Cinderella
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The Historical Context. In 1948, the Charles Perrault fairytale, Cinderella, became the focus for a full-length animated feature by Walt Disney. Being a classic story of an underdog who succeeds with a dream fulfilled, the fairy-tale Cinderella was the ideal story to make into a feature film. It was a story with which individuals, including Walt Disney, could identify (Cinderella).
Although the Disney Studio previously had a huge financial success with Snow White in 1939, it now was millions of dollars in debt. Walt Disney needed to make a successful full-length feature animation, or else he would have had to sell the business. As John Culhane states, “it was a question of survival” (Cinderella).
Cinderella ended up being an enormous success for Walt Disney. Not only did the film become a huge hit, but the soundtrack sold 750 million copies, and the film was nominated for Best Song, and Best Score. When filming the feature, Disney took the music very seriously. He had Jerry Livingston, Al Hoffman, and Matt David, commercial songwriters from Tin Pan Alley, compose the feature songs. The score was composed by Oliver Wallace, Paul Smith, and orchestrated by Joseph Dubin. The three latter composers worked on many Disney films before, including Snow White, Dumbo, and Pinocchio. The score plays a key part in the film Cinderella, as it gives the audience a greater understanding of the action and story.
Syntax. When looking the score of Cinderella, one can relate musical syntax with that of the visual idioms. In many cases, the film Cinderella relies on musical syntax to identify antagonistic properties in people and objects. For example, in the opening scene in which a narrator is describing the life and times of Cinderella, one hears this primary melody from the song, “Cinderella” previously played in the credits: