Artist 18/20: Don Bluth

Ok so I lied! Actually I just thought of another artist who did affect me greatly as a child and is another person i hold greatly responsible for scarring my childhood...and he just happens to be male. I don't think I've done a blog about an animator yet. You think I would have done Disney but I see that name very much like Jeff Koons. Most of the work comes from hundreds, THOUSANDS of people who work for him yet somehow it's his named that gets most of the credit. Not that I'm not an avid Disney fan but I do slightly resent that so many of artists like Mark Henn, Glen Keene, Eric Larson and the 9 old Men, Eyvind Earle, and Mary Blair all go relatively unheard of. But speaking of Disney, this particular animator once worked for the Disney Corporation as well until the late '70's when he left to start is own Studio. I speak of course of Don Bluth.

During his time with the Disney Corporation, Don Bluth had been an assistant director on Sleeping Beauty and The Sword in the Stone (two of my favorite Disney films). As an animator he worked on films like Winnie the Pooh and Robin Hood. Disney was suffering financially during the 70's and this can be seen in the animation style of the films from this era which are very sketchy, looking like painted concept sketches. This was largely because the company couldn't afford cleanup artists so instead they were literally xeroxing their sketchwork onto the clear film which then got painted. So Don Bluth left and during the next decade would make 4 of my most beloved animated films.

His first full-length film was The Secret of NIMH. This is among one of the most dark widely-known animated films that is hardly aimed at just adults. With blatant elements of death and torture it served as a cautionary tale to the scientific testing of animals and illustrated the less than fair balance of life animals must share with humans. Another film he made with the production help of Steven Spielberg is An American Tale which paralleled the hardships of turn-of-the-century jewish immigrants and the relationships between mice and cats. The subject matter is incredibly mature and even I didn't understand the cultural and historical references until I was in my late teens. Because of this, the films has garnered mixed reviews. I for one appreciated the fact that it treated it's audience like adults and gave us the benefit of the doubt that we could handle it's dark material. His third film which is my personal favorite animated film was The Land Before Time. Once again this is a film that centers around the nondiscriminatory spirit of youth and the benefits of working together. I didn't realize this was an allegorical film about racial tolerance until several years ago.

Don Bluth has long since gone down hill with realesing Disney formula knock-offs like Thumbelina and Anastasia. Then he began dumbing his stories down to appeal to a much younger audience with films like A Troll in Central Park and The Pepple and the Penguin. What happened Don Bluth. You once used to respect your viewers and was more about focusing our attention by having potent social commentaries atop an enigmatic almost abstract background. Another thing that I somewhat appreciate about Don Bluth, while at the same time disliking it, is the fact that he had an active hand in the design and animation of his films' characters. I like that because he can claims some of the credit. HOWEVER....MANY of his characters seem to have obnoxiously similar hair styles Well there you have it. Don Bluth.