The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996 film)
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame (also known as The Bells of Notre Dame in some countries) is the thirty-fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released to theaters on June 21, 1996, and loosely based on Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. While the basic structure remains, the film differs greatly from its source material. The plot is centered on the gypsy girl Esmeralda; Claude Frollo, powerful and ruthless judge, who lusts after her; Quasimodo, the protagonist and kind-hearted but deformed bellringer of Notre Dame, who adores her; and Phoebus, the chivalrous if irreverent military captain, who holds affections for her.
The film was produced by Don Hahn, and directed by Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale. The songs for the musical film were composed by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz and starring the voices of Tom Hulce, Demi Moore, Tony Jay, Kevin Kline, Paul Kandel, Jason Alexander, Charles Kimbrough, Mary Wickes and David Ogden Stiers.
Plot
The movie starts with a gypsy called Clopin telling a group of children about Notre Dame, its bells, and its bellringer. He then narrates a scene with several gypsies - including a mother and her baby - attempting to claim sanctuary in the cathedral. Judge Claude Frollo arrives, and moved by his loathing of gypsies, chases the mother, thinking the baby is a bundle of stolen goods. While wrenching away the bundle, he knocks the woman onto the steps of Notre Dame cathedral, where she dies instantly. Frollo realizes that the bundle is a child, and discovers it is deformed. As he goes to drop it down a nearby well, the Archdeacon of the cathedral stops him. Chastising him for the blood spilt on the steps of Notre Dame, he sentences Frollo with the raising of the child. Frollo agrees, however hesitantly, and proclaims that the child be raised in the cathedral and live in the belltower, where no one can see him. He christens the child Quasimodo, meaning half-formed.Twenty years later, Quasimodo realises he can't just stay inside. He plans to go out, but then changes his mind. Meanwhile, Phoebus, captain of the guard, comes back to Paris and meets the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda. He gives her some coins. Later, at the Festival of Fools, Quasimodo, who has sneaked out of Notre Dame, is chosen as the King of Topsy Turvy Day for having the ugliest face in Paris. He is tortured by the crowd, and Esmeralda saves him.
Soon after, Quasimodo goes back inside the cathedral. Esmeralda does too, and then Phoebus enters. She argues with him (to the point of brandishing a candlestick), but he is taken with her. Having no choice but to allow her sanctuary within the Notre Dame, he leaves. Frollo sneaks up behind her and grabs her arm, saying she outwitted him but he's a patient man. He then sniffs her hair; she asks what he's doing, and while caressing her neck he says, "I was just imagining a rope around that beautiful neck". He soon leaves and she is trapped.
Very soon afterwards, Esmeralda happens upon Quasimodo's area in the belltower. Though timid and unsure, he introduces her to the bells and to his odd menagerie of relics from the street below - her world. Intrigued by his intellect and personality, she offers to read his palm. With a sincere look she tells him that despite what Frollo may have told him, he has not a single 'monster line'. Touched and beginning to fall in love with his newfound friend, he uses his skills to scale the towers and buttresses, thus freeing her. In her gratitude she offers him a woven necklace and the final words 'You hold the city in your hand'.
Frollo, upon finding out that the gypsy has escaped, is outraged. He vows to that, if he must, he will burn down all of Paris in pursuit of where she hides. While fulfilling this, he commands Phoebus to burn down the home of a miller and his family. Phoebus defies him and flees the scene. As this occurs, he is shot with an arrow. Esmeralda rescues him as well - dropping him off at Notre Dame with Quasimodo, whom she trusts.
Quasimodo agrees to keep their secret, but is heartbroken at the affection they display for one another.
Learning of Frollo's plot, Phoebus and Quasimodo set off for the Court of Miracles to warn the gypsies. Quasimodo discovers, much to his surprise, that the woven band given to him by Esmeralda is a map of the city - indicating the exact location of the famed gypsy hideaway known as the Court of Miracles. As they arrive, however, they are instead thought to be minions of Frollo. Esmeralda arrives in time to stop them from being hanged by the gypsies - but at this point, Frollo also arrives with the guard in tow.
Frollo, after capturing the gypsies, is again outraged that Esmeralda refuses to submit to him. In retaliation, he prepares to burn her in a public square on charges of witchcraft. However, Quasimodo breaks free of where Frollo has chained him in the belltower and saves her.
Quasimodo then sets the gypsies free with Phoebus's help and defeats Frollo's soldiers. The evil judge breaks down the door, and prepares to end this war. Back up in the tower, Esmeralda doesn't move, and Quasimodo thinks she has died. Frollo then approaches with a dagger in his hand, and prepares to kill the bellringer, but Quasimodo has finally found courage, and angrily informs his enemy that the only thing dark and cruel about the world is people like Frollo. Esmeralda gains consiousness and they escape to the outside. The battle between Quasimodo and Frollo is fierce, and Frollo hints to Quasimodo that he killed his mother. Just as the evil villain prepares to murder Esmeralda and Quasimodo, the pillar under him breaks, and he is left clinging on a gargoyle. Its eyes and mouth glow yellow, and Frollo falls from the cathedral to his death in the molten magma below. Phoebus then saves Quasimodo, and the friends embrace. The movies concludes with Quasimodo a hero and Esmeralda and Phoebus happily cheering him on. A sequel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame II was released in 2002.
Overview
Hunchback is considerably more adult-oriented than the usual Disney fare and touches on themes of sin, religion, and hate. In addition, some disturbing images appear throughout the movie, such as one scene in which the sounds of a prisoner being whipped are heard in the background. As the company has a reputation as a makers of children's animation, this resulted in criticism. On the other hand, others praised the film for the very same reasons it was criticized, and the film was one of the last products of Disney's 1990s renaissance in the production of animated features, which spawned The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King and Pocahontas. The film was still successful, opening at #2 and taking just over $100 million in domestic income and $325 million worldwide.Critiques
The film has been acclaimed for its visual and artistic merits, and its technical advances in the combination of hand-drawn and computerised animation. Notable details include the use of computer-generated imagery to create otherwise infeasibly large crowds, and the use of actual Christian latin texts and music in the background.It has also been criticized, along with several other film adaptions of Hugo's novel, for oversimplifying, if not eliminating several of the thematic elements of the original book. The character of Gringoire is absent entirely, and Quasimodo's sidekick trio of gargoyles - Victor, Hugo and Laverne - would look rather out of place in the book, as would the eventual ending. As it is a production of Disney and geared primarily toward children and families, however, some of the alterations are far from irrational.
Both sides of the political spectrum had issues with the movie. Right wing conservatives wanted the song "Hellfire" removed, as Esmeralda looked "overtly seductive" and didn't like Frollo's faith as a character flaw, or hamartia for that matter. Liberals on the other hand objected to the term "Hunchback" and wished for a renaming of the title. Disney ignored both of these complaints.
One particularly notable criticism of the movie is that it handles the theme of religion very differently (and much less controversially) from the novel. The most striking illustration of this is that although the movie omits a number of characters from the novel (such as Gringoire and Paquette), it also adds a character in the person of the benevolent but ineffectual archdeacon of Notre Dame; Frollo was the archdeacon in the novel. Still, part of Frollo's hatred for the gypsies stems from his religious beliefs.
Trivia
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame received one Oscar nomination for Best Original Score by Alan Menken.
- This was Mary Wickes' last film. She died of cancer before she finished all her lines (Jane Withers provided the remaining dialogue).
- Mary Kay Bergman, who provided the voice for Quasimodo's mother, committed suicide in 1999.
- The names of the three of the gargoyles are Victor, Hugo, and LaVerne, after Victor Hugo, author of the original novel, and one of the three Andrews Sisters, LaVerne.
- Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Carpet from Aladdin, and Pumbaa from The Lion King can all be seen in one of the scenes.
- In Japan, the title of this movie was changed to The Bells of Notre Dame (ノートルダムの鐘) because the word "hunchback" (せむし男, semushi-otoko) is seen as discriminating against the physically disabled, and it is listed on the "taboo words for broadcasting" for Japanese television.
- For its VHS release in Australia, approximately two minutes of the film were edited out to maintain a G rating. The scenes removed were portions of Frollo's interaction with Esmeralda in the cathedral and several verses of the song Hellfire. The DVD release of the film included these scenes.
- Sakis Rouvas dubbed the voice of Quasimodo in the Greek language version of the film.
- "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" may be a world in Kingdom Hearts 3.
Adaptations
This was adapted into a darker, more gothic musical production, re-written and directed by James Lapine and produced by the Disney theatrical branch, in Berlin, Germany. Considered to be a great boost for tourists in Germany, the musical Der Glöckner von Notre Dame (translated in English as The Bellringer of Notre Dame) was very successful and played from 1999 to 2002, before closing. A cast recording was also recorded in German. More recently, Bellringer has been scheduled for a live action TV film on ABC's The Wonderful World of Disney, as well as a possible American theatrical production, like Disney's other successful musical adaptations of their films now playing on Broadway.Credits
Voice cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Tom Hulce | Quasimodo |
| Demi Moore | Esmeralda |
| Tony Jay | Judge Claude Frollo |
| Kevin Kline | Captain Phoebus |
| Paul Kandel | Clopin |
| Jason Alexander | Hugo |
| Charles Kimbrough | Victor |
| Mary Wickes | Laverne |
| David Ogden Stiers | The Archdeacon |
| Mary Kay Bergman | Quasimodo's Mother |
Singing voices
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Heidi Mollenhauer | Esmeralda |
Supervising animators
| Animator | Character(s) |
|---|---|
| James Baxter | Quasimodo |
| Tony Fucile | Esmeralda |
| Kathy Zielinski | Judge Claude Frollo |
| Russ Edmonds | Captain Phoebus |
| Michael Surrey | Clopin |
| David Pruiksma | Hugo Victor |
| Will Finn | Laverne |
| Kent Hammerstrom | Djali |
External links
- [}}} }] at the Internet Movie Database
- [}}}] at the Big Cartoon DataBase
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