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