What’s more, the work’s first performance in 1742 took place not in chilly December, but on 13 April in Dublin. Only Part I of this mighty three-part oratorio deals with the Christmas story – by the time we get to Part II, we’re already onto Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. In a way, including Handel’s Messiah in a list of the greatest festive works feels a bit of a cheat. There are highlights aplenty, but few match the opening ‘Jauchzet, frohlocket’ chorus for instilling the festive feel-good factor. When they, the Colombian audience sees it, I’m very excited to see them recognize themselves in the film.” And now, while watching, you might see and recognize some Disney history in the film as well.Unlike Handel’s Messiah (below), the Christmas Oratorio confines itself strictly to the Christmas narrative, beginning with the birth of Jesus and ending with the adoration of the Magi. “Our Colombian Cultural Trust and we have very close friends who are Colombian, who specifically asked us to put certain things in the film. “I’m excited for the Colombian audience to see it,” Howard told TheWrap. (There was also a Colombian Cultural Trust that advised on the filmmaking team long after they returned to Burbank.) Like the films that were born out of Walt and El Grupo’s trip to South America, the music of Colombia had a huge impact on “Encanto.” And the filmmakers are eager to share its unique Colombian-ness with the world. That trip inspired them and fueled what would become “Encanto,” and added a level of cultural authenticity. Like Walt’s fateful trip, the filmmakers (including director Byron Howard and Jared Bush and songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda) took a research trip to South America. Part of the efforts called for distribution of American films in South American theaters, with grants being provided to American studios that would produce suitably South American content.
and, um, the Yale Glee Club, had been lackluster. Early efforts, such as sending Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. A government post was invented called the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, the brainchild of oil heir Nelson Rockefeller (who had keen artistic and business interests in South America), and one of the chief goals was to bolster positive support of South America through film productions released in the United States and abroad. In 1940, South America was seen as being vulnerable to Nazi influence. This isn’t a fairy tale, exactly, but it did take place once upon a time. (If it wasn’t one of the most iconic moments in animation history, that logo, seen before worldwide phenomena like “Frozen” and its sequel, has certainly made it so.) But “Steamboat Willie” and the 60th production are only a part of “Encanto’s” connection to the studio’s past – there’s a much more direct path between it and a journey that Walt Disney took.
To mark the milestone, it features a special version of the “Steamboat Willie”-inspired logo that plays before the movie the one that starts with the flapping of an animator’s pages and ends with Mickey Mouse, in velvety black-and-white, whistling on the bridge of a steamboat. Disney’s just-released “Encanto” is the 60th animated feature produced by the studio.