Summary
It’s the story of a cartoon mouse who became a symbol and a logo for a global empire. This documentary examines how M-I-C-K-E-Y (Why? Because we like him) came to be what he is today.
Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me? For 94 years, the answer to that question has remained the same for Disney. After all, they aren’t known as the House of Mouse for nothing. Yet over the course of almost a century, the Mouse has come to represent everything from the American Dream to the cheapening of it. Filmmaker Jeff Malmberg attempts to trace his complete history in this charming documentary.
Disney has always run with Walt’s line that “it all started with a mouse.” This isn’t exactly true, of course, with Walt Disney’s first works predating this by half a decade. Malmberg’s documentary recognises from the start that these stories have made the modern myth of Disney. Whether it is Walt’s apocryphal tale of creating Mickey on a train trip — or the more likely one of scrambling to come up with something after losing the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit — storytelling has been part of Mickey’s longevity.
MICKEY: THE STORY OF A MOUSE is both a dissection and continuation of this official story. Being a Disney production, it has a vested interest in perpetuating the myth. As such, the loose framework for the film is the creation of a new animated short called Mickey in a Minute, one that aims to include different versions of Mickey throughout history. Using the last three traditional hand-drawn animators still working on the Mouse, including the very enthusiastic Eric Goldberg, the short provides an excuse to go back into the extensive Disney archives.
In a way, the story of Mickey Mouse is also the story of animation. As a fellow librarian, these trips into the archives and Animation Research Library are the reason one turns up to these documentaries. We get to see early sketches and cels. We follow along as Mickey’s style changed over time, from a beacon in the dark days of the Depression to his evolution in style and tone. Donald and Goofy are introduced as parental pressures smoothed out Mickey’s rough edges. Fantasia (1940) gave him more expressive facial features. The 1950s transformed him into suburban mouse, complete with TV fan club. That was followed by decades of stagnation, as Disney tried to keep Walt’s values frozen in time. “It almost felt like they wanted to put the lid on Mickey,” comments animation legend Floyd Norman.
Even with the official corporate spin, one of the more progressive things about this piece is that it is also interested in interrogating some of the less glamourous years for the Mouse. In a montage of confronting blackface, especially from Mickey’s early days, several commentators acknowledge that it is “difficult to see Mickey as part of that conversation,” concluding that “he speaks to the racism in our society.” From his use in 1960s counter-culture, through Disco Mickey and Disney’s extremely litigious protection of copyright, the film also accepts that Mickey is now just as much a corporate symbol as he is a historic character.
While it would be interesting to see a third party dissect the history of the Mouse, it’s unlikely that anybody other than Disney would have the access (or the intellectual property rights) to provide us with such an extensive overview. Like the The Imagineering Story series, we are treated to some amazing archival footage, extensive interviews and a legitimately feel-good piece commentary from fans and creators. “At this point, Mickey is us,” concludes the film. “So, wherever we’re headed, he’s coming with us.”
2022 | USA | DIRECTOR: Jeff Malmberg | CINEMATOGRAPHER: Antonio Cisneros | EDITOR: Jake Hostetter and Aaron Wickenden | CAST: Eric Goldberg, Mark Henn, Randy Haycock, Floyd Norman, Carmenita Higginbotham, Rebecca Cline, Kevin Kern, Bob Iger | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney/Disney+, SXSW 2022 | RUNNING TIME: 93 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 11-20 March 2022 (SXSW)
