There are few names in the history of American film animation. The biggest undoubtedly has and forever will be Walt Disney -and he didn’t even do that much animation himself. But did he ever know how to brand his products! There were no auteurs at Disney, much as there have been numerous exceptionally talented animators who have worked on and helmed some of the great classics of the form. Bambi is one of my favourite animated movies, yet I had to look up that it was directed by David D. Hand. It’s gotten better in the modern era, with animation directors taking on more personal ownership of their projects, like Brad Bird and Domee Shi, but it is still a rarity in the American industry to have an animation director so independently distinguished. But there was one notable exception, an animation director who for a time was the only force in the medium capable of genuinely challenging Disney, arguably pushing them to be better. And his name was Don Bluth.
Maybe you’ve heard of Don Bluth, maybe you haven’t. Certainly though you know of his movies and can connect them by theme and style, the way you could any auteur director: The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Anastasia, Dragon’s Lair -the classic 80s arcade game famous for its elaborate animation. Bluth had been an animator at Disney from the 1950s, but disillusioned by what he perceived to be the company’s mediocrity by the 1970s, led a walk-out of veteran animators to start their own company, disrupting production on The Fox and the Hound in the process. Don Bluth Productions, eventually aided by Steven Spielberg’s company Amblin, became a rival to Disney in the 1980s, set apart by their adherence to classic animation techniques, themes, and a willingness to embrace darker stakes in their storytelling. Twice, his movies outgrossed Disney’s at the box office their years of release; though the Disney Renaissance put an end to that trend at the same time that Bluth’s movies in the 90s really began to suffer. He had a brief comeback in 1997 with Anastasia, his own version of a Renaissance Disney princess movie, but the advent of CG animation ultimately drove him from the medium in the early 2000s -his craft of choice has always been hand-drawn and he has stuck firmly to his principles.
It’s partly for this, and partly for the greatness of his 80s efforts that has made Don Bluth quietly one of the most important names in American animation -and more of ground-shaker than he has gotten credit for. The distinctness of his work has likewise made him highly influential to animators the world over, from the founders of Cartoon Saloon -based in Ireland where he too had his animation studio for a time- to modern figures involved with Pixar and Laika Animation, the latter perhaps the nearest approximation to his movies today.
I’ve thought about covering his work as a theme for a while, and rather morbidly, figured I wanted to do it now before Don Bluth dies -he’s in his late eighties, it’s not a distant possibility. And he is an animator who I hold in particular high regard and whose work I cherish as a lover of beautiful classic animation. Nobody worked harder to preserve the integrity of that hand-drawn craft that still holds a magical sway over myself and so many. This month I am going to honour Don Bluth by paying tribute to his first four movies that spoke to his brilliance and passion as an artist, starting with a personal favourite that has never failed to captivate me.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH was a relatively successful children’s novel by Robert C. O’Brien. For Don Bluth and his recently emancipated team of animators it was a good prospect for their debut feature, many of them having had experience animating rodents on Disney’s The Rescuers. The story was also enigmatic, and though set on a farm, fantasy-adjacent in the way it depicted a society of intelligence-enhanced rats -a tactile genre playground in which to animate.
Bluth’s team, headed up by his producing partners Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy, poured their heart and souls into the project, and in some cases mortgaged their homes for it. The result was a movie that performed adequately at the box office but was nowhere near a smash hit -possibly owing to the bad luck of the film being caught up in the famous summer of 1982 in which it had to compete against Poltergeist, The Thing, Rocky III, The Road Warrior, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and the big one E.T.! So relatively easily, it got lost in the shuffle, and while critical reception was generally positive, it wasn’t glowing enough to make a dent.
And yet, I vouch for The Secret of NIMH more than just about any other movie in that collective (E.T. is the only one that edges it out). For as impressive and fantastic and entertaining as they are, this humble little picture from an upstart animation company has a charm, a depth, and a vision all its own, one so rare to see in feature animation at any time, let alone in the early 1980s. Its character and its craft are so mesmerising, it is odd and alluring, subtle yet exponentially ambitious. And of course it is centred on a very unique and original story, driven by one of the most unique and original characters in all of film animation.
Mrs. Brisby (the name changed to avoid a lawsuit from the Frisbee brand) is a mouse on a farm caring for her children in the recent aftermath of her husband’s death, and in particular the youngest Timmy with a very severe case of pneumonia. When the plough starts early in the season she becomes desperate to move off the farm, though it would be hazardous to Timmy’s health. Ultimately her journey for a solution leads her to the mysterious rats in the farm’s rose bush who hold her late husband in high esteem, he having saved them from their medical experiment torture at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the same experiments that have given them increased intelligence and a dependence on harnessing technology.
There is something so enticing about this society in miniature, that has a kind of Borrowers vibe, and yet reconstituted into something much less mundane. Indeed in spite of the twentieth century technology, the rats have given themselves a quasi-medieval aesthetic, which goes along with the mystic tenor to their intelligence seen most notably in their elder leader Nicodemus. It’s highly interesting and allows for a great contrast between their world and that of the other farm animals, peasant-like and not distinguished, but sharp nonetheless -none more so than Mrs. Brisby.
Smart, astute, and armed with the most steadfast will, Mrs. Brisby is not merely the protagonist but the movie’s singular avatar and its heart. She is the most loving, dedicated mother in the world and the film constantly demonstrates just how far she will go for her family. And what makes it resonate especially powerfully is how visibly terrified she is throughout. It’s one thing for courage to be shown by confidence, as is so often the case in movies; what is far more formidable is to see courage that powers through fear -to see someone like Mrs. Brisby, petrified but determined to go on anyways. It is that courage of the heart that she comes to earn, when the powerful magic amulet comes to her in the climax allowing her to finally save her children -a most profoundly moving scene.
The amulet flies in the face a little bit of the story’s ostensible inclinations towards rationality. But it serves its thematic purpose exceedingly well, and acts as a middle bar resolution to the film’s recurring debate between the virtues of technology and nature, enacted through the rats divided over whether to continue in their dependence, stealing from the farmers, or rejecting it by migrating to a Promised Land of Thorn Valley. There is an undercurrent to the effect the rats’ heightened intelligence has had on them, how it has removed them to a degree from their authentic instincts, even that it has sowed this greed and stubbornness, represented in Jenner, the charismatic dissenting rat and chief villain of the story. It is of course also connected to the inhumane experiments performed on them, and the movie treats the scientific advancement of the rats with a fair bit of mystique and scepticism as a result. Ultimately though it is Mrs. Brisby caught in the middle alluding to a kind of harmony of these spheres that the rats themselves can’t come to. Neither idealism nor complacency motivates her -love is the key.
Elizabeth Hartman, a one-time Oscar nominee for A Patch of Blue, is stupendous as Mrs. Brisby, her defining last role before her tragic death at the end of a long battle with depression. She is joined in the voice cast by an ensemble that really lend weight to their characters. The gravitas of Derek Jacobi, then only in his forties, is brought to Nicodemus, and the same could be said of Paul Shenar’s delicious work as Jenner and Peter Strauss’s strong charms as Justin, the noble rat captain of the guard. Mary Poppins veterans Arthur Malet and Hermione Baddeley appear as the eccentric mouse Mr. Ages and stern neighbour Aunty Shrew. The film even managed to snare Aldo Ray as critical rat henchman Sullivan, as well as early roles from Edie McClurg as the farmer’s wife, and Shannon Doherty and Wil Wheaton as two of Mrs. Brisby’s other children. The big stars though are Dom DeLuise as the clumsy comic relief crow Jeremy, who factors little into the main plot and is probably the most arbitrary part of the film -though his scenes make for some fairly fun animation; and John Carradine as the old and terrifying Great Owl who sends Mrs. Brisby on her quest.
The Owl is one of the sharpest rendered creatures in the movie, so much detail going into his look and movements. Though the animation is such that every character is quite expressive. It's delightful just to watch the interactions, because there is such rich character to their faces and movements -every frame is just a little different; and the film as a whole feels like it moves more than any contemporary Disney movie. The hand-painted backgrounds can sometimes be a contrast to this, and the environment and characters don't always sync up perfectly, but it hardly matters when those backgrounds are so interesting as well, especially in the darker corners of the film. And the movie does go to some foreboding places, keen as Bluth and his collaborators were to make the audience feel every fibre of Mrs. Brisby's fear. She is chased by a grotesque spider, soon crushed by the Owl's talons, and then attacked by a shadowy rat, and of course there is the sinister cat Dragon, maybe the ugliest cat to grace American animation. Beyond the modest scariness, this movie's action scenes are no more violent than was conventional, except here the blood isn't censored out, giving more stakes to the battle between Jenner and Justin and the scrapes that Mrs. Brisby endures.
Yet these make the happy ending more satisfying, and the movie on the whole more colourful than might be expected by its humbler budget and limited scope. Since I discovered it (and without a sizeable cultural footprint it is a movie to be discovered), The Secret of NIMH has been one of my very favourite animated films, and one that I appreciate more with each re-watch. It is exciting and inspiring, but sweet as well -perhaps the most epic testament to motherhood of any movie I've seen. An astonishing gem of a movie to seek out and fall in love with.
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