the
obstacles, the unclimbable mountains.
And yet
passion can move mountains or help build a plane to fly over them. And passion
is often contagious and can inspire others.
Mountains
were moved to create the HHA and to launch the HHA Annual and the HHA
Monograph project. These endeavors were impossible dreams when they were first
conceived. Passion allied to creativity and to a network of like-minded
historians helped bring them to life. Without passion you would not hold the
thirty-second volume of Walt’s People in your hands. And it was John
Canemaker’s, Michael Barrier’s and Paul F. Anderson’s passion for Disney
history that inspired me and made me who I am.
What
gives me hope, despite recent setbacks and worries, what gives me hope at a
time when I see many of my dreams crumble and my soul being crushed, is the
fact that my own passion has inspired and still inspires others.
At no
point was this more apparent than when a new generation of animation historians,
led by Lucas Seastrom, Devon Baxter and Rosana Shushtar, contacted me to take
over a project that has been on my backburner for years, the companion series
to Walt’s People about Warner Bros.’s animation artists: Bugs’
Buddies.
I may
no longer be sure of what the road ahead looks like, but I have a feeling this
new generation will soon show me the way.]
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