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Ehren Kruger

Dumbo – Celebrating Our Flaws

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Dumbo is the latest Disney animated classic to be remade as a live action film. The original, a 64-minute feature film from 1941, can be visually identified by most people, but I wonder how many have actually seen it in its brief entirety. Now the story comes back to life in an expanded adaptation under the direction of Tim Burton—a master in telling stories about outsiders. And outsiders abound in this new version.

Like the original, the plot revolves around a baby elephant with amazingly large ears that enable it to fly with the help of a feather. And as in the original, the baby’s mother is locked away as a “mad elephant” after protecting her child, leaving the baby alone in the world. Unlike the original, there are no talking animals in this retelling. No crows (which in the original were something of a black-face minstrel show) or Timothy Q. Mouse, Dumbo’s mentor.

Instead, the remake builds a human story around Dumbo. The story is set in 1919, right after the end of World War I. A run-down circus, presided over by Max Medici (Danny DeVito) is setting off on a new season. Two children, Milly and Joe Farrier (Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins) have lost their mother to the flu. When their father Holt (Collin Farrell) returns from the war, he has lost an arm. He can no longer do the riding and roping that was his act. He is relegated to caring for the animals, which brings him into contact with Dumbo. (Actually, the animal’s name is Jumbo Jr., but because of his freakish ears, people yell Dumbo instead of Jumbo.) When another trainer is cruel to Mrs. Jumbo, Dumbo’s mother, she attacks him and ends up (as in the original) locked away. Meanwhile, Milly and Joe take care of the baby and discover that his ears give him the ability to fly.

Already we can see that the film is about families struggling with brokenness. Mrs. Jumbo and Dumbo are separated. (The film includes its version of the sorrowful nighttime visit of Dumbo to his mother with the song “Baby Mine” from the original.) The Farrier family is without a mother, and Holt is without an arm. And the circus as a whole serves as a family, but one going through very hard economic times. Each version of family is in need of healing, acceptance, and a future.

When word of a flying elephant gets out, it attracts the attention of V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton) a slick promoter with arm decoration Collette Marchant (Eva Green) who swoops in to buy up the circus. He offers Max the vision of the big time, and the chance to take care of all his people—his family. He plans to bring Dumbo and the others to his new extravaganza park, Dreamland, where he will use the act to leverage new loans from banker J. Griffin Remington (Alan Arkin).

I found the vision of Dreamland interestingly similar to Disneyland, which seems like a small nip at the hand that feeds, given that Dreamland turns into a nightmare for everyone we care about in the film.

Getting back to the common Tim Burton theme of outsiders, each of the main characters fits such a category. Dumbo with his grotesque ears, Holt as a rider/roper with only one arm, Milly, a girl who wants to be a scientist, Joe, who loves the circus but is talentless, the whole range of strange circus performers, and Collette, a talented aerialist, who Vandevere treats as a toy. By making the physical or emotional flaws of each character so obvious, it ironically allows us to get beyond the surface to emotionally bond with each as they struggle for acceptance and search for happiness. That is one of the gifts that Burton brings to many of his films. He reminds us that humanity is not about perfection, but about the way all those flaws are what make us human.

I’ve been critical of Disney’s remaking animated classics as live action films. As with any endeavor, some will be better than others. My first reaction to the news that Dumbo was being remade was negative. After all, those animated classics were beloved because they told human stories in ways that touched us. However, Burton, screenwriter Ehren Kruger, and everyone else involved created a new depth to the story and all its emotional touch points. It becomes more than a story of separation and reunion. It is a story about the healing and enabling power of family. It is not about overcoming our flaws, but about making those flaws work for us and allowing us to soar.

Photos courtesy of Walt Disney Studios

Dumbo Filmmakers Meet the Press

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The filmmakers and actors from Disney’s upcoming live action Dumbo recently met with the press in a press conference format. This report is some gleanings from the two press conferences. The first included Grae Drake (Moderator), Derek Frey (Producer). Katterli Frauenfelder (Producer), Rick Heinrichs (Production Designer), Colleen Atwood (Costume Designer), Danny Elfman (Music by), Ehren Kruger (Screenplay & Producer), Justin Springer (Producer). The second session included Grae Drake (Moderator), Tim Burton (Director & Executive Producer), Colin Farrell (Holt Farrier), Nico Parker (Milly Farrier), Finley Hobbins (Joe Farrier), Eva Green (Colette Marchant), Danny DeVito (Max Medici), Michael Keaton (V. A. Vandevere).

Among the questions dealt with in a variety of ways: why do a retelling of the classic Disney animated film now?

DEREK FREY: In terms of the time, so much time has gone by since the original. And it’s a simple story. It’s a beautiful story. And I think a lot of the themes in the story that Ehren created, they’re universal things. It’s about family. It’s about believing in yourself. It’s about overcoming judgment and people looking at you in a certain way. Dumbo is kind of a bullied character. I know that’s something that we’re dealing with socially right now.

TIM BURTON: I just liked, it was just the idea of it. The idea of a flying elephant and the character that doesn’t quite fit into the world and how somebody with a disadvantage makes it an advantage. So it just felt very close to the way I felt about things. It was just a very pure simple image. Like all the old Disney fables had that kind of simple symbolism for real emotions.

In a somewhat related question, the second panel was asked similarities between Dumbo and his mother and the situation of children separated from parents at the border with Mexico.

TIM BURTON:  I think any family situation, but every family is different. I’m different. For me, I wish I had been separated from my parents. But that’s a different story. [Laughter]. But you know, most people would go yeah. You don’t want to separate anybody from your parents. Except me. But that’s fine. So I don’t think about. I think about things more in a spiritual simple way. There is news. I listen to the news and everything. But I always take things from a more like, I try to anyway, a human point of view that way. And because it’s like a fable. And all great fables tap into things that are true about today in human nature and other things. But it’s not literal. And all these people, it’s a period movie, it’s a fable. It touches on all of these things. But we try not to make it like ripped from today’s headlines, you know.

DANNY DEVITO:  The movie was made in 1941. And in 1941, if you remember the movie, 63 minute Disney movie masterpiece from that era, the baby was separated from his mom. So I don’t think it has anything to do with this unfortunate, horrifying thing that’s going on in our current news.

MICHAEL KEATON:  Two separate things. But I’m just going to say this. Thanks for bringing it up. Keep it in the consciousness. Because it’s criminal, it’s cruel, and I don’t think it borders on child abuse. I think it does. It is. [Applause].

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – MARCH 10: (L-R) Director/executive producer Tim Burton, actors Colin Farrell, Nico Parker, Finley Hobbins, Eva Green, Danny DeVito and Michael Keaton speak onstage during the “Dumbo” Global Press Conference at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 10, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)

There were also some questions about the changes made to the story, what was kept, and what was added.

EHREN KRUGER:  Yeah. I wanted to be a part of this movie for I think the same reasons that I hope an audience wants to see the movie that for me is a very personal experience of wish fulfillment. Dumbo is not just a Disney character. He’s a mythological character. And I wish he were real. I wish I could have been in the audience of that circus in the golden age of the circus and observe his story. And then to take the next step, not just observe his story, but imagine what it’s like to be Dumbo. And that leads you to a place where you say what would Dumbo want and is the end of the 1941 film truly a satisfying end for Dumbo of that story? And so that just organically led to expanding the story past where the animated film ends.

We made the decision that we wanted to transport an audience to a circus world, to Dumbo’s circus world. And they go and enter the circus. And that meant that it needed to feel real. So early on, we made a decision to not feature talking animals. And that the most important characters in the animated film, Dumbo, doesn’t speak. Mrs. Jumbo I think has one or two lines and that’s it. So that felt organic to the story to let Dumbo be a classic Charlie Chaplin Buster Keaton-esque expressive silent film performer. And make the circus around him feel real. So there are moments when we thought well, wouldn’t it be nice to have Timothy Q Mouse talk? He’s so cute. And we just don’t want to break the spell of where we were asking the audience to go to time travel with us to.

TIM BURTON:  I just like the fact that it’s obviously a very simple fable, very simple story. And it’s heart, about family. And what I liked about it was the human parallel story. This character Holy who comes back from a war. He doesn’t have an arm. He doesn’t have a wife. He doesn’t have a job. Doesn’t have a you know. He’s trying to find his place in the world. And all of the characters actually are in that way. Nico’s character. They wanted to be something. She wants to be something else. Every character in it. Eva is not… everybody is trying to find their place in the world. Like Dumbo. And using disadvantage to advantage. So lots of nice themes. But in a very simple framework.

There was also discussion of incorporating various images and ideas from the original film.

EHREN KRUGER:  Yeah. I just thought about things that I associated so strongly with the story. Pink Elephants, Casey Jr., Firefighting Clowns. And these were all things without going back and watching the 1941 film.

DANNY ELFMAN:  We all have firefighting clowns in our past somewhere. If we look at our own lives. I find.

EHREN KRUGER:  In your band. Yes. Yes. You had firefighting clowns. Just the things that I remember. It’s kind of like Danny talks about. Zeitgeist memories or things in the back of your head. I remember that moment. I remember that image. And of course, in writing the film, I went back and revisited the animated movie a number of times. But I really tried to get to that place of what are the core things that I associate with this? What are the simple things I associate with this story? And those have to be there?

JUSTIN SPRINGER:  Yeah. I think that kind of covers it. It’s not as if you sit down and make a list of all the things that we feel like we’re beholden to include. It’s really just you start from your own fandom and your own respect from the original and you just start to derive a story out of the stuff that feels like it’s in the essence of the movie. And those can be set pieces or visual imagery or fun little Easter eggs even or ways that music might eventually get used if you just put it on the page now and there’s lots of people who will take those ideas that are on the page and turn it into beautiful sets or costumes or music. Those things. But also just in the story, what’s in the DNA of that core story that feels like it’s allowed it to have this lasting impact for 80 years. If you have that foundation, then you can take the story in all sorts of directions. We can expand out and tell a broader human story. We can see where Dumbo goes after, he flies and what the impact on the world ultimately becomes. But it all kind of comes back to what are those original elements both visual but also in the story and then the themes that feel like are core to the original movie.

EHREN KRUGER:  And really quickly. I like to feel like you can, like these movies run on parallel train tracks. So that you can imagine that Dumbo’s conversations with Timothy Mouse are happening off screen in between scenes of this movie. Just wanted to honor the original.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – MARCH 10: (L-R) Moderator Grae Drake, producers Derek Frey, Katterli Frauenfelder, production designer Rick Heinrichs, costume designer Colleen Atwood, composer Danny Elfman, screenwriter/producer Ehren Kruger and producer Justin Springer onstage during the “Dumbo” Global Press Conference at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 10, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)

A question was brought up about what they wanted children to take away from this film.

COLIN FARRELL:  The same thing adults take away from the importance of not just accepting the inherent difference that people have from each other in relation to each other but celebrating it. I think just as Tim was saying, there are simple messages that are very complex it seems to live in as we go through our lives. And those messages are messages of kindness and inclusion and all those kind of things. So that will be cool. Or else if they’re just entertained for a couple of hours and take that as well.

TIM BURTON:  But also with just like the Disney movies. For me, the reason I wanted to do it was like the old Disney movies had all these elements. They had joy. They had humor. They had… [Laughter.] Okay. Let’s go nine rounds. So what was I talking about?

GRAE DRAKE:  Joy.

TIM BURTON:  Well, death. You know. Everything. Stuff that are taboo subjects.

COLIN FARRELL:  You skipped so deftly from joy and humor to death.

TIM BURTON:  Did I emphasize that one too much?

GRAE DRAKE:  Two sides of the same coin.

TIM BURTON:  But we always had the mixture of those things. So like Colin was just saying. We tried to present these things without overdoing it. And in a fable like way. But then let it present itself and not just sort of dictate it and just show these people for what they’re going through and who they are.