I'm struggling to understand why My Faith doesn't calm me.

 

I'm struggling to understand 

why My Faith doesn't calm me.

Dr. Disco : 

Co-ordinate your attacks.

(Bill goes over to Nardole.)

BILL : 

What's wrong with him? 

What's wrong with The Doctor?

(A short time later, The Doctor 

is looking out at The Pyramid.)

Dr. Disco : 

Did Nardole send you 

to speak to Me?

BILL : 

Might have done. Might have said 

there was something you 

ought to Tell Me --

Dr. Disco : 

Funny thing, Fear, isn't it? 

Once it Rules You, you're even afraid 

to admit what's scaring you. 

For The Record, I, for one, fully 

understand My Weakness.

(A bright light illuminates their faces.)

BILL: 

Oh God, what's that?

(A beam is aimed from the apex 

of The Pyramid straight up into the sky.)

[En route to the Pyramid]

(They all go outside, get into The Defenders 

and drive towards the pyramid.)

PILOT: 

Approaching target. 

Permission to strike.

BILL: 

So, why is The Pyramid active now?

Dr. Disco : Possibly they know they're about to be bombed.

(A USAF B52 is on approach.)

PILOT: Target distance ten miles. Set position five degrees.

(Light fills the cockpit, then the pilot turns to see Monks have replaced her crew.)

PILOT: Red 12. Mayday! Mayday!

(Then she too has been replaced by a Monk.)

[Near the Pyramid]

(The B52 is held in mid-air by the beam from the pyramid, which is now horizontal, not vertical. It lowers the bomber to the ground. The three Monks stand by it.)

NARDOLE: It's the Monks. They've hijacked the plane. How did they do that?

(The Monks do a smart left-turn and walk to the pyramid. The missing aircrew come out of the structure.)

NARDOLE: Oh, they're fine. The crew are alive.

(Then three men in striped tops.)

BILL: Who are those guys?

ILYA: I think they're ours.

BILL: Yours?

ILYA: We targeted the pyramid with a missile.

(Whoosh, thud. The beam has now delivered a long cylinder with a propeller at the end, which is sticking up out of the ground in an way it was never designed for.)

ILYA: From a submarine.

Dr. Disco : So demonstrating strength isn't going to help.

MONK [OC]: We are ready to talk.

[Agrofuel lab]

(Douglas is slumped over his keyboard.)

ERICA: Why don't you just take the afternoon off if you feel that bad?

DOUGLAS: I can't just take the afternoon off.

ERICA: How about a kip on the floor under your desk?

DOUGLAS: Now, that's an idea I can get behind.

(We're given a quick trip along the pipework to where the gas made by the combination of chemicals is currently hissing into the plant compartments.)

[Pyramid]

(The Monks have left the front door open. Xiaolian leads the way in.)

BILL: I mean, This is a Trap, right?

Dr. Disco : Possibly. Probably.

BILL: And we're just walking into it.

Dr. Disco : 

Well, every trap you walk into 

is a chance to learn about Your Enemies. 

Impossible to set A Trap without making 

a self-portrait of your own Weaknesses.

BILL: Great. Unless it kills us.

Dr. Disco : Well, you could say that about anything.

(The door closes. A Monk meets them at the end of a corridor.)

MONK: The human race is about to end. The chain of events is already in motion. 

Life on Earth will cease by humanity's own hand. Observe.

(It turns, and the wall behind it slides open. They enter - )

[Simulation chamber]

(Monks are plucking at a multitude of vertical fibreoptic cables.)

Dr. Disco : Ah. The simulation machine looks a bit different from the outside.

MONK: We are modelling the future. Each thread is a chain of days, leading to your end. We can detect when a catastrophe is about to occur.

Dr. Disco : And?

MONK: Stop it from occurring.

BRABBIT: You don't look much like guardian angels.

MONK: We have chosen this form to look like you.

BRABBIT: You look like corpses.

MONK: You ARE corpses to us. Your world is ending. You can do nothing, but we can save you.

Dr. Disco : Save us, then.

MONK: To save you we must be asked.

Dr. Disco : Then what?

MONK: We will protect you.

Dr. Disco : How long for?

MONK: Forever.

Dr. Disco : Do you understand now? Do you see? 

Asking them for help has conditions. 

Invite them in, and it will be the last free action you take.

MONK: If you do not ask for help, then see the days to come. 

These are the threads that lead to one year in your future. Take them as proof.

(They all take hold of the proffered threads and get visions of devastation. All but the Doctor let go and recoil in horror.)

XIAOLIAN: What was that?

Dr. Disco : Planet Earth with not a single living thing. Dead as The Moon.

BRABBIT: You seem pretty damn calm about it.

(The Doctor lets go of his thread.)

Dr. Disco : Do I? Oh, I'm sorry. It's not my first dead planet.

MONK: Ask for help. It will be given.

Dr. Disco : Why do you need to be asked?

MONK: Power must consent.

Dr. Disco : Power must consent. What does that mean?

MONK: Those who hold power on this world must consent to our dominion.

Dr. Disco : Why?

(The phones ring.)

NARDOLE: One minute to midnight.

Dr. Disco : You could take this planet in a, in a heartbeat. Why do you need consent?

MONK: We must be wanted. We must be loved. To rule through fear is inefficient.

Dr. Disco : Of course. Fear is temporary. Love is slavery.

SECRETARY-GENERAL If consent is what you need, I consent now.

Dr. Disco : No. No, don't do this. Please, don't even consider this!

SECRETARY-GENERAL: What I saw was real. I felt it. If you can help us, I consent --

Dr. Disco : Please, listen to me!

(A light shines on the Secretary-General.)

MONK: Do you have power?

SECRETARY-GENERAL: I have power.

MONK: Does power consent?

Dr. Disco : Please, stop. Just stop this.

MONK: If your consent is impure, it will kill you.

Dr. Disco : Impure? What does that mean, impure?

MONK: You act out of fear. Fear is not consent.

(The Monk touches the Secretary-General, who cries out as he turns to dust or sand in an effect reminiscent of the end of Sleep No More.)

Dr. Disco : Planet Earth does not consent to your help, your presence, or your conquest. Thank you for playing the big pyramid game. Bye, bye. See you again next week, hopefully not.

MONK: Without our help, Planet Earth is doomed.

Dr. Disco : Yes? Well, it's been doomed before. Guess what happened? Me!

[Agrofuel greenhouse]

(In HazMat suits, in the greenhouse. Douglas removes his helmet.)

ERICA: What are you doing?

DOUGLAS: I just need a minute. I was about to throw up in my suit.

ERICA: I did that once.

DOUGLAS: Urgh.

(There is a crackling sound, and trays of plants collapse into goo.)

ERICA: Oh, my God.

(All the plants have died.)

DOUGLAS: Okay. Whatever that is, that is not meant to happen.

ERICA: We need to sort this.

(She goes out through airlock one into the lab. Douglas opens the plant cabinet at the end of the room, grabs a glove-full of gloop and runs out after her, without shutting the airlock door behind him.)

[UN Base Turmezistan]

Dr. Disco : Why do they need consent?

BILL: Maybe they're like vampires. Can't come in unless they're invited.

Dr. Disco : They're not vampires.

XIAOLIAN: The future we saw. Is it the war? Do we bring that future about?

Dr. Disco : That would seem to be the most obvious conclusion.

XIAOLIAN: No. I say, no. Friend, I will not fight you.

ILYA: We are just soldiers in the field.

XIAOLIAN: Are we too afraid to disobey?

BRABBIT: I'm not.

(They shake hands.)

ILYA: Neither am I.

(He shakes Xiaolian's hand.)

BILL: This is amazing.

BRABBIT: What do you think, Mister President? Did we just give peace a chance?

Dr. Disco : The clock.

BRABBIT: I'm sorry?

Dr. Disco : Look at the clock.

NARDOLE: It's still one minute to midnight.

XIAOLIAN: It made no difference. How could this make no difference?

Dr. Disco : Because it's not you who's going to end the world. You were never the problem.

BILL: Then who is the problem?

Dr. Disco : Something is happening somewhere else.

[Agrofuel lab]

(Over a scene of controlled panic as the gloop is being examined under a microscope.)

DOCTOR [OC]: Somewhere in the world, in silence or in darkness, the world is ending right now. And we have to find out where.

ERICA: It's gone crazy. It's much too strong. It's not just breaking the root system down, it's killing the whole thing. We have to seal off the lab, the greenhouse, everything. This can't be allowed to get into the atmosphere.

(Douglas types Attention Sealing Off Lab into the computer.)

[UN Base Turmezistan]

BRABBIT: This is impossible. We can't search a whole planet in a few minutes.

Dr. Disco : Narrow it down. They landed the pyramid in the middle of military crisis. What was the point of that?

BILL: Okay, what was the point?

Dr. Disco : What was the effect? They told us the world was ending in a potential war zone. What did we assume was going to happen?

BILL: World War Three.

Dr. Disco : But it didn't. The Trick with misdirection, don't look where the arrow is pointing, look where it's pointing away from. So, what's already on our radar that we should be worried about right now? Forget about war. What else could end the world?

NARDOLE: Bacteria.

Dr. Disco : I like the sound of that.

XIAOLIAN: New strain of flu? Plague?

Dr. Disco : People can be immune. And whatever it is will kill all life on Earth, not just humans. Plague discriminates. So this isn't a plan, it's a mistake. Somebody, somewhere, is doing something that's about to blow up in everybody's face.

(The Doctor goes around the room, using his sonic shades to hack into databases.)

ILYA: What are you doing?

Dr. Disco : The Distraction tells us that whatever's coming is already on a watchlist. 

I just put all the top-secret intelligence documents in the world online in searchable format.

BRABBIT: What!

Dr. Disco : Sit down and google.

[Agrofuel lab]

ERICA: It's never done anything like that before. Check the mix. Anything?

(Douglas gurgles then collapses.)

ERICA: Douglas? Douglas! Douglas?!

(She discovers that he has left the airlock door to the greenhouse open, and runs back in time to see Douglas dissolve into gloop. At no time has Erica removed her helmet, sensible woman.)

[UN Base Turmezistan]

(Everyone is working on computers.)

BRABBIT: Doctor, listen.

Dr. Disco : What?

BRABBIT: Isn't it worth at least just considering doing the deal?

Dr. Disco : What deal?

BRABBIT: All we have to do is consent.

Dr. Disco : That's what the Secretary-General thought. They burned him.

BRABBIT: He was afraid. I'm not being afraid, I'm being smart.

Dr. Disco : Yeah, being smart is not giving away your planet. 

So, an accident, leading to irrevocable consequences. I like bacteria. 

They can spread. Once they're out, you can't put them away again. 

What could they do? What do you depend on?

NARDOLE: Air, water, food, beer.

Dr. Disco : Air, water and food. Let's say something's going to change, something is going to be released. Something new, something fast. I'm feeling, I'm feeling biochemical. Check biochemical trials.

NARDOLE: Yes, sir.

BRABBIT: Doctor. That world was dead a year from now. We should at least go in there and talk.

NARDOLE: There are about a hundred thousand biochemical trials going on right now.

Dr. Disco : Specifically related to GM bacteria.

NARDOLE: Er, six thousand?

Dr. Disco : How many have reached stage two? You cannot accept their offer.

ILYA: Why not?

Dr. Disco : Because whatever the price is, it's too high.

BRABBIT: We'll work it out.

NARDOLE: Four hundred and twenty eight.

XIAOLIAN: It's too many, and we don't even know if you're right.

Dr. Disco : Well, I probably am.

BRABBIT: Probably isn't good enough!

Dr. Disco : Well, probably is all you've got. It's your planet. I can't just give it away.

BRABBIT: You know what, sir? Finally, you've said something I agree with. It's our planet. Our choice.

Dr. Disco : You can't make a deal with them. You don't what you're agreeing to. I don't know.

BRABBIT: All I know is, I plan on living to fight another day. Right now, what we don't have is a whole lot of other days.

XIAOLIAN: Agreed.

ILYA: Also agreed.

BILL: Doctor, is it just possible that they're right?

Dr. Disco : Being right is easy. We need to win.

BILL: All these soldiers in the room, and you're the only one still fighting.

Dr. Disco : Would you make the deal? Even not knowing what's going to happen?

BILL: Those guys have modelled every event in human history to find our weak spot. Are you going to do the same in a couple of minutes?

Dr. Disco : Would you make the deal?

BILL: No. Not if I had a choice. But we don't, do we?

Dr. Disco : It's your world.

BRABBIT: Not any more. Okay, back to the pyramid and negotiate our surrender.

(The military leave.)

BILL: Doctor? What are you going to do?

Dr. Disco : Well for a start, I'm going to tell you the truth. I've been keeping a secret from you.

(He raises his hand to his sonic shades then stops.)

BILL: Doctor?

Dr. Disco : We can blind them. That's how we do it. We blind them!

BILL: Blind who? The Monks?

Dr. Disco : Bill, go to the pyramid. Keep an eye on them all. Nardole, with me. To the Tardis.

NARDOLE: Yes, sir.

BILL: Have you got a plan?

Dr. Disco : You'll be hearing from me.

[Agrofuel lab]

TANNOY: Biohazard. Lab in lockdown.

(Other personnel evacuate the building in a big hurry.)

TANNOY: Biohazard. Lab in lockdown. Biohazard. Lab in lockdown.

(Erica discovers Douglas' mistake in the enzyme quantity.)

ERICA: Oh Douglas, what have you done?

[Tardis]

Dr. Disco : Okay, here's the list of labs on the UNIT watch list. If they're being watched, that means they've got CCTV cameras with feeds to UNIT HQ. Can you hack them?

NARDOLE: Course I can, I'm not just sexy. But there's four hundred and twenty eight of them. We can't watch them all.

Dr. Disco : Are you following me?

(Yes, they are both walking round and round the console, making me dizzy.)

NARDOLE: Yeah, I think I get it.

Dr. Disco : Yes, well, we're not going to watch them, we're going to switch them off. Can you do that?

NARDOLE: What good would switching them off do?

Dr. Disco : If I'm right, the Monks are only watching one of those labs. How would they do that?

NARDOLE: Well, I suppose they'd just hack the cameras.

Dr. Disco : So switch 'em off.

NARDOLE: Okay, so, we've blinded them. But whatever's happening is still happening.

Dr. Disco : Yep.

NARDOLE: And the Monks are powerful. They can just turn the cameras back on.

Dr. Disco : Yes, they can. But they're only watching one lab. So all we need to know is which lab just got its cameras back?

(Ding!)

NARDOLE: Oh, you genius!

Dr. Disco : Boom.

[Agrofuel lab]

(The Tardis materialises in the lab and the door opens.)

ERICA: Oh, my God!

Dr. Disco : No, I'm the Doctor, but it's an easy mistake to make. The eyebrows.

ERICA: How did you do that? What is that thing?

Dr. Disco : It's Nardole. He's not my fault. Back to the Tardis. This place is toxic.

NARDOLE: I'm not human.

Dr. Disco : Oh, you're human enough. I got your lungs cheap.

NARDOLE: Oh, now he tells me.

Dr. Disco : Park her close. Monitor me. Oh, tidy up your room.

(Nardole goes into the Tardis and shuts the door.)

Dr. Disco : You have a problem, I believe.

ERICA: Who the hell are you?

Dr. Disco : Don't be alarmed, we don't have time. 

Just jump straight to all the explaining.

(In the Tardis, Nardole tried to dematerialise her. He starts coughing, and the Tardis stutters to a halt.)

[Near the Pyramid / Agrofuel lab]

(Bill's phone beeps.)

BILL: It's the Doctor.

Dr. Disco : Okay, found it. Lab in Yorkshire. Long story short, misplaced decimal point resulting in a bacteria that turns any living thing it touches into gunk.

BRABBIT: So why is it going to end the world? Has it been dispersed already?

Dr. Disco : Ah, no, it's still in the lab. I think I can contain it.

BRABBIT: We give him two minutes and we're heading in. Agreed?

ILYA: Agreed.

[Agrofuel lab]

ERICA: We have an air filtration system to take toxins out of the air. It runs a cycle every thirty minutes. It's going to pump the bacteria into the atmosphere.

Dr. Disco : So switch it off.

ERICA: I can't.

Dr. Disco : Oh. Right, okay, when's the next cycle?

ERICA: Twenty minutes.

Dr. Disco : What!

[Near the Pyramid / Agrofuel lab]

BRABBIT: Anything?

Dr. Disco : The venting system is automatic. This is going to be trickier than I thought.

(The phones ring. 23:59:40.)

BRABBIT: We're going in.

[Agrofuel lab]

Dr. Disco : Think. Think, think, think, think. Stupid Doctor. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Handsome Doctor. Adorable, hugely intelligent, but still approachable Doctor. What's another way to destroy bacteria?

(He grabs a bundle of wires that just happens to be lying around.)

ERICA: Sterilisation.

Dr. Disco : And how do you sterilise something?

ERICA: Put it in boiling water.

Dr. Disco : Or?

ERICA: Put it in a flame.

Dr. Disco : She's got it. By George, she's got it!

(He picks up a thermos flask.)

Dr. Disco : I'm not going to lie to you. This means that your insurance premiums are going to go through the roof. In fact, pretty much everything is going to go through the roof, because I'm going to blow up the lab. We just need some kind of a trigger, first.

ERICA: But what are you going to blow it up with? (lightbulb moment) The bacteria is making ethanol. The greenhouse and the lab are full of it!

Dr. Disco : Seriously, what are you doing when this is all over?

[Simulation chamber]

BRABBIT: We're ready to talk.

MONK: Do you have power?

BRABBIT: Well, right now we're representing the three biggest armies on the planet, so I guess we do.

MONK: Does power consent?

BRABBIT: We consent.

MONK: If your consent is impure, it will kill you.

BRABBIT: I surrender. We surrender. What more do you want?

(Two more Monks come to stand one in front of each soldier.)

MONK: To rule, there must be love. Your consent must be pure.

(The three Monks touch the three soldiers.)

MONK: You act out of strategy. Strategy is not consent.

(The military are reduced to dust before Bill's eyes.)

BILL: Ah!

(The Monks turn to her.)

MONK: Do you consent?

BILL: I don't have any power. I'm nobody.

MONK: You represent the greatest power on the planet. 

You represent The Doctor. Is your consent pure?

[Agrofuel lab]

(Taping a trigger mechanism to the Doctor's lash-up.)

ERICA: Is this going to work?

Dr. Disco : Trust me. I pop it in there. Machine goes ping. Lab goes boom. World is saved. You develop a pretty intense crush on me. Okay. Go through to the machine room. You're going to have to let me back in when I'm done. How long before the vents kick in?

ERICA: Four minutes.

[Simulation chamber / Agrofuel lab]

(Bill still has her phone on speaker.)

BILL: Doctor, you still there?

Dr. Disco : There's no way of stopping the lab venting, so I'm going to sterilise the building by blowing it up. Everything in here will be destroyed.

BILL: Including you?

Dr. Disco : Not if I pull my socks up.

BILL: Honest answer. You going to do it?

Dr. Disco : Course I'm going to do it.

BILL: Because they're still offering a deal, and I'm the only one left.

Dr. Disco : Tell them you're flattered but don't.

[Simulation chamber]

BILL: What does consent mean?

MONK: You must ask for our help, and want it, and know 

you will then be ours. Only then can the link be formed.

BILL: What link?

MONK: Do you consent?

[Agrofuel machine room / Greenhouse]

(Erica goes through the second airlock, finally removes her helmet and uses the intercom.)

ERICA: Can you hear me?

(The Doctor is in the greenhouse section, which is murky with gas.)

Dr. Disco : I don't even know your name.

ERICA: Erica.

Dr. Disco : Did you always want to be a scientist, Erica?

ERICA: Since I was about eight. Before that, I wanted to be a bus driver, because I liked how they waved at other bus drivers.

(The Doctor has placed the detonator on the shelf in front of the open compartment, where Douglas took his sample of gloop, and sticks the ends of the wires into the mess. He sets the timer.)

Dr. Disco : Okay, I've given us two minutes.

ERICA: Right, you need to get out of there.

(He starts the countdown then runs back out through airlock one.)

Dr. Disco : Hello, I'm the Doctor, saving the world with my eyes shut.

[Simulation chamber]

(The Domesday Clock is going backwards. 23:58:34 and moving rapidly. 

The Monks are concerned, and go back to the threads of their predictions.)

BILL: Doctor, the clock's going back. Have you done it?

[Agrofuel lab]

Dr. Disco : Yes, I have! I'm totally The President of Earth, 

and from now on, two planes! One for me and one for my glamorous assistant, Erica. 

Say hello to the folks at home, Erica, and let me through the door.

[Simulation chamber]

DOCTOR [OC]: Bill, get the hell out of that pyramid!

(Bill turns and runs.)

[Agrofuel lab]

ERICA: I can't open it. It's under emergency protocol. You need to use the combination lock. Set it to 3614.

(The sonic shades show the shape of the combination lock, but not the numbers. It is currently at 8103. He points the sonic screwdriver at it. No help. He tries feeling for the numbers.)

Dr. Disco : Ah, you're going to have to guide me.

ERICA: I can't see it from here. You can see it, right?

Dr. Disco : How long have I got?

ERICA: One minute forty. 3614.

[Pyramid / Agrofuel lab]

ERICA [OC]: Come on.

BILL: Doctor, what's happening? You okay?

Dr. Disco : Bill, sorry, slight hitch. Working on it.

BILL: What's the problem?

Dr. Disco : 3614. I need to open the door, but I can't er, see the numbers.

ERICA: One minute twenty.

BILL: I don't understand the problem.

Dr. Disco : Combination lock. All the sonic will do is calculate the number. I still have to enter it.

(It's now showing 9234.)

Dr. Disco : Nardole! Nardole! Nardole, I need you to do a visual on the lab. There's a camera in here.

(But Nardole is unconscious on the floor of the Tardis.)

Dr. Disco : Nardole? Nardole, can you hear me?

BILL: I don't understand the problem. Just open the door.

Dr. Disco : I can't.

BILL: Why can't you?

Dr. Disco : Because I'm blind. I'm sorry, I'm blind.

BILL: What, what do you mean, blind? What are you talking about?

Dr. Disco : I lied. I've been blind since Chasm Forge. I didn't get my sight back. I've been lying to you. There's a combination lock with numbers, and I can't see them.

BILL: You're an idiot. You are the stupidest idiot ever! But I'm not going to let you die.

Dr. Disco : No. You have to. There's no choice. No-one else can help me now.

BILL: The Monks. The Monks can help you.

Dr. Disco : No! Bill, no, don't do that.

BILL: I'm sorry.

Dr. Disco : I made a mistake. I have to face that. But do not ask the Monks for help. Bill!

BILL: Doctor. This planet needs you, so I'm making an executive decision. I'm keeping you alive.

(She puts her phone in her pocket.)

Dr. Disco : Bill, listen to me, please. I don't know what consenting allows them to do to you. You don't know what you're agreeing to!

[Simulation chamber]

BILL: Can you give him his sight back?

MONK: His sight can be restored.

BILL: Then, then I'm asking you for help. I'm giving my consent.

MONK: Is your consent pure?

BILL: Just give him his sight back! You can have the world. Just make him see again. I consent.

(The Monk touches her.)

MONK: You act out of love. Love is consent. We must be loved.

[Agrofuel lab]

Dr. Disco : 

Bill! Do not make this deal! I forbid it! Bill, can you hear me? What's happening? Bill? Bill?

(The Doctor removes his sonic shades and holds up his hand. It comes into focus. He puts in the combination and goes through airlock two as the timer counts down 3, 2, 1 and a fireball fills the greenhouse and lab.)

Dr. Disco : Bill, what have you done?

[Simulation chamber]

BILL: I'll tell you what, old man. You'd better get my planet back!

[Agrotech machine room]

MONK [OC]: 

Enjoy your sight, Doctor. 

Now, see our world.

It Seems there is a Mutiny in the Works

Practice Training Exercise Simulation

......it was a Dream.....!!

We LIVE, inside 

A Dream..!!

What’s the Difference Between Your 

Imagination and Unconscious Mind?

The Dream is how 

the implicit structure 

of Your Perception 

and Value-Hierarchy 

reveal themselves to you --

John McKittrick: 

It all flows into this room and then into 

what we call The WOPR-Computer.

Lyle Watson: 

WOPR? What is that?

John McKittrick: 

It's a War Operations Planning Response. 

This is Mr. Richter. Paul, would you like to 

tell these gentlemen about The WOPR.

Richter: 

Well, The WOPR spends ALL it's time 

THINKING about World War III.

Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, 

it plays an endless series of WarGames using 

all available information on 

The State of The World --

The WOPR has already fought 

World War III as a GAME, 

time, and time again -- 

It estimates Soviet responses 

to our responses to their 

responses and so on -- 

It estimates damage, counts The Dead, and 

it looks for ways to improve The Score....

Shall We Stop this Bleeding?

🕯️ MESMER 🕯️ (1994)

"It may be you're right -- but say all we done is show the world that Democracy isn't chaos. That there is a great, invisible strength in a people's union. 

Say we've shown that a people can endure awful sacrifice and yet cohere. Mightn't that save at least the idea of Democracy to aspire to? 

Eventually to become worthy of? 

At all rates, whatever may be proven by blood and sacrifice must have been proved by now --

Shall we stop this bleeding?"

Hysterical Blindness

"It's unhealthy to be so obsessed with sickness. 

"We're the only animal that knows 

it's going to die, Madame. 

Uh, yes... And yet we're also the only species 

that has some faint sense of perfection. 

Oh, yeah... philosophy! Hence our inner 

rage at sickness. We could hear The Music 

of the heavenly spheres... if only 

we strained to Listen."

🕯️ MESMER 🕯️ (1994) Watch FULL MOVIE 

subtitled in English (ALAN RICKMAN,...

Now, What Seems to Be The Trouble?

A-ha! Antisemitism!!

(There is a knock at The Door --)

Harley Street Specialist : 

Come in --

(The Door opens and 

Raymond Luxury-Yacht enters.

Mr. Luxury-Yacht has his enormous 

polystyrene nose. It is a foot long.)

Harley Street Specialist : 

Ah! Mr. Luxury-Yacht; 

Do sit down, please --

Mr. Luxury-Yacht :

Ah, no, no -- My Name is spelt

'Luxury-Yacht' but it's pronounced, 

'ThroatWobbler-Mangrove'.

Harley Street Specialist : 

Well, do sit down then, 

Mr. ThroatWobbler-Mangrove.

Mr. Luxury-Yacht :

Thank you. (So, he does.)

Harley Street Specialist : 

Now, What seems 

to be The Trouble?

Mr. Luxury-Yacht : 

Um, I'd like you to perform 

some plastic surgery on me --

Lord High Keeper of The Knowledge of Right and Wrong

 

Steven Watts, Historian: 

He didn't know if it 

would really work --

And one part of him was almost agonising 

over "Well, if people don't buy this, this will

 just fall flat, and then I will be done --"

Narrator : Audience members gasped at 

the opening shots of The Queen's castle.

Evil Queen, Snow White and 

The Seven Dwarves (archival) : 

Slave in The Magic Mirror;

Come from the farthest space,

 through in from Darkness 

I summon Thee -- Speak!

Narrator : 

They howled in laughter 

at the antic dwarfs.

Dwarves, Snow White and 

The Seven Dwarves (archival) : 

Ah, soup! Hooray!

Snow White, Snow White and 

The Seven Dwarves (archival) : 

Uh-uh-uh, just a minute!

Evil Queen, Snow White and 

The Seven Dwarves : 

The heart of a pig! And 

I've been tricked.

Narrator: 

They hissed disapproval at the Evil Queen. 

And still, Walt was anxious.

Evil Queen disguised as Old Woman, 

Snow White and The Seven Dwarves : 

Don't let the wish grow cold!

Snow White, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves : Oh, I feel strange...

Narrator: He sat gripping Lillian's hand for nearly 75 minutes, nervously anticipating the scene that would put the power of his personal vision to the ultimate test.

Snow White, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves (archival): Sigh

Evil Queen disguised as Old Woman, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves (archival): [Cackling laughter] Now I'll be fairest in the land!

Narrator: When it arrived -- the apparent death of Snow White -- the theater was hushed.

Seven Dwarfs, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves (archival): [Quiet crying and sniffling]

Neal Gabler, Biographer: The audience started weeping. And that's when Walt knew. That's when they all knew. The audience had suspended its disbelief so thoroughly, so believed in the reality of the situation and of the dwarves, that they were crying. That was really the triumph of the film.

The Prince, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves (archival audio): One song, only for you. One heart, tenderly beating...

Ron Suskind, Writer: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard are weeping. They don't know what hit them. You know, what hit them is that they crossed a barrier, from the life they live to the internal world where myth lives in all of us, and Disney provides the passage. And it ain't kid's stuff.

Narrator: When the curtain came down the audience rose from their seats and broke into a thunderous ovation. "I could not help but feel," one rival movie producer gushed, "that I was in the midst of motion picture history."

Richard Schickel, Writer: I know the first movie I saw was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Now, I didn't know anything but to be delighted with it. It was wonderful. I mean, I still think it's wonderful.

Evil Queen, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves (archival): Snow White lies dead in the forest...

Ruthie Tompson, Ink and Paint Artist: I loved the queen. She was so awful. But she was just beautiful.

Evil Queen, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves (archival): …Behold her heart.

Ruthie Tompson, Ink and Paint Artist: She was so beautifully drawn and everything.

Richard Schickel, Writer: 

Kids had to be carried screaming out of Radio City Music Hall; they're too frightening for them. That's an important aspect: Disney understood that kids could take more scariness than people thought they could take. So they wet the pants and wet the seat in Radio City Music Hall. But they'd had an experience. You know? That what was important. It was not just bland. It was serious stuff going on in their little heads.

Ron Suskind, Writer: 

Think about what he does. Well he's like, "Ha! 

These cartoons don't have to be just slapstick. 

They can carry everything, all the biggest stuff. 

They can carry ancient and powerful mythologies. 

They can carry everything."

Evil Queen, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves (archival): Look! My hands!

Ron Suskind, Writer: That was a huge leap. And that's an artistic leap. He's creating a new art form.

Narrator: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs played at New York's Radio City Music Hall for five straight weeks at the beginning of 1938; no other film had ever run more than three weeks there. National and international releases followed. Lines wrapped around small-town theaters in New England, the South, the Midwest, the Far West. The film was a box office smash in London, Paris, and Sydney. It grossed $8 million in its first year -- the equivalent of over 100 million today, and more than any film before it. Roy paid off the studio's $2.3 million debt to Bank of America, while the film was still in its first run, and helped oversee an unprecedented merchandising campaign.

Eric Smoodin, Film Historian: There are Snow White jars, and Snow White jelly, and Snow White scarves. There are Snow White shows going on at department stores. So the film and the space of commerce are completely one. It's a commercial triumph for Disney, not just because of the film itself, but because of the way that the merchandise is tied to it.

Narrator: Walt Disney was celebrated as a true American original -- a man capable of harnessing the power of technology and storytelling; a man adept at art and commerce. Harvard University gave him an honorary Master of Arts, and so did Yale, whose trustees called Disney "the creator of a new language of art."

Ron Suskind, Writer: He's hailed in Paris. He's hailed in New York. He's living a dream. And that's a moment where he starts to think very boldly. He almost is released from hesitations. He's like, "I am that guy that I dreamed of. I am him. So now what do we do?"

Narrator: Disney cultivated the look of the artist in public, but at home, he was just plain Dad. Walt made a point to drive his two young daughters to school every day, chased them around their house cackling like the Wicked Witch, and read them bedtime stories.

Neal Gabler, Biographer : 

There's no question, he adored them. 

Absolutely adored them. He was a man who 

had a lively sense of Play that he'd never lost 

from the time he was A Child.

Steven Watts, Historian : 

He was very domestic, very nurturing 

in a way that usually in that day and age 

was associated more with Mother's role. 

Lillian was a bit aloof, a bit reserved, 

a bit cool, even with her children, 

and Walt was just the opposite. 

He was overflowing 

with enthusiasm. 

I think, in a way, he was reacting 

against his own childhood 

and against Elias, because 

Elias was so stern with him. 

Disney often said, "I want to 

spoil my children terribly. 

I just want to spoil them."

Narrator: 

He had had only sporadic contact 

with his own parents since 

his move to California. 

But the Disney studio's new financial success 

afforded Walt the chance to draw them closer. 

Walt and Roy moved Elias and Flora 

to Los Angeles, and, as 

a 50th wedding anniversary present, 

the brothers bought them A House. 

In the middle of the Snow White frenzy they also 

threw a Golden Wedding anniversary party, 

which they deemed worthy 

of preserving for History.

Walt Disney : 

Well, here it is : 1937. And you folks 

are almost ready to have your, celebrate 

your 50th wedding anniversary.

Flora Disney : 

We're not a'gonna celebrate.

Walt Disney : 

Why not?

Flora Disney : 

Oh, what's The Use?

Walt Disney : 

Well, Dad likes to celebrate. 

He's always enjoyed a good time.

Flora Disney : 

We've been celebrating for 50 years. 

Gettin' tired of it.

Walt Disney : 

What about you Dad? Don't you want to 

make a little whoopee on your 

Golden Wedding anniversary?

Elias Disney : 

Oh, we don't want to go to 

any extremes with it a'tall.

Walt Disney : 

Well, I expect you, I hoped you 

wouldn't go to any extremes 

if you're whoopeeing it up.

Flora Disney : 

He don't know how to make whoopee.

Narrator : 

Walt sometimes seemed compelled 

to talk about The Old Days; 

even as his fame grew, his family's 

early struggle remained a touchstone. 

He held fast to The Idea of himself as 

A Man formed in the crucible of Want 

and Deprivation in the great 

forgotten Middle of The Country.

Carmenita Higginbotham, 

Art Historian: 

He feels it very important to identify 

and to make note of his 

Midwestern background, 

and to propagate that story. 

He understood The Value of Labour, 

and that that is not something 

he learned about from Somebody Else, 

rather it's naturally Who He is.

Narrator : 

Walt Disney had been A Player 

in the movie business for more 

than 15 years, and a celebrity for nearly 10, 

but the acclaimed filmmaker still 

did not think of himself 

as a 'Hollywood Insider'.

He complained that other major 

film producers refused to 

acknowledge Animation 

as 'serious cinema'.

 

And he wasn't Wrong. 

When The Academy of Motion Picture 

Arts & Sciences announced 

the 10 nominees 

for The Best Picture of 1938, 

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 

was not on The List.

Instead, Disney was 

given a special Oscar 

for his pioneering work in 

feature-length cartoons.

Shirley Temple : 

I'm sure the boys and girls in the whole world 

are going to be very happy when they find out 

The Daddy of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,

 Mickey Mouse, Ferdinand, and all the others 

is going to get this beautiful statue.

 

Oh, isn't it bright and shiny?

Walt Disney : 

Oh, it's beautiful.

Shirley Temple (archival): Aren't you proud of it Mr. Disney?

Walt Disney (archival): Why, I'm so proud I think I'll bust.

Carmenita Higginbotham, Art Historian: He got the, sort of the honorable mention, which is... crap. He doesn't want that. He has created something absolutely magnificent. He knows it's magnificent. Audiences have told him it's magnificent. He believed in this so much, he put himself personally on the line for his films, and his products, and for animation, and the furthering of animation. And Hollywood just didn't seem ready to view animation as art or as filmmaking. It had to have smarted.

Narrator: Disney had dreams of producing a new feature-length animated film every six months -- and almost all from source material that played to his strengths: fairy tales, folktales, or popular novels already familiar to his audience. His two projects following Snow White were coming-of-age stories: first up was Bambi, based on a novel about a young deer becoming a stag; and then Pinocchio, a popular late 19th century Italian folktale about a wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy.

Disney hit snags right away on Bambi, and began to worry the story was too complicated and needed more time in development. So he moved Pinocchio to the front of the production line -- and hit more snags.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: They struggled mightily with the story of Pinocchio. As Walt himself said, he's not a very nice puppet in the original story. He's kind of a wiseacre. So there was something they had to tackle immediately, which is: How do you make this puppet into someone likable?

Narrator: Disney was still puzzling out the Pinocchio story in the fall of 1938 when the phone call came. His parents had suffered carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a malfunction of the heating system at the house Walt and Roy had bought for them.

Elias had survived; Flora had not. Walt went to her funeral, and then he went back to work. He never talked of his mother's death again.

Sarah Nilsen, Film Historian: It was something he dealt with, within himself as a private matter. Even with his wife I don't think that relationship he shared very much. His emotions were internalized. And that's why cinema I think offered this way to emote in a way that he couldn't emote in his own private life.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: Walt Disney once exploded during a story session and he pounded on the table. And he said, "We're not making cartoons here! We're not making cartoons." Walt Disney had made this separation between Mickey Mouse and some of the early Silly Symphonies -- they're cartoons. But now we're not making cartoons. We're making art. And art has a higher standard. And the standard is the emotional response that we get from people. Can you make them feel deeply?

Ron Suskind, Writer: Art doesn't work unless it gets to the big stuff. Call it what you will. Entertainment doesn't work unless it gets at the core, the stuff that we really, really wrestle with, make you laugh, make you cry, make you sing, make you sigh. But you got to get at it.

Narrator: Disney wasn't thinking small on Pinocchio. 

Snow White had proved that his animated films could tackle the sweep of The Human condition, with 

all the Light and Shadow of "Real Life". 

Now, he went deep inside himself for inspiration 

and emerged with a magical story elixir
that became the Disney trademark -- 

outsiders struggling for acceptance, 

coming-of-age heroes bucking Authority,
Temptation, Loss, Redemption, and Survival.

Don Hahn, Animator : 

So now Walt's wadlling through The Story 

throwing things out left and right 

and saying, "What's The Essence of it? 

What's This Story about? 

Who's it about? 

Why do I care? Why do 

I want to watch this?"

Douglas Brode, Film Historian : 

Pinocchio becomes about what 

it means to Be Human, about 

how you have to achieve 

Humanity. You have to earn it.

Don Hahn, Animator: They take huge liberties. Walt Disney doesn't care. He says, you know, "We're taking the title, we're taking the puppet thing, and we're going to make that into our story."

Narrator: Difficult as they were and engaging as they were, Pinocchio and Bambi did not capture Walt's undivided attention. There was an enticing new experiment going on right down the hall. The project had begun as a cartoon short based on a symphony titled "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," starring Mickey Mouse, with the backing of an orchestra conducted by the celebrated Leopold Stokowski.

Disney was so taken with the first results that he decided to expand it into a feature-length film -- Fantasia. He and Stokowski selected eight separate classical symphonies, and Walt and his team began thinking about imagery to match. The Disney Studio was crawling with musicians, dancers, even famous scientists like the astronomer Edwin Hubble.

Don Hahn, Animator: So here's Stravinsky, and George Balanchine comes by the studio, "Well, let's choreograph some dancing for us." So these experts are coming and going, and there's a ballet company in the next room dancing. And here's Hubble talking about theories of deep space, and where the cosmos came from. And there's a dinosaur expert. And it is this cultural kind of petri dish of people together working and collaborating creating Fantasia. And he loves it because this is a huge fun sandbox.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: Well, he's dealt with realism and realistic emotions, but now he's trying to get to emotion in a different way, circumventing realism. This is absolutely alien to the Disney process, to try and see if you can reach emotion directly through abstraction.

Ron Suskind, Writer: He's saying, "I want to try what heroes of art do. You know, I want the great artists of the time to join in here. You know, I want to create art that lasts centuries."

Narrator: The Disney studio ran to the rhythms of Walt's bursting energy, which appeared to be spilling beyond rational boundaries. The boss had three major productions spinning simultaneously and had nearly doubled the number of full-time employees. The Disneys were in dire need of space to house their thousand-plus staff, and another addition at Hyperion was not going to cut it.

Without consulting with Roy, who was in Europe at the time, Walt selected a 51-acre building lot, empty but for a polo field, on the other side of the Hollywood Hills, in Burbank. Then he went to work making his dream studio.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: It was designed for absolute efficiency, but also to engender this wonderful sense of community. In fact, there was one point where he said, "You know what'd be great, is if we build an apartment complex here on the studio lot, so no one ever has to leave." It's so that his employees could become part of this very insular community where they would all work together in this common mission to make these great animations. And that's what this new studio was really all about. It was really all about creating a perfect place to create perfect films.

Narrator: The day after Christmas, 1939, most of the Disney staff began the move from Hyperion to Burbank. The heart of the studio campus was the three-story animation building, with Walt's office on the top floor. Each animator had a single big airy sunlit room to himself, with an oversized work table, a stylish area rug, an easy chair to recline in, and drapes. The entire facility was air-conditioned. Landscaped pathways led to a theater, a restaurant, a soda fountain.

Don Lusk, Animator: It was wonderful. We had things that we'd never had before. If you wanted a milkshake, you'd call the little coffee shop right in the middle of the place. And then they had runners that would run these things into us, a sandwich, whatever we wanted. It was just Heaven.

Tom Sito, Animator : 

It had a cafeteria. 

It had a gymnasium with 

an ex-member of The Swedish 

Olympic team as a personal trainer. 

The Studio had its own gas station. 

You know, you could get,

 you could get your car repaired, 

you know, while you're at Work. 

-- This is amazing.

Jiminy Cricket, 

Pinocchio : [singing] 

Like a bolt out of The Blue,
Fate steps in and 

sees you through…

Narrator: By the time the studio was ready to launch Pinocchio in New York City in February of 1940, Walt Disney was selling hard.

Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio (archival): [singing] 

...Your Dreams come true!

Narrator: He was singing the praises of Jiminy Cricket -- 

Lord High Keeper of The Knowledge of Right and Wrong.

Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio (archival): [singing] 

Give a little whistle, yoo-hoo! Give a little whistle, woo-hoo! 

And always let Your Conscience be Your Guide.

Pinocchio, Pinocchio (archival): 

And always let Your Conscience be Your Guide!

Narrator: He was also talking up the studio's breakthroughs in camera technology and special effects.

Blue Fairy, Pinocchio (archival): Wake! The gift of life is bound.

Pinocchio, Pinocchio (archival): Father!

Narrator: "For the first time in the field of animation," Disney proclaimed, "audiences will see, in Pinocchio underwater effects that look like super-special marine photography."

Pinocchio, Pinocchio (archival): Can you tell me where we can find Monstro? Gee! They're scared!

Tom Sito, Animator: You really have to stop yourself and say, "This was all blank paper. This all began as blank paper. It doesn't exist." You know, we believe it's water, and we believe those characters are real, and that's the summit of the animator's art. That's the pinnacle of what we call personality animation, which is creating a completely artificial world that we accept.

Pinocchio, Pinocchio (archival): Father!

Stromboli, Pinocchio (archival): Mmmm. You will make lots of money for me!

Richard Schickel, Writer: Pinocchio has richness and dimensions that other animated cartoons don't have.

Stromboli, Pinocchio (archival): And when you are growing too old, you will make good firewood!

Richard Schickel, Writer: I mean, he's swallowed by a whale, for Christ's sake. He is in peril throughout the movie.

Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio (archival): Hey! Blubber mouth! Open up, I got to get in there!

Richard Schickel, Writer: And at the same time there's Jiminy Cricket, you know, who's delightful and charming and takes some of the sting off of this movie. But that's a pretty dark movie.

Carmenita Higginbotham, Art Historian: Pinocchio is just a wooden boy who's trying to be human. One would think that that means he can make mistakes, that he would be allowed to have the faults of being a boy.

Lampwick, Pinocchio (archival): Please! You got to help me!

Carmenita Higginbotham, Art Historian: And instead any indiscretion is met with the possible death of his adopted father or the transformation into a donkey. The stakes are so very high.

Lampwick, Pinocchio (archival): Hee-Haw! Hee-Haw!

Pinocchio, Pinocchio (archival): Oh! What's happened?!

Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio (archival): I hope I'm not too late!

Pinocchio, Pinocchio (archival): What'll I do!

Ron Suskind, Writer: Pinocchio is seeking a home. He's seeking identity. He's seeking place. He wants to be real.

Blue Fairy, Pinocchio (archival): Prove yourself brave, truthful and unselfish, and someday you will be a real boy.

Ron Suskind, Writer: That's what the goal is. I want to feel my life most fully. And then once I feel my life I will have a chance to feel the big truths, the things that give us sustenance.

Pinocchio, Pinocchio (archival): I'm alive, see! And-and I'm - I'm - I'm real. I'm a real boy!

Geppetto, Pinocchio (archival): You're alive! And-and you are a real boy!

Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio (archival): Yay! Whoopee!

Geppetto, Pinocchio (archival): A real live boy! This calls for a celebration!

Narrator: Audiences across the country walked away from Pinocchio emotionally drained, and enormously satisfied. The critics raved. "[Walt Disney] has created something... that will be counted in our favor -- in all our favor -- when this generation is being appraised by the generations of the future," the New York Times's movie critic wrote.

Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio (archival): Well! This is practically where I came in.

Narrator: "For it will be said that no generation which produced a Snow White and a Pinocchio could have been altogether bad."

The downside of Pinocchio was apparent from the jump too. Walt's insistence on innovation had pushed production costs to nearly twice that of Snow White, and the picture was not going to earn back the investment. Ticket sales in the United States were slow; in Europe now at war, they were moribund.

The Disneys had burned through more than $2 million of the net profits from Snow White, while borrowing heavily from Bank of America to fund the dream studio in Burbank.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: Walt Disney is kind of under the gun. The costs of Fantasia and Pinocchio, and even Bambi in its early stages, are enormous. And the war has cut off the European market. So Walt Disney has lost a giant market, and he is worrying about how he can finance all of these films under his new project to make feature films constantly, one every six months or so.

Narrator: Roy Disney had a plan: they would go public and issue shares in the company. His kid brother wasn't happy at the thought of shareholders sticking their noses in his creative process, but he saw little choice.

In April of 1940, as the last of the staff made the transition to the Burbank Studio, Walt Disney Productions issued 155,000 shares of preferred stock, netting the company nearly $4 million. Roy and Walt had both signed seven-year contracts as part of the deal. Roy was guaranteed a salary of $1,000 a week, and Walt $2,000. The company reassured investors by taking out a $1.5 million life insurance policy on its key asset: Walt Disney.

Steven Watts, Historian: Fantasia opens with the Bach Fugue and Toccata in D minor, but it is pure abstraction, no characters, no nothing recognizable in the natural world, which gets the movie off in a very interesting vein.

Carmenita Higginbotham, Art Historian: Fantasia is wildly ambitious. You can feel it in every scene but it's very uneven.

Steven Watts, Historian: When the movie worked, it's spectacular. When it didn't work, it's sort of dumb. The critical reaction was extremely divided. Some people thought Disney had pulled off this alliance of visual art and music, and created something new and compelling. Other critics thought that it was a disaster. And they slammed the movie very, very hard for dragging classical music traditions down into the dust.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: Walt Disney had made his reputation in the intellectual community as being unpretentious. And when he makes Fantasia, guess what? He's pretentious.

Carmenita Higginbotham, Art Historian: Fantasia raises a number of questions as to if Walt is stepping beyond himself, if he's not appreciating his limits. And Walt will take this personally.

Steven Watts, Historian: He didn't handle criticism very well, ever. And the criticism over Fantasia, I think, really rankled. And what it did was to encourage a kind of anti-intellectualism that was always there with Disney, but I think increasingly he drifts in the direction of: "These are eggheads. They don't know anything about ordinary people, and to hell with them."

Narrator: Fantasia's financial losses were far greater than Pinocchio's, largely because so few theaters had the expensive new sound system Disney required to show his film-symphony. The deficits left the company unable to pay its guaranteed quarterly dividend to preferred shareholders. And the expensive new studio was already starting to feel more like a dropped anchor than a sail spread wide to catch the creative winds.

Steven Watts, Historian: The new Burbank studio was a kind of a case study in "be careful what you ask for." It was so nice that it was almost sterile. It was all rationalized. It was all organized. And something, the quality of the creative experience, was almost designed out of the operation.

Narrator: There was something unmistakably mechanical at the heart of Walt's workplace utopia. People were segregated by task, as at an industrial plant. Company hierarchy was more rigid, more obvious, and more carefully policed by Disney administrators.

The tonier perks accrued to the highest links of the corporate pay-chain. Membership in the Penthouse Club, with its gymnasium, steam room and restaurant, was reserved for top writers and animators -- all men still. So were office niceties like area rugs, drapes, easy chairs and armoires.

When animator Don Lusk started doing friends a favor by picking up the slack on lower-level jobs like clean-up and in-between, somebody above took note.

Don Lusk, Animator: I came into the room on a Monday morning and all that was in there was a desk. The rug was gone. The coat closet was gone. My easy, foldout chair was gone. Everything was gone excepting my desk and a chair. I called up and I said, "What the hell is going on?" And, they said, well, I'm not animating so you don't get a rug on your floor.

Robert Givens, Animator: Yeah, I missed the old Hyperion place. It was beginning to feel like corporate America, you know? It was just getting too big and losing the family touch.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: The studio had grown so rapidly that there were all of these folks in the animation process: you know, the assistant animators, the in-betweeners. They didn't know Walt Disney. And they weren't well-paid by Walt Disney, as the master animators were. I think Walt Disney's attitude was: Lookit, anybody can do that stuff. The master animators, that's one thing. But doing in-between work, why am I going to pay them top dollar? They're not artists.

Tom Sito, Writer: Some of the people who told me about the cafeteria, they said the cafeteria was wonderful, but most of the rank-and-file artists couldn't afford to eat there. They still had to go out to the sandwich wagon out on the street 'cause the salaries were all over the place. You know, I mean, there were people making $200 and $300 a week and people making $12 a week.

Narrator: Workers at the bottom of the Disney ladder were starting to grumble in 1940; now that the company's finances were public, everybody knew the boss was making five or 10 times more than the highest paid members of his creative team; and more than 100 times that of the women working in ink-and-paint.

Disney, who still insisted that all his employees call him "Walt," was oblivious to the complaints at his new studio. It was no longer common to see him wandering the halls, engaging in idle chatter, batting around story ideas. He spent most of his time in his own suite of offices, with its private bath and bedroom, and a team of secretaries standing guard at his door.

Hollywood was famous for its glamorous movie stars and directors, but it would not have functioned without the men and women working behind the scenes -- building sets, adjusting lights, drawing animation.

When federal legislation had passed in 1935 allowing collective bargaining, Hollywood's backstage hands began to organize. More than a half-dozen Hollywood unions and guilds emerged in the late 1930s to bargain for better working conditions and better pay. Among them was the Screen Cartoonists Guild, which offered representation for the animators, assistants, in-betweeners, and ink-and-paint artists working across the industry.

By 1940 the cartoonists guild had organized the animation departments at all of the major studios; except Disney's, which employed more than half the men and women working in the field of animation.

Tom Sito, Writer: Even after organizing MGM, and Warner Brothers, and Screen Gems, and George Pal, and Walter Lantz, it only came to maybe about 150 people while Disney's was like 600. If unionism was to work in Hollywood, Disney's was the ultimate battle.

Narrator: Walt Disney saw little reason to be worried. He was not like those other fat-cat studio heads, he told himself. He and his "boys," as he called his animators, were in this thing together.

Carmenita Higginbotham, Art Historian: Walt sees himself as the father of this company and that everyone who works for him believes in what they are doing, the enterprise of being animators, of being artists, and being part of a business, and part of the studio.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: "Why in the world would anyone need a union, when I'm giving you everything you could possibly want?" He didn't see paternalism in this. He saw kindness and generosity in it.

Narrator: There were plenty of people at Burbank who did not see the labor situation as Walt Disney did; and among them was one of his best animators, Art Babbitt. Babbitt had been with Disney for nearly a decade, contributing to every major film, and almost single-handedly creating the popular character Goofy. He was one of the highest salaried animators on the Burbank lot, but made little effort to hide his sympathies for other animators who had been denied on-screen credits, or for the hundreds of assistants and inkers who were barely eking out a living.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: He was rather a large personality. He wasn't subservient to Walt. He didn't have that kind of relationship to him. He was his own man, he was independent, and Walt didn't like it.

Tom Sito, Writer: Babbitt used to tell the story about a young painter who was making $16 a week whose husband had run off because of the Great Depression. And what she was doing is that she was skipping lunches because she wanted to keep feeding her family. And one day she actually fainted from malnutrition.

Narrator: Disney didn't see the problem, and certainly didn't want to hear about it. He was incensed when he learned that the Screen Cartoonists Guild was trying to organize his shop. He was certain he had the right to run his own company as he saw fit. In February of 1941, Walt decided to make his case, personally, to the men and women working for him. He gathered the staff in the only auditorium at the studio big enough to hold all 1,200 of his employees.

Walt Disney (archival audio): In the 20 years I have spent in this business, I have weathered many storms. It's been far from easy sailing, which required a great deal of hard work, struggle, determination, confidence, faith, and above all, unselfishness. Some people think that we have class distinction in this place. They wonder why some get better seats in the theater than others. They wonder why some men get spaces in the parking lot and others don't. I have always felt, and always will feel, that the men who contribute the most to the organization should, out of respect alone, enjoy some privileges. My first recommendation to the lot of you is this: Put your own house in order. You can't accomplish a damn thing by sitting around and waiting to be told everything. If you're not progressing as you should, instead of grumbling and growling, do something about it.

Narrator: Much of the staff left the auditorium infuriated. "This speech recruited more members for the Screen Cartoonists' Guild than a year of campaigning," reported one left-wing magazine.

Babbitt was now convinced Disney workers needed a real union and signed his Screen Cartoonist Guild membership card, which made him the highest-ranking Disney employee to openly challenge the boss. Walt Disney saw Babbitt's move as a personal betrayal. "I don't care if you keep your goddamn nose glued to the board all day or how much work you turn out," he told Babbitt in the hallway one day. "If you don't stop organizing my employees, I'm going to throw you right the hell out of the front gate."

At the end of May 1941, Disney sent a letter of termination to Babbitt citing as cause "union activities." Word of Babbitt's firing shot through the studio in Burbank. Disney employees who supported the guild met after work the following evening, and by a vote of 315 to four, determined to take a stand against their boss.

When he drove up to his studio gate on May 29, 1941, the picketers were already on the march. Walt Disney was forced to wend his way through more than 200 of his striking workers. Nearly half of the studio's art department had walked out, and it wasn't just the low-wage workers; some of Disney's most trusted animators were also on the picket line.

Don Hahn, Animator: The street's full of strikers, not only from Disney but from other studios, parading back and forth with signs and this wonderful, idyllic, utopian place is in shambles.

Ron Suskind, Writer: All of a sudden the moment of the shared, that "we are in this together, the victories are all of our victories," that spell gets broken.

Sarah Nilsen, Film Historian: He poured his passion, everything he believed in into his studio. It was the studio that went against him at this point. It was his own creation that went against him.

Douglas Brode, Film Historian: A certain light, if not had gone out, at least dimmed inside Walt Disney. There is before the strike and there's after, and he was two different people.

Narrator: Another man might have walked away from his shattered Utopia and called it a day. But Disney still had work to do, and woe be to the forces that stood in his path.

 

[NIGHT TWO]

Neal Gabler, Biographer: Walt Disney could deal with anything creatively. He could yell and scream and that's where he wanted his energies to be devoted. But he didn't want to be devoted to this. And he couldn't understand it.

Narrator: Employees at the Walt Disney studios had been begging for better wages, extra pay for overtime, and a uniform system for determining job titles and screen credits for months. Walt had waved this off as the hobby-horse of a few hotheads and union agitators, right up to May 29, 1941, the day nearly half of his art department walked out to take up positions on the picket line. The strike demonstrations got bigger in the first weeks, and louder, and so did the threat to the already shaky studio.

Disney's last two feature films -- Pinocchio and Fantasia -- had both lost money and investors were fleeing; the company stock had dropped from $25 dollars a share to $4. Walt Disney needed a box office hit soon, and his own workers seemed intent on derailing the studio's only two hopes: Dumbo and Bambi.

Tom Sito, Writer: As the strike lingered and kept going, the mood of everybody started to get ugly, and people started to get angrier, and then Walt was getting angry.

Narrator: A month into the strike, Disney refused to recognize the union representing his workers, the Screen Cartoonist Guild. He refused to negotiate with the guild's representative, Herbert Sorrell. And he refused to make apologies to the man whose firing had prompted the strike, long-time Disney animator Art Babbitt.

Tom Sito, Writer: There was one day where Art Babbitt noticed Disney driving to the gate. And Babbitt just kind of blew his stack and just jumped over and grabbed the bullhorn and shouted out loud so everybody could hear, "There he goes, the great man," and basically just heaped abuse on Disney. "Shame on you, Walt Disney."

Narrator: As the crowd cheered, Disney jumped out of his car and charged at Babbitt. The two men had to be pulled apart.

Walt Disney could not believe that so many of his workers had actually taken sides with the union, and against him. Disney sniffed conspiracy -- and a big one. He went public with his pet theory in a full-page advertisement in a Hollywood trade paper, Variety.

Nancy Koehn, Historian: He needed to have a bad guy. He needs to blame it all on a villain. And in this case, the new flavor of the month in Hollywood at that time and later, would be the shadow or specter of Communism.

Eric Smoodin, Film Historian: He becomes then like a typical industrial boss. Most American executives at the time blame unionization on Communists. So in this way Disney becomes completely conventional.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: Walt Disney is being bombarded by all of this negativity. And it's just not something he was accustomed to.

Narrator: "The entire situation is a catastrophe," he wrote to a friend. "The spirit that played such an important part in the building of the cartoon medium has been destroyed... I have a case of the D.D.'s -- disillusionment and discouragement." The next day Disney skipped town for a 10-week working tour of South America, and left the headaches to his brother and long-time business partner, Roy.

Steven Watts, Historian: What Walt Disney was doing was getting away, period. He just was sick and tired of the whole business, and he wanted to go away and do something else.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: South America is a real relief for Walt Disney. Wherever his plane lands, people are there to greet him; dignitaries invite him to dinners. Everybody loves him. And I think the contrast between the affection with which he's greeted in South America and the kind of hostility with which he'd been greeted in Los Angeles isn't lost on him.

Narrator: Disney was still on the road in South America when his father, Elias Disney, died unexpectedly. Walt declined to cut his trip short and return home for the funeral of the man with whom he had clashed much of his life. This was just fine with Roy; he was happy to have Walt and his explosive temper remain at a safe remove while he tried to make peace with the Screen Cartoonists Guild.

Steven Watts, Historian: Roy Disney sees the writing on the wall. He sees that unionization is coming into the studios whether we like it or not, and he wants to settle this. He wants to get things up and running.

Narrator: By the time Walt did finally return at the end of October, Roy had resolved the strike. The workers had been granted almost everything they had asked for. The Disney art department was back on track, but the studio would never again feel like family to Walt.

Don Lusk, Animator: The gal I married was a secretary in personnel. She was called up to Walt's office to help on the files. And she would go through and find people that were out on strike. And they were moved from here to this file. Walt came in and said, "How's it going?" She just said, "What are we doing this for?" And he said, "Well, these are the people that are true to Disney. These are the people who at one time or one day will not be here."

Tom Sito, Writer: After the strike, Walt distrusted everybody. One of the great animators who worked on Snow White said, "Walt Disney was a great man. Walt Disney was a genius. If you were his friend, he was a warm friend. If you crossed him, he was a mean SOB."

Narrator: Just a few months after the bruising strike, World War II arrived at the Disney Studios, much of which was commandeered as a base for anti-aircraft troops. Walt kept up a happy front, especially for his two daughters, but things were not great on the Disney lot. Funding for feature film production had dried up by the summer of 1942. The company was limping along on revenue generated by government contracts for propaganda and training films.

Bambi, Bambi (archival): Winter sure is long, isn't it?

Bambi's Mother, Bambi (archival): It seems long, but it won't last forever.

Narrator: Walt was counting on a big box-office hit to revive his faltering studio, and he believed Bambi could fill that bill. He had nurtured the film for nearly five years, kept the project alive through the worst of the strike.

Bambi's Mother, Bambi (archival): Bambi? Bambi, come here! Look! New spring grass.

Narrator: When it was finally released in August of 1942, Bambi stood out as the most ambitious feature-length film in the history of the studio: an artist's rendering of the natural world in all its beauty and peril.

Bambi's Mother, Bambi (archival) : Bambi, quick! The thicket!

Bambi (archival): [Gunshots]

Bambi's Mother, Bambi (archival): Faster! Faster, Bambi! Don't look back! Keep running! Keep running!!

Bambi (archival): [Gunshots]

Bambi, Bambi (archival): We made it. We made it, Mother! We -- Mother? Mother! Mother, where are you? Mother!

Don Hahn, Animator: A generation was and still is traumatized by that moment in Bambi.

Bambi, Bambi (archival): Mother! Mother!!

Don Hahn, Animator: And it's done almost in pantomime with the snow falling. Fearless filmmaking. Absolute fearlessness.

Bambi, Bambi (archival): Mother! [Crying] [Gasps]

 

The Great Prince of the Forest, Bambi's father, Bambi (archival): Your mother can't be with you anymore. Come, my son.

Neal Gabler, Biographer: Bambi is a triumph for Disney in the sense that it probably extends realistic animation as far as it had gone, up to that point. But by the time the film came out, it was almost as if Disney, in the course of a couple of years, had become passé.

Narrator: Bambi did not make back its costs in its initial run. Disney could tell his investors -- as he could tell himself -- that the war was to blame for the deficit, but that failure -- coming so close on the heels of the strike -- made it impossible for him to deny the obvious. He had invested too much in animated features (money, energy, effort, his own heart) and what did he have to show for it? A crippled company filled with people who had turned on him; a mountain of debt; scorchings from the political press, the art world, film critics.

Tom Sito, Writer : 

One of the things that was lost was the great 

period of Disney experimentation -- 

The first five Disney features is known 

in The Business as "The Big Five." 

And "The Big Five" is 

Snow White, Pinocchio, 

Fantasia, Bambi, and Dumbo. 

Now, if you look at those films individually 

they don't look anything like one another -- 

When you talk about 'The Disney style', 

there was no Disney style back then. 

Pinocchio looks nothing like Bambi. 

Bambi looks nothing like Dumbo.

Neal Gabler, Biographer : 

The paradise that Disney had at 

Hyperion and into the early days of

The Burbank Studio is gone. 

And with that paradise lost, 

the sense of the animations 

and The Greatness 

of the animations is also lost -- 

It's never going to be the same.