Top 15 Disney films I grew up with, #11

I forgot last week!!! And I haven't written the next one yet!! But here it is!

#11: The Sword in the Stone (1963)

Critically speaking, The Sword in the Stone, based on the 1938 T. H. White novel of the same name, ought to be way lower down on the list. But nostalgically and sentimentally speaking, it’s one of my favourites. I don’t even like the movie as a whole. Parts of it are flat out boring, and in lieu of other Disney movies from the 60s to the 80s, the production standard is far below that of Disney’s golden years. Also, obviously, I have the whole “this is historically inaccurate because Arthur wouldn’t know what tea is” pedantic angle on this film, but it’s based on mythological rather than historical events, so I can forgive it, as I forgive the likes of Robin Hood. Nothing in this film is actually very noteworthy at all apart from Merlin and Archimedes.

            The main character is of course King Arthur, at the time a twelve-year-old pageboy acting as your run-of-the-mill incredulous orphaned everyman protagonist who turns out to be the chosen one. Yes, yes, very original. Anyway, so he pretty much falls into the cottage of the wizard Merlin in the woods, and the wizard apparently wants to be his tutor, for no apparent reason. Oh, yeah, and there’s a sword in a stone, which is explained by Disney’s beloved picture book exposition at the beginning, before being completely ignored for the rest of the movie while Arthur … learns … things … before finding it by chance while visiting London at the very end. It ends on less upbeat note than you would expect, with Arthur just sitting on a throne in an empty palace, sheltering from the paparazzi and accepting the rather daunting burden of being a twelve-year-old king.

            And yet, I adore this movie. It’s more of a fun lesson about life that goes surprisingly deep with the philosophy than the action-packed save-the-day adventure we usually see in a work of fantasy. The best adjective I can give this movie is “adorable”, and I mean it in the least patronising way.

            Merlin is the kind of teacher I’ve always wished I had. Nay, the friend I’ve always wanted. He’s got a crazy, awkward, airheaded side to him that shows he’s really not much of a people person, but he’s got magic. And some of the most useful magic I’ve ever seen in a Disney movie. The packing scene – “pockety wockety wockety wack!” – is one of my favourites of any movie, ever. As is Merlin’s battle with a witch (one of the four or five villains) and his battle with the well at the beginning: “A Dark age indeed! No plumbing! No electricity! No nothing!” Merlin’s anachronistic references, his lapses of senility, his bursts of outrage and his tendency to turn himself and Arthur into animals in order to teach stuff, make him Disney’s best old man (and don’t say Rafiki is – he’s a monkey). The running gag of his long beard getting caught on things is enough to make anyone laugh. Merlin is perfectly complemented by Archimedes, his “highly educated owl”, with whom he seems to have spent far too much time to the point where all of their lines could be just as easily spoken by an old married couple.

            Though it might be one of the more flawed and less innovative of the Disney films, I love it. The giddy ingenuousness of the animation, the voice-acting and the music are infectious, yet interwoven with a didactic coming-of-age story about the real world and the intellect and courage required to get through it. The hours I spent watching and re-watching The Sword in the Stone were definitely some of the best hours.

(image source: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6xay4PRrl1rqejf5o1_500.jpg)