Today Disney posted on Facebook the scene from Up where Carl looks through Ellie’s adventure book. It may never be possible for me to watch that scene without crying, even now just remembering it I’ve got the sensation behind my eyes caused by the tear ducts gearing up for another run. That scene is Good, with a capital G, because it captures so much in so very little.
With every subsequent viewing though, I’m able to soak in more. The first time it is of course only the emotion, the story, the narrative that sweeps me up. The strength of the scene is how that will never fade away. But the other viewings allow me to peer further into the scene, into the details. The joy of a Pixar film is that all the layers are there, so carefully crafted.
Pete Docter was on NPR’s Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me a few weeks ago, and he spoke of how they had meetings to design all the badges on Russell’s uniform – every badge has a reason and a specific design (don’t believe it – check out the designs here). The host asked if anyone ever stops those meetings and says – “Hold up, THIS DOESN”T MATTER, no one is ever going to notice!” and Docter replied, that no, they never worry about that, because they make the movies for themselves, and they do care.
Watching this scene again, this becomes so clear. As Carl flips through Ellie’s adventure book, he sees pictures that she’s added. The scene is monumental first [SPOILER] because he always thought he failed her, that she had wanted a life filled with adventure but had never had any. But the pictures reveal that she was happy – that their time together was an adventure.
But the power of the scene is enhanced by the photos that he looks at. I fear to think how this scene would have looked from any other animation studio – pictures from “decades” ago would be the same colors and vibrancy of the world that the character currently inhabits. Pixar doesn’t do this. Each image looks like it was taken with a camera from the time period it is supposed to represent. The grain on the photos, the coloration, everything is carefully designed so that the album feels real, almost as if we are turning physical pages in our hands. Just look:
I imagine if you know anything about film cameras you can just about identify what camera they were modeling in each image. I don’t know much, but I can see the difference.
What struck me though, and this is the real point of this long post, is how these small details make such a big difference in helping the scene rise above sentimentality. Pixar movies are often praised for their ability to deal with big emotions without delving into sentimentalism – the cheesiness we associate with Hollywood (think “Romantic Comedies”).
The root of Pixar’s ability to stay away from sentimentalism is it’s concern for Story as first, second, and third priorities when crafting a film. But I think a great deal of it is their desire to focus on the details and worry about the little things. Sentimentalism is the cheapening of emotion – love as a mushy feeling rather than love as something that is wonderful but hard, epiphanies as easy to gain insights that feel important rather than hard earned wisdom.
Sentimentalism is widespread in our culture because it is easy. Rising above sentimentalism, conversely, is hard, because it requires wisdom, hard work, avoiding easy the definitions of emotions, and most of all, taking emotions seriously.
Check out the last two pictures above. Notice the way the light plays on the characters. In the picture of Carl and Ellie on the hill, their heads glow from the sun and the balloons are barely visible in front of the bright sky. In the second photo, the edges of the windows curl in softly because of the bright sunlight, and Ellie’s shoes are slightly lit from the light. In the curtains we see the texture of the photograph, as if it were a physical object on the page.
These details aren’t obvious. If you notice them the first time you watch the film, you’re a very strange person (or perhaps you do computer Animation, in which case, ok). But the details are there, adding a sense of reality and history to this scene that draws us in with real emotion. Because Pixar takes seriously the pictures in Ellie’s adventure book, we are able to take the emotions Carl is “feeling” seriously.
I imagine every scene of every Pixar film has layers like this that we could point to as reasons they are masters at what they do. But this is an encouragement to me to pay attention, to care about what I do. Specifically as I keep working towards making films and crafting narratives, it’s a reminder to pay attention to the little things. No one may ever notice them, but the more fully I pay attention to these details, the more full my worlds will be.