Adventure Thru the Walt Disney Archives Interview

Adventure Thru the Walt Disney Archives Interview

Adventure Thru the Walt Disney Archives host Don Hahn, Walt Disney Archives director Becky Cline, & director John Gleim talk about the documentary.

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Adventure Thru the Walt Disney Archives Interview

Adventure Thru the Walt Disney Archives is one of those rare films that really can be all things to all people: the perfect blend of humor, entertainment, education, and sentimentality, it lovingly surveys the various departments of this illustrious Disney division, giving equal time to some of the Archives’s flagship pieces as well as to some of its storied employees. The whole while, the center of the documentary unflaggingly remains Walt Disney himself, keeping the businessman fresh in people’s minds and hearts – as the filmmakers themselves describe it – and demonstrating how his philosophies still guide them to this day, 51 years later.

In fact, one of Adventure’s coolest – and most meta – touches is its lifting of its overarching narrative from the 1941 movie The Reluctant Dragon, in which Robert Benchley attempts to find Walt on the Walt Disney Studios lot, learning all about the company and its animated wares along the way; in this 21st century take, host Don Hahn keeps trying to visit Disney’s recently remodeled office, which is now restored to its final 1966 appearance, learning all about the Archives as he goes. (And when he finally gets there, the nostalgic space serves as the backdrop for a “real heartstrings” moment for Disney fans and cinephiles alike.)

Part of the explanation of Adventure Thru the Walt Disney Archives’s success has to do with the nature of the Archives itself. Not only does the department get to collect, catalog, and, at times, display a wide range of “dimensional items” – ranging from Sleeping Beauty’s prop storybook to a matte painting from Bedknobs and Broomsticks to the 2002 Anaheim Angels World Series Ring, all of which are proudly featured in the doc – the Archives also has a healthy presence in the theme parks and, even, maintains and manages the Disney Legends program, the company’s hall of fame for celebrities, craftsmen, and executives. (The still-relatively-new Disney Legend Mark Hamill, of Star Wars fame, gets a fun aside here, breaking up the show-and-tell nature of the film while also providing some color commentary on how Walt Disney has affected his life.)

But the other part of the documentary’s high quality has to do with the individuals who came together to hatch the project in the first place. Renowned producer Don Hahn (whose 40-year career at Disney has included such hallmarks as Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Maleficent) joined forces with writer-director-editor John Gleim and Becky Cline, Director of the Walt Disney Archives, to birth the explorations through this historical entity that still remains mysterious to the general public, interviewing such cinematic luminaries as Kevin Feige (the main architect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe), Pete Docter (the chief creative officer of Pixar), and Leonard Maltin (a famed film historian and author). The vivacity of their personalities and their genuine awe at the artifacts and locations that constantly swirl about them really shine through, transforming proceedings that could potentially come across as sedate or, even, dull into an entertaining, engaging, and informative, well, adventure.

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And in something of an interesting twist, Adventure has become a part of the history that it so reverently celebrates. Originally conceived to commemorate the Walt Disney Archives’s 50th anniversary in June 2020, the hour-long doc was denied its big live kickoff event thanks to the ill-timed arrival of Covid-19. That left a salvaged showing for Gold Members of the D23 fan club and, now, an ever-so-slightly expanded upgrade for Disney+, where large audiences will finally be able to take in its meanderings down memory lane.

To help ring in the occasion, Screen Rant was invited to partake in a roundtable discussion with Hahn, Gleim, and Cline, getting the opportunity to see the three filmmakers’ chemistry in action. (Please note the exchange has been edited for clarity.)

Screen Rant: Adventure Thru the Walt Disney Archives actually is very humorous, but it didn’t strike me as quite over-the-top as other behind-the-scenes documentaries that we’ve seen recently. So I wanted to talk about how kinda dry and deadpan it is at times – how much of a process that was and how much of a balancing act it might’ve been.

Becky Cline: Oh, Don was the dry and deadpan part.

John Gleim: Oh, yeah – that was a process with Don. Wow. [laughs]

Don Hahn: It says that on my business card, actually – “dry” and “deadpan”.

Y’know, the humor was in John’s script, and I just get lit up when I talk to these people in the Archives. They work in dark rooms all day long with white gloves on, which is not unlike Mickey Mouse himself. But to be able to go there and talk to these people and see their enthusiasm for what they’re doing and see them open a crate full of Peter Ellenshaw matte paintings and stuff, it just makes me giddy – and they are, too. So to be able to kind of just reflect that, I think that was – when Becky asked me to do this, I just thought, “Well, I’ll do it if I can just walk around and pull stories out of your archivists” because they’re the story, and they’re the people that are doing the work. That’s what was fun for me, and where a lot of the humor or energy came from for me.

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John Gleim: Yeah, Don is selling himself short. I wrote, like, a few funny lines, and I think that laid the groundwork of the tone of the film, but he came up with so many great one-liners. That was so fun. I edited the film, too, and it was a blast to edit it and put all that [together].

Don Hahn: We had a good time.

Becky Cline: I think that it’s a really funny film – it’s very humorous. I think the other thing, too, is that I think it’s a good blend of humor and entertainment, [and] it’s very educational for people who are interested in the archival world. We’re a very unique archive. There’s not a lot of archives in this world – maybe Coca-Cola – where you get to go and see really fun stuff. And so I think it’s a special thing to see and learn about how an entertainment archive works.

But, also, it was really great to interview all these wonderful people that work with us all the time. The people that you see interviewed are people who have created their own documentaries, like Leslie Iwerks, or books, like Marcy Smothers and Leonard Maltin, and folks like that who came in and did interviews. These are people that we really work with every day, and we do interact with Kevin Feige and Pete Docter and [Disney Chairman] Bob Iger and all those folks. So it was a way to bring in the supporters of the Archives, as well, and I think it’s a good mixture of fun and light-hearted entertainment, but it’s also educational, and I think it also has a little heart to show the staff of the Archives are truly passionate about what they do, and they care so much, and they love working with these objects. And I think that shows through in the film, too, so I think it’s a sentimental thing, as well.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/adventure-thru-walt-disney-archives-don-hahn-john-gleim-becky-cline-interview/

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