He revolutionized the world of entertainment with his anthropomorphic animal characters, shown in cinema, television and in theme parks. Behind the scenes, however, he was paternalistic and conservative; he did business with the Nazis and participated in the McCarthyite anti-Communist hunt. At the sound of the bell, the cinema columnist Michel Coulombe tells Jacques Beauchamp how Walt Disney risked his fortune to achieve his ambitions.
–
Walt Disney grew up in a believing family that had only two books: the Bible and a collection of stories. As a child, he already made adaptations of these stories.
He hides his age to go to the front during the Great War. It was on his return that he devoted himself to entertainment.
Public screening of a Walt Disney film in 1931.
Photo : Getty Images / Fox Photos
—
A mouse in a boat
The character of Mickey Mouse, his first big success, appeared in 1928 in Steamboat Willie. Disney does the vocals themselves, and the entire soundtrack is recorded live.
According to Michel Coulombe, The three little pigs (1933) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) marked turning points in the history of cinema.
The song Who’s afraid of big bad wolf, it will be a success as big as the movie [Les trois petits cochons]. […] It is 1933, and this wolf which threatens the first little pig, the second little pig, it is this Great Depression that will not defeat us.
Disneyland in 1955
Photo : Getty Images / Keystone
—
The wonderful world of McCarthy
Walt Disney sees the labor dispute in his company as betrayal. He takes revenge against his instigators by denouncing them as communists before the McCarthy commission.
After a period of withdrawal, he launched Disneyland, a theme park combining his love of animals and trains, and he shot television shows as well as live-action movies.
During this program, Michel Coulombe dissects the legend that Walt Disney’s body was preserved by cryogenics when he died in 1966.
–
