The Little Mermaid (1989)

The Little Mermaid, Disney’s 28^th animated feature, brings us into the second half of the Disney animated canon (and we’re only eighteen months behind schedule!), and marks the start of the much-discussed and much-loved Disney Renaissance. The Little Mermaid was an instant commercial and critical hit, connecting with audiences on a deeper level than any Disney film since Walt’s death. Mermaid is probably the most influential Disney film after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, entirely reshaping the Disney formula in its image and validating the messy, uncertain output of the previous several years as necessary progress leading to a well-earned reward. The film has the status of a game changing production that defined the next decade of Disney films, kicking off an unprecedented run of success. However, the specific nature of the film, at once a throwback and a breakthrough, is often simplified in the wake of its far-reaching legacy, as The Little Mermaid stands apart from its descendants in many key ways.

With the benefit of hindsight, it perhaps seems exceedingly obvious that what Disney needed to rebound was another princess musical, probably the two nouns most associated with Disney animations. But at the time Disney had only three such films under its belt, and the last (Sleeping Beauty) was an expensive failure released over 25 years before The Little Mermaid was put into production. The dominant formula of the day was animal comedies, and the directive from Eisner and Katzenberg was modern, hip and cool. A pitch meeting in anticipation of the ambitious one-film-a-year plan produced the following ideas, among many: a modern-day Oliver Twist with cats and dogs (Oliver & Company, the big hit of the meeting, rushed straight into production); an edgy retelling of Little Red Riding Hood (not produced): Hansel and Gretel with a “Valley Girl” perspective (also not produced, and hopefully never produced); and Treasure Island in space (produced almost twenty years later). Clearly a return to the romantic fairy tale musical was not seen as the way forward. However, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid was pitched by Ron Clements and John Musker (also contributing and later directing the Treasure Island idea). While initially rejected, Katzenberg soon resurrected the project to be put into development for release after Oliver & Company. I don’t know why Katzenberg approved such an off-strategy film, especially given that he’s on record at the time as thinking it had less commercial appeal than Oliver & Company, but it only goes to show how the Disney Renaissance was as much a lucky break as anything else.

Of course, the luckiest break that came about in The Little Mermaid’s production was the chance involvement of lyricist Howard Ashman, who contributed lyrics to the opening song of Oliver & Company and somehow got a hold of the story treatment for The Little Mermaid. Initially he offered the simple advice that Sebastian, the crab, ought to be Jamaican (instead of British), so as to allow the film to incorporate calypso-style music. This advice became cause for rebuilding the entire film in a Broadway structure, with the plot structured around character-driven songs all contributed by Ashman and his songwriting partner Alan Menken. Ashman ended up as a producer of the film, and was probably more responsible than any other individual for shaping the tone, structure, and style of both this film and the run of hugely popular and successful Disney films that would come out in its wake.

The above described view of The Little Mermaid as reviving old-fashioned Disney fairy tale movies with contemporary Broadway musical storytelling, creating a formula that was then repeated ad nauseam for years to come, is the typical summary of the film and its legacy (and a correct one, more or less). However, there are less-commented on elements of its construction that weren’t as thoroughly copied in later Disney films, and while I’ll talk more about them in later reviews, suffice it to say that I think those films are poorer for the changes.

The most obvious difference is in the particular kind of Broadway musical the film builds off. The most popular Broadway productions of the 1980s were grand, self-important productions with dark, serious plots and themes. Shows like Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, and of course Into the Woods (which attacked all of the Disney formulas that The Little Mermaid would proudly revel in) were dominant. Ashman and Menken were best known at the time for their off-Broadway smash Little Shop of Horrors, which had a campy, silly, playful sensibility that they brought to their work on the Disney productions they were involved with. The Little Mermaid, and the particular musical sensibility it inhabits, reflects a reaction against dominant Broadway trends at the time, opting for catchy and simple over swaggering and bombastic, something that wouldn’t hold for later Disney productions.

The other part of The Little Mermaid that was abandoned even quicker as Disney progressed was the animal comedy component. The Little Mermaid is rightly seen as the start of a new era of princess movies, but it still makes great use of Disney’s most famous formula at that point: an intelligent animal society that exists alongside an unaware human populace (this is the basis for many great Disney films, stretching all the way back to Dumbo and Bambi). The Little Mermaid is ingenious in its welding of these formulas. Disney’s animal comedies are often too feathery and meandering to have impact, and its fairy tales often too stale and predictable to be distinctive. Together, the two make for a movie with both spontaneity and depth, comedy and pathos. The Little Mermaid generates a huge amount of imagery, characters, and plot specifics out of its underwater environment (no Disney picture since has gotten as much out of its setting, and maybe none before). Few Renaissance-era pictures take full advantage of animations utility at depicting exotic locations and fewer still take advantage of being able to design and depict a wide range of animals and creatures. The closest is Beauty and the Beast with its fun cast of household objects, but there’s also Tarzan, which mostly focuses on the humans, and The Lion King, which jettisons the humans entirely (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these are three of the four highest grossing Disney films of the era, or that the vast majority of Pixar films build from this idea). The rest of the Renaissance-era films focus far more strongly on human characters and worlds, losing much of the creativity and specificity that works so well for The Little Mermaid (this might be blamed on the next Disney movie, a more traditional and deeply unsuccessful animal comedy) Ultimately, The Little Mermaid was a new take on Disney’s animal movies, something that was largely forgotten as the fairy tale elements were repeated for years afterwards.

As well as being more complex structurally than later Renaissance films, The Little Mermaid is also something of a hodgepodge of different technical elements in the animation as well. The film continues the meshing of hand-drawn animation with CGI elements, with far fewer visible seams than previous efforts (this is clear from the opening shot of Eric’s ship, which blends perfectly with the hand-drawn ocean). Mermaid is also the last Disney to make heavy use of xerography, as well as the multiplane camera, and also features the debut of the innovative CAPS technology in its final minutes (this system would be used to composite whole films starting with Disney’s next production, and will be discussed further in that review). The underwater setting also required the most extensive special effects work since Fantasia, and over one million bubbles were individually hand-drawn for the film (this exhausting task was outsourced to a facility in China). For the most part all these different techniques are integrated brilliantly, though there are a few discernible flaws. An occasionally clunky movement or drab background pops up every so often, the kind of imperfection that would be almost entirely buffed out of the sleeker, generally more lavish Disney films to come.

However, criticising the film for having a few raggedy edges seems largely pointless, given that it’s about the only flaw in this gem (perhaps the second half is plottier and a little less memorable than the first, but that’s true of many Disney films and the Broadway structure in general). This is one of the more perfect films in the canon, breezily tackling every challenge the film throws its way. The Little Mermaid’s depiction of aquatic life is charming and accomplished, the unencumbered movement allowed by the ocean lets the animator’s stage even the simplest scenes in a variety of memorable ways, with a delightful range of animals involved throughout. The effects animation is superlative, depicting both the ferocity of the ocean (storms, whirlpools, and waves) and smaller, important details (the ever-present bubbles accentuating movement). The use of lighting is perhaps the film’s secret weapon, from the impeccably sculpted ripples of light that decorate “Part of Your World”, to the bold splashes of colour that make Ariel’s transformation and King Triton’s destruction of the grotto such affecting, visceral sequences.

Of course, character animation is the area in which a cartoon truly sinks or swims, and The Little Mermaid certainly delivers on this front. Ariel is brought to life with a precision and grace not seen since before the xerography era. Glen Keane, at the time best known for hulking villainous types, redefined himself as Disney’s go to guy for princess characters with his work on Ariel, proving himself astonishingly adept at depicting her wide-ranging journey. His Ariel is incredibly expressive, regardless of whether she’s swimming, singing, or deprived of her voice entirely, and every one of the many emotions she has to project is clear and impactful. Ariel is simply the most rounded princess, in both personality and animation, ever depicted in a Disney animated film.

She is of course ably helped by a great supporting cast, as The Little Mermaid draws on both the source material and the boundless possibilities of the ocean to fill out its roster of sidekicks, and one of the great achievements of The Little Mermaid is how it gives each character a specific relationship with Ariel that organically helps to drive the film. This isn’t the typical lineup of singing, cleaning animals and distant, barely-present parental figures; you would have to go back to Bambi to find a more compelling cast (give or take The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh). Beyond Ariel there is of course her father King Triton, his court composer Sebastian, Ariel’s friends Flounder and Scuttle (who along with Sebastian get many amusing moments), love interest Prince Eric (who gets more to do than previous princes, but is still rather bland all told), and of course the villainess Ursula, one of the great antagonists in Disney history. Ursula is an electrifying figure, fleshy and excessive, menacing but a lot of fun. Most of the film’s most striking non-musical moments involve her (one that particularly sticks out is her violently bursting from her human body back into her octopus form, and clambering across the deck with astonishing speed to grab the helpless Ariel), and Pat Carroll gives the film’s best voice performance to cement her place as a top-shelf Disney villain.

Having tremendous animation and an excellent group of characters would be enough to make The Little Mermaid one of the great Disney films, but the movie gilds the lily by having easily the strongest set of songs, top to bottom, of any Disney picture. Howard Ashman was an incredibly gifted lyricist, and just as importantly he understood animation and how to serve it with his songs. His songs are where the characters are most keenly developed, and anchor most of the important motivations and story beats of the film. Equally the lyrics of each song are full of tremendously specific wordplay, a series of physical references that direct the action and give the animators plenty of specific images to build off. This is most obvious with the list of musical fish in “Under the Sea”, but remains throughout each number.

Besides being strongly integrated into the film on a micro and macro level, the songs are simply great on their own, full of memorable lines and indelible rhymes, as well as complex and beautiful melodies and counter-melodies (I’ve perhaps downplayed Alan Menken’s contribution to the songs too much; his work is wonderful and his Oscar-winning score is, like the songs, the finest in any Disney film). “Part of Your World”, “Under the Sea”, and “Kiss the Girl” are three of the best songs in Disney history, and the others are similarly great, with “Poor Unfortunate Souls” providing a strong showcase for Ursula while doing a lot of narrative busywork, and “Les Poissons” is an unexpected bit of comic spontaneity rarely seen in other Disney films. The score is equally listenable and inventive, even busting out an old-fashioned Disney chorus for the final moments of the film. This soundtrack is a tremendous achievement, encapsulating the full emotional range of the movie in a series of light and instantly catchy tunes, each providing a springboard for storytelling, great voice performances, and creative animation, and redefining what an animated movie could be.

The Little Mermaid is popularly remembered as one of Disney’s greatest films, a huge hit with audiences and critics, and the start of one of the definitive periods in Disney animation. I would not disagree with that summation of its legacy, but I think it’s an even more unique object than given credit for. The Little Mermaid belongs both to the Renaissance it kickstarted, and to the uncertain rebuilding phase that began with The Rescuers, meshing and transcending both eras to become perhaps the best film of either age. The Little Mermaid stands as the most defining Disney film since Snow White, another classic that took a lot of uncertain hard work and a significant amount of luck, and they both stand as towering achievements that Disney has never quite equalled.

Next week: The Rescuers Down Under