Things I Learned From Movie X: Snow White Edition

By Edwin Davies

June 11, 2012

Ice cold!

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The same could not be said of Charlize Theron’s Queen, who goes so far in the opposite direction that it almost winds up hurting the film. Considering that the character is introduced stabbing Snow White’s father through the heart whilst sitting astride him, it doesn’t take much for the film to say that, yes, she is a pretty big threat, and it just keeps piling on the menace from there. Stealing the youth of young women to keep herself young and powerful? Cutting open the bodies of dead birds and eating their hearts? Conjuring creatures made of black living glass to slice people to shreds? She does it all, and she does it with a wicked, kind of sexy smile. In fact, the only thing that stops Theron from being a completely, unceasingly terrifying presence is her unfortunate tendency to bellow lines like a bear who has just stepped on a plug. Anyone who mocked Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood for the way in which Prince John shouted “an out-laaaaaaaw” will find much to enjoy in some of Theron’s more…exuberant line readings.

Tyrion Lannister is the Rosa Parks of diminutive fictional characters

Both Mirror Mirror and Snow White and The Huntsman take the traditional fairytale story, chop it up, and try to rearrange all the pieces into a new, yet familiar shape, much like a mash-up artist or a drunken surgeon. Amongst those key elements are Snow White herself, the Queen, a dark forest, a Prince (of sorts) and, of course, dwarfs. Snow White and The Huntsman dials down on the dwarfs until the second half, instead focusing on building up Snow White’s character as a clever and self-possessed young woman, as well as building the relationship between her and the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, who in no way looks just like Thor but with an axe instead of a hammer. Nope). Mirror Mirror, on the other hand, introduces the dwarfs fairly early on and makes their relationship with Snow White central to the story, having her become their leader in time for the eventual final showdown with Queen Runaway Bride.




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Whilst the two films take very different approaches to the characters of the dwarfs, right down to how they chose to cast the parts – Mirror Mirror uses actual little people, whilst Snow White and The Huntsman cast the likes of Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone and Eddie Marsan (a cast which might be more likely to be found in an East End gangster film than high fantasy), and super-imposed their heads on to those of stunt performers – they both treat the dwarfs as comic relief. Although they excise the jolly singing associated with the Disney telling (Snow White and The Huntsman does feature some singing, but one of the songs the dwarfs sing is a funeral dirge, and even the number described as “upbeat” sounds like a Joy Division B-side), there’s still some slapstick and some sight gags on both sides, gags that feel incredibly out of place in the super-serious world of Snow White and The Huntsman (there’s comic relief, and then there’s having six dwarfs hide behind a horse to commit a sneak attack) and which grow kind of wearying over the course of Mirror Mirror.

Taken together, the dwarfs in both films feel less like fun, light-hearted color to be added to proceedings, and more like a kind of midget minstrelsy, in which actual little people are asked to be living punchlines because of how they look, and people of average height pretend to be short for the purposes of entertainment. (The only thing that stops it from being genuine minstrelsy is the lack of an adequate phrase to describe the action of pretending to be a dwarf. “Wearing short-face?” “Shorting-up?” It’s a linguistic nightmare.)

Basically, none of the dwarfs in either film feel like real characters, and neither film treats them with anywhere near the level of gravitas or respect of the characters who could go on all the rides at a theme park. Considering that Peter Dinklage had been receiving well-deserved plaudits for his performance on Game of Thrones, where his character is defined by his actions and not his height, both Snow White films wind up looking horribly retrograde in comparison, and makes you think that it is high time that short actors in Hollywood refuse to move to the back of the bus (metaphorically, of course, since you could always just lift them up and move them if they ever tried that).


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