The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 208 Days to go: 210
Movie #169: The Little Mermaid
“Under the Sea” is a fabulous, iconic song, with clever lyrics, a catchy hook and an irresistible calypso beat. And yet I’d rank it fifth among all the songs in The Little Mermaid, my favorite of all the animated Disney films, much less just the princess ones. The song isn’t even the best of the, what I call, collaboration songs, in which the various nearby sea-life are providing backups and instrumentals to Sebastian’s (Samuel E. Wright) lead vocals, despite having a “hot crustacean band.” It says a lot for the high level of quality in this soundtrack, honestly.
The fourth best song in The Little Mermaid is “Les Poissons,” another Sebastian-adjacent ditty in which Chef Louie (Rene Auberjonois, who I will always associate with Benson) sadistically delights in the mutilation of various seafood in pursuit of a delicious meal. (Sebastian doesn’t actually perform any part of the song, but he’s present in the corresponding scene, reacting in horror at the atrocities he’s witness to, and becoming Louie’s white whale, an object of hot pursuit, as “Les Poissons” ends and “Can-Can” starts up.) The juxtaposition of Sebastian’s terror with Louie’s glee is so brilliantly done, and the song itself balances French and English perfectly in a way that, even if you don’t know the French words, makes it easy to discern them.
Next we have “Kiss the Girl,” the second “collaboration” song, and this time it’s really the backups, and not the lead, that makes the song great. The “sha-la-la-las” and the “yah yah yahs” mixed with the hollow shell drumbeat, the light but soulful bass and the airy wind instruments — intimated as being created by the breeze blowing through the reeds — give an organic and mystical vibe to the performance, fitting in with the idea of the very lagoon around them communicating with Eric (ultimate Greg Brady cosplayer Christopher Daniel Barnes) to fall in love with Ariel (Jodi Benson). It’s the kind of song that incites romance, the same way something by Barry White or Luther Vandross does, and the ambiance is completed by the animation of the scene, which is playful yet intimate. (Ariel’s come-hither expression near the end of the song is enough to get anyone’s heart beating faster. I honestly don’t know what Eric’s problem is.) The kisses-interruptus by way of Flotsam and Jetsam overturning the row boat is a disappointing shock, and yet still works to augment the tension and anticipation of the two lovers coming together eventually while frustratingly delaying it for the time being (a tough balance to achieve, I think). If it weren’t for two even more amazing songs in the film, this one would easily be my favorite.
The second-best song in The Little Mermaid is coincidentally also (probably) the second-best villain song throughout Disney’s oeuvre (behind “Gaston”): “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” by that nasty sea witch, Ursula (Pat Carroll). Ursula’s throaty, bombastic sales pitch is both rousing and intimidating, and the quick asides let even a small child know where Ursula’s loyalty lies. She’s manipulative and calculating and she knows how to press all the right buttons on a naive, hopeful girl like Ariel. And the fact that she’s also one of Disney’s all-time favorite villains (in addition to being one of the most feared), should tell you a lot about her winning persuasiveness. The animation here works wonders, too, and truth be told the animation of Ursula comprises some of my favorite shots in the film. Ursula’s a big witch — an octopus — very bulbous and curvy, with undulating tentacles and undulating hips. And the thing is, Ursula is drawn very realistically to a plus-sized form. Ironically, this animated figure is not at all cartoonish. She’s not drawn to be seen as disgusting. On the contrary, her performance plays up — and pulls off — a portrayal of her as a sexy, sort of Mae West-style, madam. She’s big, yes. There are dimples and puckers and rolls, but she works every last inch of her figure to her advantage, including a spectacular shimmy a split second after using some sort of seaweed as a cathedral veil. She is fearsome, and she is perfect. But enough about her, let’s talk about the best song in the film. “After all dear, what is idle prattle for?”
I was 14 — almost 15 — when The Little Mermaid came out in theaters, which means I was fully into 15 by the time we got it on video. I watched it hundreds of times. I still had my father on a pedestal back then (even though — or possibly because — he lived clear across the country and I never ever saw him) while my stepfather was my biggest nemesis. Together, they were two halves of the film’s King Triton (Kenneth Mars). The idealized version of my dad in my head was the loving, magnanimous father version of Triton, while my stepfather was the ranting, angry, frightening one. All I wanted in the world was to be free of it all, to be grown up, to have my own place, to do what I wanted. I wanted to travel, I wanted to explore, I wanted to live. If I had been a mermaid (and who wouldn’t want to be a mermaid?), “Part of Your World” could’ve been my anthem. I longed for a place to be accepted and understood where people wouldn’t “reprimand their daughters.” “Bright young women, sick of swimmin’, ready to stand.” “When’s it my turn?” In an alternate universe, these exact phrases were all written in my personal mermaid diary. I felt everything so much, so strongly. I longed for love, I longed for freedom and I longed for adventure. “Part of Your World” captures that completely, while still being about a mermaid who doesn’t know how feet work. It’s a masterfully crafted song about that age just before you’ve grown up when you can think of nothing else. It’s exactly the age when you think you know what love is and don’t heed the advice of those who care for you and make horrible, rash decisions based on nothing but a whirlwind of emotions. And on top of that, it’s simply beautiful. The catching breath Ariel takes near the end of the song is filled with so much sorrow, pain and desire — so much desperation she’s easy pickings for Ursula. Not only that, but the animation of Ariel’s hair is some of my favorite work in the entire film and in this sequence there’s a part where she’s twirling and her hair trails behind her, with a little strand going across her face as it totally would if it were real, and it stops my heart every time. It’s simply gorgeous. Her hair, in fact, is nearly perfect this entire song, flowing and swirling through the water around her in the most beautifully realistic ways. Honestly, I can’t get enough of it.
The Little Mermaid was, I believe, Disney’s last purely hand-drawn animated film, and I think it really stands out to me for that reason. It doesn’t have the smoothed-edges feel of digital. (Not only that, but it packs an emotional wallop. Ursula’s death scene is graphic and raw and terrifying. And fantastically drawn.) I think looking at it you can tell someone painstakingly and lovingly drew each one of those scenes over weeks and months and years. That kind of dedication to something is hard enough to pull off, but to have such a team pull off something so timeless, so iconic, so emotionally authentic strikes me as nothing short of magic.
What can I say? It’s my favorite.
Viable Option 