While, of course, we love the main characters of our favorite films, often truly great characters and performances end up unnoticed, unremembered, or under appreciated simply because the characters were supporting, relegated to the background, or deemed less than perfect per society’s norms of the time.
With this concurrent Twitter challenge and blogathon, we hope to celebrate the bridesmaids instead of the brides, small parts with big heart, and the characters who are way too familiar with the background and the friend zone.
Follow along on Twitter or Instagram! #BridesmaidChallenge2019
Celebrating Cinderella — A Magical Night at the Library of Congress
Posted on June 21, 2019 at 8:45 am
WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 20: Cinderella attends Disney’s “Cinderella” Library f Congress National Film Registry Ball at The Library of Congress on June 20, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images for Disney)
Last night was truly magical, a celebration of one of Disney’s classic animated films, “Cinderella,” as it was added to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. Cinderella was there in person, of course, introduced by a courtier and welcomed by Dr. Carla Hayden, 14th Librarian of Congress, who presented the film’s official certificate that inducted CINDERELLA into the National Film Registry to Mary Walsh, Managing Director of the Animation Research Library at Walt Disney Animation Studios.
WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 20: (L-R) Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden, Cinderella, and Mary Walsh, Managing Director of the Disney Animation Research Library, attend Disney’s “Cinderella” Library of Congress National Film Registry Ball at The Library of Congress on June 20, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images for Disney)
Attendees included members of Congress, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington, and other notable D.C. area tastemakers and influencers. (That means me!) It was a thrill to see the film on a full-size screen, with an audience that included so many children and so many girls and women in ballgowns and tiaras. The Library of Congress had a spectacular array of their Cinderella-related treasures, from the original songs with hand-lettered lyrics that were submitted for copyright registration, including some that never made it into the film, to a fascinating collection of different versions of the Cinderella story going back literally thousands of years. They also had a set of the original lobby cards with pictures from the film and a flier with all of the products and tie-ins from the movie’s original release, with costumes, shoes, and even cleaning products. There were a number of photo opportunities and my favorite was a real-life Prince Charming in a booth filled with glass slippers, who was there to help the ladies and girls see if their feet would fit.
The new Signature series DVD/Blu-Ray release features a brand-new commentary track showing how Walt Disney and the filmmakers made comments and revisions as the film was being created. Stay tuned for my interview with Ms. Walsh about the film’s history, coming soon on thecredits.org.
Every other Sunday, Kam and I will take one older movie and talk about what it meant in its time and what it might mean today. Older in this context might mean anything made between 1895 (the Lumière brothers’ Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat? Two thumbs up!) and, say, the last year of the 20th century (does David Cronenberg’s Existenz hold up as a vision of the future of virtual reality?). The idea is not to plod chronologically through film history but to treat it as a mysterious storage chest with endless drawers to open, so we’ll skip from era to era and genre to genre, following our instincts and curiosity as well as whatever parallels we find in the movies and headlines of the present day.
