The affinity between movies and fairy tale runs deep. From the earliest Méliès tableaux and American "trick" films, filmmakers played with the medium's magical powers, summoning up the invisible world of fairies and goblins, and having them pass through walls and doors as if robed in an enchanter's cloak of invisibility. As Vachel Lindsay wrote in 1915, The camera has a kind of Hallowe'en witch power." But the affinity goes deeper than magic.Like the fairy tale, movies work with stock figures and archetypes, paradigmatic events that often suggest deep metaphoric meaning. There is something primal about fantasy films: they are the ones we are taken to first, and help define our expectations of what movies are. Like a good jinn or fairy godmother, the stories offer wealth, comfortable living, and an ideal partner as rewards for surviving harrowing adventures.Like the fairy tale, too, cinema often comes under attack as filled with foolish fantasies, shallow dreams, and lazy solutions. It's easy to focus on the shortcomings in each: the misogyny, the violence, the audience pandering. For this reason, I've chosen some movies which I hope reveal a different side of féerie on film: its capacity to face up to real-life difficulties and deal with them imaginatively; to create a climate for speculation.I have thrown the net wide, choosing not only film versions of Perrault, the Grimms, and Arabian Nights, but also more up-to-date wonder stories. Fairy tales continue to be invented. Some fairy tale moderns like Angela Carter and Dennis Potter rework classical characters and formulas; others like Svankmajer and De Sica create new kinds of fairy wonders in original environments. But they all revive the vitality of the oral tradition, drawing on ancient, popular material, and stirring new ingredients into the brew.Fairy tales are stories to think with, and they do so through funny, shivery, wondrous glimpses of dream characters. As Walter Benjamin wrote, "The wisest thing-so the fairy tale taught mankind in olden times, and teaches children to this day-is to meet the forces of the mythical world with cunning and with high spirits."-Russell MerrittRussell Merritt has been a visiting professor at UC Berkeley and Stanford University. He is co-author, with J. B. Kaufman, of the award-winning book Walt in Wonderland, and of a book in progress on the Silly Symphonies.Thursday June 5, 1997 This project is made possible through the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund Museum Collections Accessibility Initiative.
