Why did Tolkien dislike Disney?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by jallanite

See http://www.brainpickings.org/index.p...-philip-glass/ for an account in which Igor Stravinksy strongly blames Disney for what Disney did to his Rite of Spring in Fantasia. Stravinsky called Disney’s transformation in that film an “unresisting imbecility.”

Again and again I have seen complaints of a work being untrue to the original. There are almost always those who support the original and those who support the adaptation and can’t understand what the fuss is about.

When artists believe they have sole claim to interpretation or meaning, their own artistic ego creates an ideological blinder.


This is a fascinating link. I like the discussion about the nature of creativity. I'm one of the ones who accepts that an artist can make the interpretation he or she sees fit, but that doesn't mean the audience has to have a similar perspective: the comparison of the two become simply another subject of artistic discussion. I also don't necessarily grant that the artist or author has sole authority over interpretation.

In the case of Jackson, I think the problem was exacerbated by his initial claims of how faithful he was to Tolkien. That set up expectations which the films undermined. It is therefore interesting that so far the posters I've seen for TH don't even mention Tolkien.

off topic, but Stravinksy's attitude that "the mass adds nothing to art" strikes me as being the very opposite of Tolkien's attitude towards general readers. Stravinsky is as much a snob as Lewis. His complaint about the "execrable" musical performance also reminds me of the literati's objections to Tolkien's work.

Whether Fantasia's version of Bald Mountain is consistent with Stravinsky's idea is grounds for discussion but that difference doesn't denigrate the creativity of Fantasia, how it inspired audiences. Much as I dislike the films, they have at least brought many, many people into contact with Middle-earth and at least some of those have gone on to appreciate the books. The same can be said of the Harry Potter books, that they hooked children on reading in a way that teachers and schools were unable to.