As a writer, I am influenced by movies and cinema.
Along with Tolkien, Steven Spielberg and Jim Henson are the main influences upon my work, and (along with my family and the 1980's in general), my life.
But there is another giant in the background.
One without whom we would not have Steven Spielberg or Jim Henson. Or George Lucas. Or Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek.
Walt Disney.
Walt Disney almost single-handedly invented and perfected three art forms.
Animation.
The theme park.
And animatronics, which he used in his theme park.
But Walt also did something else.
He began the artistic journey that led to Jim Henson, and Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Star Trek, James Cameron, and basically most of Hollywood since 1977 as we know it.
For every mainstream Hollywood filmmaker before 1960 made movies exactly the same way.
Except for Walt Disney.
Mainstream Hollywood had a formula.
Every Film Noir looks the same.
Every musical looks the same.
Every movie from old Hollywood was based on two things.
The serious parts copy Verdi's Aida, the inspiration for the old Hollywood epic.
And the less serious parts copy Charlie Chaplin.
And old Hollywood adapts this to the genre.
And does it very, very well.
But does it the same way. In every mainstream Hollywood movie.
There were experimental filmmakers.
They experimented with technical techniques.
But they used them not that differently from mainstream old Hollywood.
These experimental techniques were often used in ways that felt like Verdi's Aida (the Battleship Potemkin stairs scene)
Or Charlie Chaplin.
Walt was a different kind of experimenter.
Walt Disney did things differently.
Walt did not just experiment with technical techniques
And use them just like old Hollywood used their traditional techniques.
Walt was the first major filmmaker that did not simply copy Verdi's Aida on the serious stuff and Charlie Chaplin on the comic stuff.
Walt Disney was the first major filmmaker, at least among those who got any mainstream press, to do things differently from an emotional and narrative, rather than technical, point of view.
Over 20 years before anyone else did that I know of. Possibly even 30.
And this led the way to others, starting a generation later, to themselves do things differently.
People like Steven Spielberg
Jim Henson
George Lucas Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek
And Don Bluth in Walt's own invention, animation.
Creating the Hollywood that I grew up with.
The one that inspired me as a writer.
For aside for Tolkien and Andre Norton, I as a writer am mainly inspired by movies and not books, the movies that I grew up on.
(And a few TV shows- Star Trek and Jim Henson TV shows. Jim Henson is the all-time master.)
And Walt Disney did something else.
With his two greatest movies, Polyanna and Mary Poppins, he set the precedent that these movies could put forth a spiritual vision of depth and love, even as they entertained.
Inspiring Jim Henson and Steven Spielberg to do the same.
And that is where I got that aspect of my writing.
From E.T. and the original Muppet Movie, the two greatest movies ever made^, movies with spiritual visions driven by love and kindness that run so, so deep and feel so beautiful.
Just watch Kermit the Frog sing Rainbow Connection.
That came from the precedent that Walt had set with Pollyanna and Mary Poppins.
The great pioneering innovator in cinema as storyteller, not just for technique.
Walt Disney.
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson
^Followed by Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Follow That Bird (the Sesame Street movie from when Jim was still alive), the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Dark Crystal. All by Steven or Jim save for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Next would be Everything Everywhere All at Once. Pollyanna and Mary Poppins are high on the list as well, but most of all they set the precedent.
I don't know what set the precedent for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Maybe nothing. Maybe Journey to the West, the Ming Chinese novel. Maybe Everything Everywhere Is the precedent.