THEn few, at the time, would have given a snow-white a chance. And the snow princess of Frozen it had been relegated to a shelf, in one of those folders labeled “pending projects”. The fate of characters always hangs by a thread, even more so the fate of cartoons, and infinitely more so if the cartoon is female. “You have no idea how difficult it is to be a woman who looks like I have,” Jessica Rabbit admitted.
Jennifer Lee, CCO, Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios, the first woman to hold the role of boss of the creative department in the House of Mouse, and who was the screenwriter and director of Frozen, the highest grossing film in the history of animation, is working on a new chapter in the history of ria of two-dimensional heroines.
Wisha Christmas film just released in cinemas, is set a stone’s throw from us, in an imaginary Mediterranean world – Rosas, fantastic land in the Iberian Peninsula – meeting of many civilizations. The name says it all, the young protagonist is called Asha, the grandparents Sabino and Sakina, the Magnificent King, Queen Amaya, Valentino the goat. A Spanish-Italian-Arabic mix to tell the most American of stories. Wish, that is “desire”, talks about what we three-dimensional beings do every day (and which animated films do not fail to record, “dreams are desires” sang Cinderella).
In Rosas, the kingdom of desires, where Asha lives, crowds come from all over the world to express them. But the happy ending, which is for the few and not very ambitious, is at the discretion of the sovereign, Magnificor, true guardian of banality when it comes to realizing the dreams of his subjects. But Asha will express one that is too important for jurisdictional issues to contain it. And, like Elsa, the protagonist of Frozen, she too manages on her own.
Wish, goodbye to Prince Charming
Jennifer Lee, already in Frozen she had gotten rid of Prince Charming. And here too there seems to be no man running to the heroine’s rescue. What happened to the Disney tradition?
Frozen was a regenerating chapter for Disney, we have diversified a lot since I became Cco: we started telling stories of the people of the world from the point of view of the people of the world. And the stories have become more sophisticated and interesting. For Wish I wanted a heroine who didn’t have all the answers from the start. Asha is an idealist, for her life is a journey yet to be traveled, the film is a coming-of-age story. Today the public is very sophisticated, children see many different things, they want to feel that the characters fit into their lives. And as much as I like the idea of eternal, saving love, I know there’s so much more to life.
In fact you have to deal with a generation that has seen South Park, the Simpsons and loves Miyazaki.
Audiences between 18 and 35 have seen it all, they are the hardest to surprise, but they appreciate complex characters. Children, on the other hand, see things with a clarity that we do not know. When they watch Wish they will say it is a story about the power of wishes. While an adult will tell you: «she reminded me of me and my sister».
From Cinderella And Sleeping Beautypassing through Ariel della MermaidPocahontas, Mulan, the female characters have evolved incredibly.
Cinderella was very important to me growing up. And I was a little girl when it came out The little Mermaid. I remember feeling like Ariel: I was going to college, discovering the world, leaving my family for the first time, creating my new identity. Ariel also discovers the world, putting legs in place of a tail, a very strong symbolic change.
When I was alone at home I sang songs from the film, it was a great motivation for me. And then there was Rapunzel: she’s the one who made Frozen possible. The first princess in CGI (computer generated images, ed.), a fun and contemporary voice. And it was thanks to that success that the Snow Queen, which had been forgotten, became part of the possible projects again. When they asked me to bring it back to life I felt great joy and a sense of freedom.
Jennifer Lee, 53, director and producer, won an Oscar in 2014 for Frozen. (Photo by Belinda Jiao/Getty Images)
Her path recalls that of heroines who dream and desire: she was recruited by Disney with an 8-week contract, she stayed for 12 years and had a pretty good career.
And now I encourage other women to join the team. There is a noticeable difference when more women are around the discussion table. When I started, I was often the only one in the room. Someone said that if there is only one woman no one will listen to her, and I had to raise my voice to be heard. Two women are sometimes thrown at each other, but with three women the conversation starts.
Is three the magic number?
Three and all numbers greater than three. It was my goal right from the start. Getting more women into the room and into leadership roles. Now at Disney we have 4 women on the directing team, 5 if you include me. And the environment is among the most representative of minorities. In this way the points of view are multiplied.
She trained in fiction cinema. Which female characters from the golden age of Hollywood inspired you?
Rosalind Russell the protagonist of The Lady Friday. All characters played by Katharine Hepburn. And then the protagonists of the cinema of the 70s, of films like Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep. Three-dimensional women and characters, strong and vulnerable together. Then there’s Emma Thompson: Sense and Sensibility is a film that inspired me. In Frozen I had in mind the relationship between those two sisters.
You have a twenty-year-old daughter: are the references and challenges different compared to your twenties?
I’ve always been a girl who had ideas, but thought they weren’t worth putting out into the world. Today I tell my daughter: all the things that come to mind at this moment in life are clues to what you will do tomorrow. If I didn’t love physics, I wouldn’t have come up with the idea for Wish. That is the age when the world reveals itself for what it is, and it is almost never an ideal world. Seeing my daughter fight to enter the adult community, carving out her own role, makes me think of myself in that period. And to the meaning of my work: because we say that there is no need to be perfect, even mistakes and missteps are important. Feeling unesteemed is something I know well. I like the characters who fight against this enemy.
With Wish Disney returns to the cinema
For this film you made the choice of cinemascope (large format, little used today), an important signal: you bet on cinema and not on the platform, given the decisions made during the pandemic.
Cinemascope was the format of Sleeping Beauty, let’s go back to our origins. I’m happy that Disney+ was there during the pandemic because it helped many. But there’s nothing like cinema. For me, cinema is the place where you escape, leave everything outside the door and let your imagination carry you away. Wish will have a long life at the cinema, she will not go to the platform immediately.
Disney usually stays away from politics as much as possible, but the kingdom of Wish it looks a lot like a totalitarian regime and Magnifico like a dictator. How do you deal with the present when you conceive a story?
We try to create stories that are timeless, that are relevant to us now but that endure for a long time. There is nothing in Magnifico that resembles any of the actors of the present. We are not here to say: all societies are like this or all leaders are like this. But, mark my words, the king has a queen and the choices the queen makes will be totally new. No person in power has ever acted the way you will.
She has Italian origins, her surname is Rebecchi, Lee was her mother’s surname.
My ancestors arrived in New England in the 19th century from Scafati, a small town east of Naples. In Rhode Island where I come from there is a large Italian community. Many Italian Americans were mistreated at the time, so some chose to abandon their Italian to better integrate. My father did it. I tried to learn the language without much success, but my husband (the magnificent actor Alfred Molina, ed.) speaks it, he is Italian too.
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