Popular Culture Review Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1994 | Page 30

28 ^Pogular^Cult^^ Disney shifts Baloo from frame left to frame right repeatedly, thus cinematically creating the feeling of chaos, which is the antithesis of the previous frames when Mowgli and Baloo move languidly and loving ly toward frame right. Similarly, the monkeys enjoy their initial triumph over Baloo, who lies sprawling at the bottom of a cliff, by later tossing their captive Mowgli to the left and towards their home, the lawless jungle. By the same token, Baloo and Bagheera move deliberately toward the left as they enter the ancient ruins to rescue Mowgli. Once there, chaos reigns as Mowgli goes from monkey to rescuer to monkey and then again to rescuer until Bagheera finally grabs the man-cub from the clutches of the monkeys and makes a break for the right of the frame toward civilization. Before Baloo also escapes, he channels a blow from a pillar to Louie, who is powerfully shoved to the left of the frame, where his ruins topple around him. Thus, movement in this scene punctuates the monkeys' ultimately uncivilized and anarchic nature. Finally, Disney denigrates the monkeys by visually exploiting the vertical relationships in the frame. Characters placed in the top third of the frame tend to imply dominance over characters in the middle and lower parts of the frame (Giannetti 44). Thus, in the first shot, the monkeys are hovering threateningly over Mowgli and Baloo, their very position implying trouble. Then one monkey sweeps down from the top center of the frame to kidnap Mowgli, and another similarly descends to perch on top of Baloo, who is so relaxed floating down the river that he is unaware of Mowgli's disappearance. The latter monkey looms over Baloo ominously, assuming dominance over him in the frame. This pattern of vertical dominance is repeated throughout several of the ensuing scenes as well. For example, when Baloo asks Mowgli, now replaced by one of the monkeys, to shoo a fly from his nose, the monkey strikes him from above with what appears to be an inch-thick, one-foot-long branch. Startled, Baloo lool^ up and yells, and, as the agitated bear grabs for his antagonist, the monkey is lifted by his tail to yet higher and cinematically even more threatening heights. By the same token, Baloo is often left prone in the bottom of the frame. For instance, when Baloo, seeking to grab Mowgli, is tricked into running head-on into a tree, Baloo dizzily dances around until he collapses onto the jungle floor, the lowest and most vulnerable section of the frame. Next, he is bombarded from above with coconuts.