Studio: Walt Disney Productions
Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures
Produced by: Walt Disney
Short Synopsis
A doe gives birth to a fawn, Bambi, son of the Great Prince of the Forest, and all the woodland creatures come to see him. Thumper, a boisterous young rabbit, teaches him to walk and talk; a shy skunk is so pleased when Bambi mistakenly calls him "Flower" that he keeps the name. Bambi learns about the meadow, meets a young doe, Faline, and slides helplessly on the ice of a frozen pond in his first winter. As winter ends and the first grass appears, Bambi and his mother are feeding in the meadow when hunters shoot, and his mother is killed. The Great Prince leads him away. In spring, Bambi, Thumper and Flower, now grown, are each "twitterpated" by love. Bambi wins Faline in a fight with a rival stag. Then the hunters return with dogs, and their campfire sets the forest ablaze. Bambi saves Faline from the dogs, is wounded by a hunter's bullet, and is urged up by his father to escape the fire. In the next spring, Faline gives birth to twin fawns, and Bambi stands on the cliff as the new Great Prince.
Why It Matters
- The death of Bambi's mother, with the snow, the shot heard off-screen and the fawn calling for her, is one of the most famous scenes in film, and it is all the more powerful for what it does not show. The impressionistic forest backgrounds, inspired by the paintings of Tyrus Wong, and the naturalistic animal animation, studied from live deer at the studio, created a look unlike any earlier Disney film.
- Released in wartime and initially a disappointment at the box office, it has become one of Disney's most admired films. It received three Academy Award nominations, was ranked third among animated films in the American Film Institute's 2008 "10 Top 10" list, and was added to the National Film Registry in 2011.
Notes and Trivia
- In Salten's novel Bambi is a roe deer; Disney made him a white-tailed deer, more familiar to American audiences.
- Disney brought two fawns to the studio so the animators could study them from life.
- See also: Dumbo (1941), Fantasia (1940).