Good Scene / Bad Scene

Chosen By Sylvain Chomet, The Director Of 'BELLEVILLE Rendez-Vous'

GOOD: 'The Jungle Book' (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1967)

It's the scene when Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear are discussing Mowgli the man cub. They each have different ideas about how to bring up Mowgli. Bagheera would like to be quite classical and disciplined with the boy where as Baloo wants to be more fun. They are obviously jealous of each other's relationship with Mowgli. The monkeys have kidnapped Mowgli and they are annoyed about that, too. I like how we get to see two very different characters in a very long scene - about five minutes - without any action. All that's happening is the characters walking and talking in the same background. Back then, they really believed that animated characters should be acted well. It's not just about jokes every five seconds, the characters have real personalities. I see something in this scene that I would never see in a Disney film again.

BAD: 'Hercules' (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1997)

This is a similar scene to the one in The Jungle Book. Hercules and Meg are talking about their love, but the scene doesn't work because it's led by fast-speed gags. It says to me that the film-makers don't trust the characters, and they have to put a lot of blah, blah, blah on top of it to make it work. In movies like The Jungle Book the music was used when the characters would take a break in the story, and it was beautiful music that you could listen to at home. Disney were happy to trust an old story but didn't trust their animators.