Culture news This filmmaker won 4 Oscars for Best Director: he changed Hollywood cinema forever
While composer John Williams recently became the living artist most often nominated for the Oscars, another big name stood out considerably during the famous statuette ceremonies. And this man has made young and old people dream for decades…
A genius is born
We are in Burbank, California and the aisles of the Disney studios are filled with employees who, in a hurry, go to their offices. When Walt Disney returned from France at the age of nineteen after World War I, he probably had no idea that he was about to build an empire. Anyone with $500 in his pocket could have settled for the job promised to him in the jam factory co-founded by his father in Chicago. But the boy, a rather good designer, wanted to become someone and dreamed of a life as an artist. After a few months spent at an art school in Chicago, he decided to settle in Kansas City, the city of his childhood, and became an employee for an advertising agency. Thanks to his good salary, he spent a lot of time in cinemas and discovered the world of cartoons. Fascinated by this new artistic expression, he was lent a book on the basics of traditional animation and learned to create moving characters.
His first cartoons being successes, Walt Disney became a celebrity in Kansas City. But for him it is only a step. When he was twenty years old, he founded his first studio, Laugh-o-Gram Films, and hired a few collaborators and apprentices, including a prodigy called Ubbe Iwweks (later spelled Ub Iwerks). Noticed by producer Margaret Winkler, Disney obtained a contract for several cartoons while he was in Los Angeles with his brother Roy. That’s the trigger! The fine team founded Disney Brothers Studio and revisited the series “The Wonderful World of Alice” by focusing on the secondary characters. The producer loves it and asks for more. The rise of Disney, which continues to hire, is dazzling! In 1926, the company became Walt Disney Studio (this demonstrates the young man’s ambition) and gave birth to a rabbit to compete with Felix the cat: Oswald! Universal signs 26 episodes, but behind the scenes is not idyllic: Walt is authoritarian and the employees are under pressure, often working on weekends. This no longer happens…
The producer takes advantage of the opportunity to recover all the employees (except Ubbe Iwweks) as well as the character of Oswald. Totally destitute, Walt Disney decided to rely on his few supporters – including Ubbe Iwweks and a few others – and he imagined a certain Mortimer, a little mouse in the style of the characters of the time. His wife hates the name and suggests Mickey. No distributor was ready to sign the first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, but while the third film was being prepared, Walt understood that he needed something more: sound! After a perilous period of Roy trying to obtain funds, Walt managed to record a soundtrack and obtained a two-week operating contract at the Colony Theater on Broadway in New York. In 1928, it was in this room that Steamboat Willy, the first cartoon featuring Mickey, met with resounding success!
A legend called Walt
With this character who fascinated all of America in the 1930s, Walt Disney Studios became essential! While many talents joined the company and color appeared on the screens, the Silly Symphonies (which combined cartoons and classical music) caused a sensation. Walt Disney will then embark on a new adventure, and what an adventure: animated films! He then decided to imagine an animated adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the famous tale of the Brothers Grimm. Pharaonic (more than 200,000 drawings for a staff of more than 600 people), the project is delayed and the bet is so risky that it could destroy the studio. We are then talking about a film budgeted at 1.5 million dollars (around 15 million dollars today). Not only will this pay off, but it will make Disney a true animation legend. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a revolution and the standing ovations at the end of the screenings are multiplying throughout the country!
While the film has just celebrated its eighty-seventh anniversary and Mickey recently entered the public domain, Walt Disney remains the Oscar record holder to this day. The man, who wanted to make young and old alike dream, succeeded in his bet! The one whose father stole part of his childhood has succeeded in his improbable rise. He will have won 26 Oscars, including 4 honorary Oscars and no one has managed to surpass him. 53 years after his last nomination, Walt Disney remains absolutely untouchable and can boast of having obtained… 59 nominations. Forever a legend.