American Experience: Walt Disney

Walter Elias Disney (1901-1966) became an American icon -- later an International one -- for his ability to draw, conceptualize and then capitalize on animation and live action films, as well as his risky thinking concerning television and theme parks.

Producer/Director Sarah Colt, producers ARTE for PBS' American Experience, editors John Neuburger and Mark Dugas, writer Mark Zwonitzer, and narrator Oliver Platt, have given us an extraordinary four-hour biography, "American Experience: Walt Disney" It's well researched, warts-and-all, about a visionary who was also tone-deaf to some of the people around him.

Using on-screen interviews with historians and folk connected to The Man, they explore the amazing foresight he and brother Roy had in making films people would want to see generation after generation, making multi-millionaires out of the company.

It's an engrossing and informative bio-doc, not just about WED and his empire, but also about a need he filled in people from around the globe to watch simple stories well-told (mind you, they skip the dreadful 1970s when the output was both stagnant and inferior, overall). Watching it can't help but give us all the reclaimed joy at seeing bits of "Snow White," "Fantasia," "Pinocchio," "Bambi," "Mary Poppins," et.al.

Disney's life is a grand study in �ber-vision on product and short-sightedness on personnel. The section on the 1940 writers' and animators' strike, and WED's negative reaction to Congress is quite eye-opening. But no genius is without perceived faults, Disney as well, so we take the ying with the yang and get further into this man's astonishing life. Very entertaining, indeed.

"American Experience: Walt Disney"
DVD
$19.99
http://www.shoppbs.org/