The King and the Mockingbird

The King and the Mockingbird
Film poster
Directed by	Paul Grimault
Screenplay by	Paul Grimault Jacques Prévert
Based on	The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep by Hans Christian Andersen
Starring	Jean Martin Pascal Mazzotti Raymond Bussières Agnès Viala
Music by	Wojciech Kilar
Cinematography	Gérard Soirant
Edited by	Paul Grimault
Distributed by	Gaumont
Release date	19 March 1980 (1980-03-19) (France)
Running time	63 minutes (1952) 87 minutes (1980) 81 minutes (2003)
Country	France
Language	French

The King and the Mockingbird (French: Le Roi et l'Oiseau, literally The King and the Bird) is a 1980 traditionally animated feature film directed by Paul Grimault. Begun in 1948 as The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep (loosely based on the fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen), the film was a collaboration between Grimault and popular French poet and screenwriter, Jacques Prévert. However the film suddenly stopped production and was released unfinished by its producer in 1952, without the approval of either Grimault or Prévert. Through the course of the 1960s and 1970s, Grimault obtained the rights to the film and was able to complete a new version as they originally intended. It was finished over 30 years after it was started.

The film is today regarded as a masterpiece of French animation and has been cited by the Japanese directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata as an influence. The film has had poor availability in English (although an English dub exists). While the completed version of the film has not been released on home video in North America, it is available for streaming on Amazon Instant and Vudu. The first English-friendly release was made in October 2013 in the United Kingdom;^[1] it was scheduled for wider theatrical release in the UK in 2014,^[2] with DVD sales from April 2014.^[3] Previously, the film had been often shared by animation fans online. A low-budget English-language release of the 1952 version, dubbed The Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird, is in the public domain and available free online. In that version, Peter Ustinov narrates and voices the main role of the bird.

Plot

Chapter 1

The film begins with a desolate landscape and a hill of rubble near the skyline; a bird known only as "L'Oiseau" walks in and addresses the audience and says that it's an honor and privilege to tell you the story you are about to see, and that for once it's absolutely true; the bird then says he knows because he was there and he wasn't alone. As L'Oiseau begins the story, the hill of rubble transforms into a great palace. The bird states he built his nest on top of the roof of the palace that was of the vast kingdom of Takicardia. In those days, the kingdom was ruled by the king with the unwieldy title of Charles V + III = VIII + VIII = XVI, the bird states he wasn't a very good king; a heartless tyrant that hated everyone and was hated in return. He was also lonely and his favorite pastime was hunting; the bird states, "as you can imagine, we weren't the best of friends". Despite his fondness for hunting, the king is unfortunately cross-eyed – not that anyone would dare acknowledge this in front of him, as the numerous statues and paintings that adorn the palace show him with regular eyes.

Several of the king's retainers, nobles, guards, and police (who all bear a resemblance to Thomson and Thompson), are waiting for the king to appear for the hunt. L'Oiseau's wife was revealed to have been killed by the king (one in a million shot), and he now takes pleasure in taunting the terrible king at every opportunity. As horns are blown "for the hunt", the bird flies to the palace (from the grave of his wife), as the king and his dog arrive for the hunt; the king removes his crown and ruler and replaces them with a hunting rifle and hat, as the chief of police (the only one with a goatee) pushes a bird out of a box-cage revealed to be one of L'Oiseau's four children. The king starts shooting and missing to the applause of his sycophantic supporters, just as the bird swoops in and rescues his son; he denounces the king to be a murderer and an awful thug. The king retorts by calling him bird-brain, but the bird retorts back that the king is the bird-brain. L’Oiseau and his son escape as the police attempt to shoot them down.

The king, his dog, and butler reenter the palace and then enter a pod-shaped elevator (exclusively for the king's use), wherein the butler mans the controls. An announcer list out numerous locations that begin on the first floor and up including: cases pending, litigation, treasury, goldsmithery, inland revenue, liquidation, premium bonds, royal family, state prison, summer prison, winter prison, hard labor for young and old, armaments, war office, undersecretary's office in peacetime, armory, fireworks, furs, hosiery, hats, helmets, trumpets, drums, police, lavatories, armed forces, royal printing office, registered post, taxes, solitary confinement, dungeons and catacombs, umbrellas, casino, shooting gallery, war museum, zoo, portraits of ancestors, the king's studio, the king's hostel, the gallows, the royal barber, the royal pedicurist, the king's steam bath and spa, the king's chamber music, and trumpeters. The segment is hilarious because in the original French dubbing, all the things listed rhyme as the announcer says this all without a break in a monotone voice, as well as several of the things listed being ridiculously placed in the palace, ex. the dungeons and catacombs are usually below or beneath a palace; another being some of the items on the list are the same thing or should be listed together, ex. armaments and armory, as well as trumpets and trumpeters. While all of this is happening as the pod approaches its destination, L'Oiseau swoops in and mocks the king by crossing his eyes and laughing as he flies off; the butler alarmed by this accelerates the pod to reach its point quicker, hilariously causing the king's crown to be temporarily stuck on his head.

Chapter 2

The pod arrives at the king's art gallery, wherein the new royal painter is commissioned to create a portrait of the king with his hunting gear; the artist succeeds in painting the king perfectly, however when he's about to paint the eyes he becomes confused over whether to paint it truthfully cross-eyed or untruthfully regular. The king suddenly looks at the artist, causing him to paint the portrait with cross-eyes; the chief of police (who's present) moans, the king moves to look at the painting with the artist and the chief on either side. The king appears to consent to artist's final touch, with the chief stepping aside and the king and the artist walking towards a velvet curtain covering the doorway to the gallery. The king presents the artist with a medal to represent his status as the new royal painter, the artist thanks the king and turns around to walk out; but unbeknownst to the artist, the king has invisible trapdoors built into the floor that lead to imminent death everywhere in the vast palace, with cords or buttons that have a skull on them. Anyone whom the king dislikes or has displeased him even in some small way, has met with this same grim fate. Once the artist walks into the outlined area, the king pulls the cord and the artist (like so many unseen others before him) is never seen again save for his wig that the king kicks like a football to his dog (even tripping over it once). The chief has two of his officers remove the king's portrait to an unknown location as the king and his dog return to the pod to proceed to the next destination.

L'Oiseau arrives back at his nest and reunites his son with his other children; meanwhile, the pod arrives at the 296th (top) floor of the palace which is the king's secret apartment where he and his dog live (and also L’Oiseau’s nest is built on top of the apartment’s roof), the butler drops off the dog but the king being paranoid or just plain evil goes to a small portrait on the wall and pushes a button hidden behind it which opens another trapdoor beneath the doormat, axing off the butler. The king climbs up a set of stairs in the dark arriving at the apartment; a large cube-shaped room with windows, several pieces of furniture, a fireplace, a potted tree that sits in the center of the floor, a piano, a large statue of a man on a horse, the beds of the king and his dog, and the walls are adorned with a collection of the king's favorite pieces of art. The king pours himself a glass of wine and winds up a music-box (that plays a song in the background) and then heads over to the painting of the beautiful Shepherdess and bashfully admires it, he then turns to look at the opposing painting of the handsome Chimney Sweep and frowns, he then turns back to the Shepherdess's painting and smiles again. The king then turns around revealing that the police had his portrait (just recently made) taken to his apartment. The king then takes a paint brush just as the bird flies in and lands on his windowsill; the king takes the brush and fixes the painting to have regular eyes, but just as he admires his handy-work, the bird taps the window gaining the king's attention resulting in the bird crossing his eyes and mockingly laughing at the king before flying off once again. The king sniffs the air then heads over to the mirror looking at his cross-eyed reflection, suddenly the king grabs a candlestick and furiously shatters the mirror into a million pieces!

As daylight dims and becomes night, L'Oiseau sings a booming lullaby to his children as they go to sleep; the lights of the palace are turned off as the song ends, then the bird continues on the same chord with a different verse, now mocking the king in his sleep hoping to give him nightmares as the full moon begins to shine; the police on patrol are angered by the bird's continued tom-foolery. In the king's apartment as the fire in the fireplace still burns bright while the king is tossing and turning in bed, it is revealed that the Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep (along with the Statue of a man on a horse) have come to life. The young lovers talk about their mutual disliking of the king as well as their mutual love for each other. The sleepy Statue (who is also a bit senile) talks about how they are not meant for each other based on his own "experience", as it's revealed that the king's portrait has also come to life as well who listens in on their conversation. The star-crossed lovers reach out of their paintings to hold hands, but the king's dog suddenly wakes up and growls; the Chimney Sweep shushes the dog who goes back to bed. As the Chimney Sweep jumps from his painting to the Shepherdess's, the Portrait King unfurls the cloth covering his painting to the shock of the couple; he declares his love for the Shepherdess but denounces the Chimney Sweep and confirms with the Statue that the king always gets the girl, the Statue confirms this and declares that the Portrait King and the Shepherdess will wed when the clock strikes 12 (right before he returns to sleep), as it is revealed that it's 5 minutes until that time.

The Chimney Sweep hurls a fruit from the Shepherdess's painting at the Portrait King (blinding him), which he then proceeds to take his ladder and use it to help the Shepherdess and himself escape from their paintings. As the couple run to the fireplace, the Statue once again talks from "experience" that they won't go far and that they'll be back; the Portrait King finally clears his eyes only to find them nowhere to be found (the couple being in front of the fireplace where a large arm-couch blocks his view), a woman holding a pitcher of water laughs at the couple's folly only for the Portrait King (who can't find them and thinks the woman is laughing at him) to shoot at her with his rifle but hitting the pitcher instead which spills out and temporarily douses the fire. The Statue is awoken once again and senilely makes shushing noises as the couple uses the Chimney Sweep's ladder to go up the chimney just before the fire comes back. The Portrait King escapes from his painting to find them gone, to which the Statue says from experience that they're gone; just as the clock strikes 12 and begins to chime, the couple find themselves sitting on top of the chimney looking at the star-covered night sky. The Shepherdess says she never thought it would be so beautiful just as a shooting star goes across the sky.

Chapter 3

But they are pursued by a non-cross-eyed painting of the king that also has come to life, deposed the real king and has taken his place. He orders the capture of the shepherdess and the sweep, but the bird is there to help when called upon. Later, the shepherdess and the Chimney sweep find themselves in the lower city, where the inhabitants have never seen the light. Meanwhile, the king summons a robot built for him, and he attacks the village. He takes the shepherdess and captures the chimney sweep, the bird, and a blind organ grinder from the village, putting the organ grinder in a pen of lions and tigers. The King forces the shepherdess to agree to marry him, threatening to kill the chimney sweep if she does not accept. When she does, the King sends the chimney sweep and the bird to paint manufactured sculptures of his head on a conveyor belt. They begin to ruin the sculptures, and are sent to jail, where the lions and tigers have been listening to the organ grinder playing. The bird convinces them to help the shepherdess, saying that her marriage to the King prevents her from tending to the sheep, which the animals eat. The animals break out of the jail and attack the interviewers and king in the chapel. The bird and his sons take control of the robot and start destroying the castle. Once the castle is in rubble, the King attacks the couple, but the robot grabs him and throws him into the distance. Sitting on the ruins of the castle the next morning, the robot sees one of the Bird's sons trapped in a cage. After freeing the bird, the robot smashes the cage, symbolizing the birds' freedom and the movie ends.

Only the early scene in the secret apartment is based on "The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep", while the rest of the movie focuses much more on the king and the bird, hence the ultimate title. In Andersen's tale, the shepherdess and the chimney sweep are china figurines, rather than paintings, and a wooden (mahogany) satyr wishes to wed the shepherdess, supported by a Chinaman, rather than a king and a classical statue. In both tales, the Chinaman/statue breaks, and the duo escape up the chimney, and delight in celestial bodies, but in Andersen's tale the shepherdess is afraid of the wide world and the duo return; this is echoed in the movie where the statue predicts that they will return.

Cast

• Pierre Brasseur (1952 version), Jean Martin (1980 version) as l'oiseau (The Mockingbird), the King's worst enemy whom he constantly taunts. It is implied that the King may have killed his wife. He is the father to four baby chicks.
• Fernand Ledoux (1952 version), Pascal Mazzotti (1980 version) as King Charles V + III = VIII + VIII = XVI, the megalomaniac yet lonely tyrant who is in love with the Shepherdess painting on his wall; and also plays the voice of the Portrait King, who axes off the original king and bears many of his qualities, and hunts after the Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, throughout the palace.
• Anouk Aimée (1952 version), Agnes Viala (1980 version) as the Shepherdess, she is in love with the chimney sweep painting at her right.
• Serge Reggiani (1952 version), Renaud Marx (1980 version) as the Chimney Sweep, he is in love with the shepherdess painting at his left.
• Raymond Bussieres as the Chief of Police, who is fierclely loyal to the King.
• Hubert Deschamps as the sententious, a gigantic automan built by the King to symbolise his power. It seems to have a soul of its own.
• Roger Blin as the blind barrel organ player who hopes for a better world.
• Philippe Derrez as the elevator operator and speaker
• Albert Medina as the Beastmaster and high-howler
• Claude Piéplu as Mayor of the Palace

Production

Originally titled La Bergère et le Ramoneur (The Shepherdess and the Chimneysweep), Grimault and Prévert began the film in 1948 (following their first collaboration, Le Petit soldat (The Little Soldier), also a Hans Christian Andersen adaptation), and it was highly anticipated, but in 1950 the film was taken out of their control, and subsequently the expense of the film caused the failure of the studio (Les Gémeaux). Grimault’s partner André Sarrut (the producer) then released the film unfinished in 1952, against Grimault and Prévert’s wishes, which caused a rift between partners, and they went their separate ways. In 1967, Grimault regained possession of the film, and spent the next decade trying to finance a new version under his supervision. By 1977 he had arranged financing,^[4] and thus the film was completed over the two-year period of 1977–79. In 1980 the finished film was finally released under a new title, Le Roi et l'Oiseau – to make clear the distinction from the earlier version – and shortly after the death of Prévert, to whom the film is dedicated.

The completed film uses 42 of the 62 minutes of the 1952 footage,^[4] and, at 87 minutes, includes significant new animation, completely different music, and a very different, more symbolic ending. Some footage is cut, such as the bird taking over the role as announcer at the wedding and the original ending. The new footage includes both entirely new scenes, and changes to existing scenes. For example, in the completed film, the initial scenes of the king practicing target shooting and having his portrait painted are new, while the scene of the king shooting at the baby bird, which falls between these two, is from the 1952 footage. The differences between the old and new animation are visible at some points in a single scene, most noticeably in the lion pit, where the lions are drawn in two very different styles;^[5] the simpler, more abstract lions are the new animation.

The production of the music is unusual in that Grimault left it entirely in the hands of Wojciech Kilar – Grimault gave no instruction as to what music he desired, nor was there any back-and-forth, but simply shared the movie with Kilar, who studied it carefully, then went to Poland, recorded it, and returned with the completed score, which was accepted unchanged.^[4] The music, while was made available on a soundtrack album, does not exist any official edited music sheet for this music. However Simon Bozonnet, an amateur musician and fan of the film, released a faithful transcription of the piano theme on his website.

Cultural references

The movie is rife with cultural references.^[6][7] Most basically, the castle is similar to 19th century fairy-tale castles, the best known of which is Neuschwanstein Castle, while the best-known such model in France is the medieval town Carcassonne, which notably has a surrounding ville basse (lower city), as in the movie. The city, with its dark, industrial underbelly recalls Metropolis by Fritz Lang,^[6] and the enslaved work recalls Modern Times of Charlie Chaplin.

The long staircases in the film recall the walk down from Montmartre

The castle, presiding over a city, has been compared to a "Neo-Sacré-Cœur",^[4] this basilica being the highest point of Paris, presiding over the city from the top of Montmartre. The visual style is painterly, with strong perspective, recalling surrealist artists, most notably Giorgio de Chirico, but also Yves Tanguy,^[7] friend of Prévert's youth. See this article^[8] for a sampling of scenes.

There are extensive allusions to Germany, particularly connections between the king and Adolf Hitler, most obviously in the king's appearance on leaving water (mustache and hair strongly resembling Hitler's) and in the cult of personality, but also in the king's statement that "work…is liberty", alluding to the infamous "Arbeit macht frei" (work sets you free), written over the entrances to concentration camps, and also the iconic Stahlhelm (steel helmets) seen in places.

The king's number alludes to Louis XVI of France, though visually the film recalls more the "Sun King" Louis XIV,^[7] and parts of the castle resemble Venice, with the canals, gondola, and bridge of sighs. The mustached, bowler-hatted police recall Thomson and Thompson (Dupont et Dupond) from The Adventures of Tintin.^[6]

The robot's behavior recalls King Kong,^[6] notably both in his chest-pounding and in his waving off the circling bird. He also rests in the figure of The Thinker, by Auguste Rodin.

Some potentially unfamiliar phrases and concepts used in the movie include lettres de cachet, gallows birds (gibier de potence), lèse majesté (Contempt of the Sovereign), and the Mayor of the Palace. The bird also mentions having seen Les cloches de Corneville, having been to the Place d'Italie, and having attended the Neuilly festival (Neuilly-sur-Seine is the birthplace of both Prévert and Grimault). It also mentions dernières cartouches (Last Cartridges) which alludes to an episode in the Franco-Prussian War involving the Blue Division of the French marines, memorialized in a painting by that name by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville.

Others see connection with Ubu Roi (King Ubu) of Alfred Jarry, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Magritte.^[6]

Grimault details some of the specific inspirations: for example, the bird was inspired by Jean Mollet (secretary of Guillaume Apollinaire) and by actor Pierre Brasseur, playing the character of Robert Macaire (via the character Frédérick Lemaître) in Les Enfants du Paradis.^[4]

Reception and influence

The King and the Mockingbird has been called one of the greatest animated films produced in France.^[10]

The film had a profound influence on Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, who later founded Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki states, inter alia, that "We were formed by the films and filmmakers of the 1950s. At that time I started watching a lot of films. One filmmaker who really influenced me was the French animator Paul Grimault."^[11] and "It was through watching Le Roi et l'Oiseau by Paul Grimault that I understood how it was necessary to use space in a vertical manner."^[12] For his part, Takahata states "My admiration towards Paul Grimault and Le Roi et l'Oiseau has always been the same, probably because he achieved better than anyone else a union between literature and animation." The influence is also visible in The Castle of Cagliostro, whose castle resembles the castle in The King and the Mockingbird. They discuss this at length in a documentary on the deluxe edition of the Japanese DVD, noting for example that they took frame-by-frame photographs of some sequences (such as the king elbowing the court painter aside) to be able to study how the animation was done.^[13]

In July 2006, Studio Ghibli secured the Japanese distribution rights of the film and released a Japanese-dubbed version to theaters through their Ghibli Museum Library imprint under the name The King and the Bird (王と鳥, Ō to Tori). Starting in just one cinema, it became a hit and spread out to many other theaters, eventually reaching over 20,000 people.

Editions

The King and the Mockingbird has been released in various editions, in various languages. Beyond the fundamental distinction between editions based on the incomplete 1952 version and the 1980 version, the film has been dubbed in many languages including Japanese and Dutch.

In the 1950s, the 1952 version was released in the States and given an English-dubbed soundtrack under the title of The Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird. Peter Ustinov narrates and provides the voice of the bird in this version. Since then, the Mr. Wonderbird version is now in the public domain and has been released as bargain video releases. Mr. Bird to the Rescue and Adventures of Mr. Wonderful were names given to this version among many of its releases. Now Mr. Wonderbird is available for free online on the Internet Archive.

The 1980 version of the film was released on DVD with English subtitles for the first time on October 7, 2013, in the United Kingdom.^[1] It is scheduled for wider theatrical release in the UK in 2014,^[2] with DVD sales from April 2014.^[3] Previously, it not available in the English-speaking world except by import of the French and Japanese editions. Although the film does not contain a lot of dialogue, fan-created English subtitles for the completed 1980 edition are available at this page at Open Subtitles.

A French deluxe version DVD includes a collection of Grimault's shorts and a 1988 documentary of Grimault and his work, La table tournante, (The turning table), filmed by Jacques Demy, together with various shorts.

A Japanese subtitled version DVD, translated as King and Bird (王と鳥, Ō to tori), is available through Ghibli Museum Library, and went on sale 2007–4–4, following a theatrical release in Japan starting 2006–7–29.^[14]

In 2013, the film was restored and re-released in French cinemas in the summer, by Sophie Dulac Distribution.^[1] It was then released on DVD in Germany from September 5, in the UK from October 7, and in France in both a standard DVD edition, a Blu-ray edition, and a collector's boxset on October 15.^[1]

See also

• History of French animation
• List of animated feature films

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: The King and the Mockingbird

• The King and the Mockingbird on IMDb
• Copy of film at Internet Archive