La dea della primavera

'The Goddess of Spring (1934)' is a beautiful "Silly Symphony" from Walt Disney and director Wilfred Jackson, filmed in glorious Technicolor of which full advantage is taken. The film was produced as a trial-run for the the feature-length 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937),' largely to experiment with the animation of humans. The progress made in the subsequent three years is startlingly apparent – the heroine in this film has a pretty and graceful face, but there's very little grace in her movements. The Goddess of Spring prances around her vibrant above-ground kingdom, limbs flailing somewhat awkwardly, her gait completely unrealistic, though perhaps it was the animators' intention to have her slightly floating above the ground, as though her loveliness affords her the weightless waltz of an angel. Suddenly, the sky grows dark and the ground erupts into fire, signalling the arrival of the wicked Hades, who kidnaps the beautiful Goddess to be queen of his underground kingdom. With the fair maiden's departure, the lands are plunged into a cold, bitter winter.

This Silly Symphony was loosely based upon the Ancient Greek mythology of Persephone and Hades, and so the tone of cartoon is chiefly that of an epic opera – a bit like 'What's Opera, Doc? (1957),' if you need an easy comparison. The warm, nostalgic singing voice at the film's beginning gives way to the deep, operatic snarl of Hades as he comes to confiscate his future queen. Interestingly, when the pair arrive in the fire-wreathed corridors of Hell, the general atmosphere is that of a jazz club, with disconcertingly upbeat music, and dancing audiences who chant "Hidey Hades." This interpretation of down-below is very different from Ub Iwerks' version five years earlier in 'Hell's Bells (1929),' which was darker and more archaic. The most touching contrast of all is that between the above-ground kingdom's spring and winter, as the bright sunlight swiftly disappears to unleash a miserable snap of cold and bitter winds; the dwarf inhabitants shiver in the snow, and even Bambi makes a brief appearance

Iprobably only saw this cartoon ONCE and I was probably under FIVE years old. Talk about making an impression, that would have been forty something years ago and I still remember a lot of it - Persephone picking flowers, Hades coming our oft ground on something like a spinning turn table, little devils dancing around singing "Hidey Hades" (maybe actually Mighty Hades?) , Persephony in tears pointing upwards, and Hades retuning her to the upper world on that turntable thing. It was a segment at the end of the Mickey Mouse Club TV show, they would open a drawer and pull out the title of that day's cartoon. I saw it once and though I wanted to see it again, I never did.

Years later I read Edith Hamilton's Mythology - one of my all time favorite books - and there was the story of Hades and Persephone!

I sure wish this would come out on DVD or something.

Disney would make a fortune with a vintage Disney Channel - run to old Mickey Mouse Series, the Silly Symphony cartoons, those fantastic serials like Spin and Marty, Boys of the Western Sea. I have to confess I have not seen the new cable but I would bet it is junk.

And Anettw Funichello can out Mousketeer Brittany Spears any day!!!!

There may be no better example of emergence of cinematic genius than to watch this and then see "Snow White."

This is a study in human modelling, in the context of dwarfs and nature. Its after the style of the Betty Boop work that controlled expectations on the animated screen with a little bit more grace. But it still features thin figures with cartoon movements rather than human ones. It was done as a test for Snow White.

Almost nothing here was used in that later project and its a good thing. There is nothing attractive about it at all.

But I can still see a serious attempt at finding that vocabulary of movements that seems human but isn't, looks natural and warm but is abstract and seems to capture a version of womanhood without referencing sex. Its only hinted here and perfected in a way later. I'm not at all sure if we can know whether in Snow White Walt and company touched something we knew, or whether he created something that we grew into with our ideals and imagination. I believe it is the latter, which makes this experiment more interesting.

Suppose he would have stuck with what he had here. Would we have grown around it and adapted a wholly different vision of innocent perfection?

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

Persephone, THE GODDESS OF SPRING, is kidnapped by Hades, the devilish god of the Underworld, leaving the earth in perpetual winter. Will the warmth & joy of Spring ever return?

A vivid, and somewhat bizarre, little film which retells the story from Greek Mythology, while incorporating both operatic & jazz traditions. The animators seem to have confused the character of Hades with that of the Biblical Satan. Years later, Walt would draw comparison between Persephone & Snow White, to illustrate how far his animators evolved in just three short years.

The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most fascinating of all animated series. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.

PiThis is obviously the story of Hades and Persephone. As the beauty of summer gives way to winter, she is forced to live underground in a sort of hell. There's more to the story, but suffice it to say that this was an explanation for the change of seasons. Spring is a beautiful young woman and Hades is the stereotypical devil (not really the Greek entity). His operatic voice is stunning and his pleasing must be fore eternity. She is always going tor return.