Brisbane Festival and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art present two classic adaptations of Snow White — the silent live-action film Snow White 1916 directed by J Searle Dawley and the animated feature it inspired, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937 produced by Walt Disney.
These beautifully restored films re-imagine the famed German fairy tale which has captured the imagination of multiple generations since its publication in a collection of folk tales by the Brothers Grimm in 1812.
Walt Disney was inspired to create his timeless masterpiece Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937 after seeing the playful silent film as a boy, declaring years later ‘I thought it was the perfect story… It had the sympathetic dwarfs… the heavy… the prince and the girl. The romance… the perfect story.’
Thought lost for many years, the silent Snow White was discovered in 1992 and lovingly restored by the George Eastman House film archive. A cheeky, whimsical production, Snow White — presented here with live musical accompaniment —captures the elements that audiences know and love: the beautiful princess, her wicked stepmother, the playful dwarfs and the handsome prince who spirits her away to Happily Ever After.
Snow White 1916
Adapted from the highly successful 1912 Broadway production, and incorporating its lavish sets and costumes, Snow White stars Marguerite Clark. One of ‘the big four’ silent movie stars of the time alongside Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, Clark is perfect as the irrepressibly cheerful princess who faces adversity with buoyant enthusiasm. For a young Walt Disney, who first saw the film at a special event screening sponsored by the Kansas City Star for whom he was working, it was a magical experience from which he would draw on over two decades later.
Screens 11am Sunday 11 and 18 September with live musical accompaniment | Ticketed
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was Walt Disney’s first major love letter to the German fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Described at the time by skeptical Hollywood insiders as ‘Disney’s Folly’, Walt Disney’s ambitious animation became the first feature-length animated film in the United States and sparked a deep affection for the genre through generations of film goers. A mammoth undertaking, the animated film comprised of a staggering two million illustrations, created with the help of 32 animators, 102 assistants, 167 “in-betweeners”, 20 layout artists, 25 artists doing water colour backgrounds, 65 effects animators, and 158 inkers and painters. In 1939 Walt Disney was awarded an honorary Oscar for his significant contribution to screen innovation and in 2008 the film was named the ‘Greatest Animated Film of All Time’ by the American Film institute.
Screens 1pm Sunday 11 and 18 September | Ticketed
Snow White | Ticketed
Australian Cinémathèque, Gallery of Modern Art
11 and 18 September 2016
Australian Cinémathèque
GOMA is the only Australian art gallery with purpose-built facilities dedicated to film and the moving image and offers a rare opportunity to see films presented on the big screen as they were intended, and features many 35mm prints sourced from film archives around the world and screened in one of Australia’s last 35mm film venues.
‘Theo Angelopoulos‘ | Free film program
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Shakespeare on Screen | Free film program
22 April – 25 May 2016
Arabian Nights | Free film program
25 – 26 June 2016
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