Todd Alcott - Favorite screenplays: Bambi

Todd Alcott - Favorite screenplays: Bambi: "Check this out: Bambi is 70 minutes long, has only one clearly-defined act break, and has a protagonist who is not only passive, but who wants nothing definable or concrete. It has no visible antagonist and absolutely, positively, not the slightest rumor of a plot. It breaks every rule regarding what a compelling cinematic narrative is supposed to be.

Who was the perpetrator of this heresy? What weird, artsy, pretentious, avant-garde smartass dared to make a movie with no plot and a passive protagonist? Was it Godard? Bunuel? Brakhage? No, it was Walt Disney, the man whose name is now synonymous with toothless, benign, formulaic 'family entertainment.' Walt Disney. Disney's two features previous to Bambi were the 2 1/2-hour salute to classical music, Fantasia, and the gorgeous 61-minute parable Dumbo. Don't let people tell you that Walt Disney was some kind of reactionary, conservative fuddy-duddy peddling colorful fantasy. At the top of his game, Walt Disney was the most exciting, most experimental, most daring moviemaker alive. Bambi is the peak of his art."