|
The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney (Hardcover)
by Michael Barrier
|
Product ID: 9460
Click for larger image
| | | Product Information411 pages
Walt Disney (1901-1966) was one of the most significant creative forces of the twentieth century, a man who made a lasting impact on the art of the animated film, the history of American business, and the evolution of twentieth-century American culture. He was both a creative visionary and a dynamic entrepreneur, roles whose demands he often could not reconcile.
In his compelling new biography, noted animation
historian Michael Barrier avoids the well-traveled paths of previous
biographers, who have tended to portray a blemish-free Disney or to indulge in
lurid speculation. Instead, he takes the full measure of the man in his many
aspects. A consummate storyteller, Barrier describes how Disney transformed
himself from Midwestern farm boy to scrambling young businessman to pioneering
artist and, finally, to entrepreneur on a grand scale. Barrier describes in
absorbing detail how Disney synchronized sound with animation in Steamboat
Willie; created in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs sympathetic cartoon
characters whose appeal rivaled that of the best live-action performers; grasped
television's true potential as an unparalleled promotional device; and--not
least--parlayed a backyard railroad into the Disneyland juggernaut.
Based on decades of painstaking research in the Disney studio's archives and
dozens of public and private archives in the United States and Europe, The
Animated Man offers freshly documented and illuminating accounts of Disney's
childhood and young adulthood in rural Missouri and Kansas City. It sheds new
light on such crucial episodes in Disney's life as the devastating 1941 strike
at his studio, when his ambitions as artist and entrepreneur first came into
serious conflict.
Beginning in 1969, two and a half years after Disney's death, Barrier recorded
long interviews with more than 150 people who worked alongside Disney, some as
early as 1922. Now almost all deceased, only a few were ever interviewed for
other books. Barrier juxtaposes Disney's own recollections against the memories
of those other players to great effect. What emerges is a portrait of Walt
Disney as a flawed but fascinating artist, one whose imaginative leaps allowed
him to vault ahead of the competition and produce work that even today commands
the attention of audiences worldwide. |
Related Categories & KeywordsCategories: Books on Disney History
Keywords: Walt Disney |
You may also be interested in these items: |
