For Halloween...

There are a whopping TWO ways to read my most spankingly new film essay, "An Atheist's Guide to 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'" (and yes, it's about the cartoon and the original text):

At Deedee's fantastic blog Noirish City, which has a chock full of great screenshots that explain what I'm referring to with all my clumsy text.

At Bright Lights After Dark, where there are fewer screenshots, but some key ones, such as my cross-comparison of "Sleepy Hollow" and "Drums Along the Mohawk".

Thanks to both sites for allowing me the space, especially the incomparable Deedee. Here's a snippet:




The “Headless Horseman” musical number is a dense pocket of Disney brilliance, a collaborative effort aligning the inimitable talents of several men while maintaining an impeccable cohesion: We never lose sight of the fact that we’re listening to Brom Bones – outlined with incandescent yellow from the furnace behind him – attempting to scare Ichabod Crane out of Sleepy Hollow so he can wed and bed Katrina himself. Wolfgang Reitherman lent his sense of spatial fluidity while Milt Kahl, Ollie Johnston and Ward Kimball allow a wealth of dissonant emotions to populate Van Tassel’s living room (Katrina’s amusement, Ichabod’s mounting trepidation). Likewise, the diversity of visual and aural influences littered about the screen and soundtrack is staggering: The scene encompasses Dixieland, Boris Karloff, Albrecht Durer, bandstand jazz, Edgar Allen Poe (or, more accurately, wood carved illustrations of his tales), and John Ford’s Drums Along the Mohawk (below), just to name a few. The result is a story within a story (Brom Bones “elucidates” the tale of the Headless Horseman) depicted with horrifically makeshift illustrations (Brom rides a wooden chair towards Ichabod casting ominous shadows, a startled cat shrieks and darts into a hollow pumpkin, a window flies open letting in the grave solemnity of the dimming woods, and so forth). The effect is such that despite the distancing nature of the stylized animation we feel very close to the action – the scene is directed half at Ichabod and half at “the camera,” assuming Ichabod’s isolated, “alien” POV in relation to the remainder of the community who offer vocal accompaniment to Bones’ tune – and it’s though we’re imagining these images while being read to, and Disney’s animators are simply splashing them onto cels as they soar from our brains.



Happy Hallow's, folks...and here's hoping Captain Howdy doesn't get ya.