Date: Fri 11-Oct-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: DONNAM

Illustration: C

Location: A10

Quick Words:

Playing-Hunchback-Disney-Dame

Full Text:

(rev "Hunchback of Notre Dame" for Now Playing, 10/11/96)

Now Playing-

`Hunchback' Merits A PG (Not G) Rating

By Trey Paul Alexander III

In this day and age, it has become nearly impossible to evaluate a film on

merit alone. All sorts of peripheral issues - weekend box office, marketing

costs, production budgets, merchandising strategies, star salaries, etc - have

pushed themselves so brazenly to the forefront, helped immensely by

ever-expanding media coverage, that public opinion on a movie can be fixed

before even one reel of film unspools at your local cinema. The Hunchback of

Notre Dame , opening at the Edmond Town Hall theater on October 11, is a

victim of this climate, but it also brought many of its travails upon itself.

Before lambasting Disney, which has taken many hits from conservative circles

for what has been perceived to be a disengagement from wholesome fare, let me

say up front that Hunchback is the most emotionally engaging animated movie

since Academy Award Best Picture nominee Beauty and the Beast (which stands as

the best Disney film of the modern era). Disney's 1996 re-telling of the

Victor Hugo novel has much in common with the 1939 black-and-white screen

adaptation, and its rhythms, even the sweep and grandeur of certain scenes,

parallel the sensibilities of that noted movie classic starring Charles

Laughton.

But Disney miscalculated by marketing Hunchback just like all its other films,

thus implying that this motion picture is cut from the same stock. It's not.

Despite all the trinkets and tie-ins at Burger King and the plush dolls

appearing in toy stores everywhere, Hunchback is not typical kiddie fare, and

Disney faulted, and arguably undermined their own film, by leading moviegoers

to believe it to be.

In the film, Notre Dame's bell ringer, the deformed outsider Quasimodo (voiced

by Tom Hulce), longs to join the throng of people scurrying about on the Paris

streets. He becomes enchanted by a sultry Gypsy dancer, Esmeralda (Demi

Moore), who displays a wealth of spunk and shows him kindness when others only

offer fear. But Quasimodo's protector, Judge Claude Frollo (Tony Jay) frowns

upon his charge's whims to leave the cathedral and, as an anti-Gypsy official

of Paris, also resents the nomadic presence in the city, though his

preoccupation with Esmeralda may stem from more than bureaucratic business.

Hunchback features a dashing hero (Phoebus, captain of the guard, voiced

smashingly by Kevin Kline); comical talking gargoyles, and plenty of witty

banter, but on the whole it is not your average cartoon film. It is a richly

animated tale that boasts subtext, while not quite as bold as Hugo's original

1831 drama, as layered and textured as the exquisite drawings on screen: the

narrative covers such topics as prejudice, social corruption, hypocrisy, lust

and even features a motif about outcasts which, though not overt, could be

read to signify anthems proclaimed by the gay and lesbian community... but I'm

not even going to go there.

In other words, Hunchback has no business masquerading as a G-rated movie. It

should have been tagged with a PG, making all the discussions about its

appropriateness for little ones more of a moot point. A major reason why the

film stumbled at the box office (if one can call grossing $100 million a

stumble) is the backlash from parents who were appalled to have brought their

children to the Disney offering. I sympathize with their plight - Hunchback is

not for young kids - but fear the film's sophistication and ambitious

storytelling have been drowned out by the outcry of movie patrons caught

unaware by its content. A PG rating and truthful marketing might have

vindicated this film and allowed audiences to see it for the artistic triumph

it ultimately is.