The Last Unicorn: revisting a childhood fave

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 10/13/12 at 3:49pm

A friend on here recently re-watched The Last Unicorn, and it caused me to revisit it. I admit, my huge love for the movie is largely based on childhood memories, and yet, I think it holds up well. Beagle adapting his own book, gives it a really mature and layered screenplay. The animation show's its low budget--the character work is really weak, but the art in general (done by Topcraft--Miyazaki's studio which became after the success of Nausicaa, Studio Ghibli) is stupendous, especially the backgrounds. And Jimmy Webb's score (both the songs and the music in general) is really strong. (Webb has written so well about how writing musicals is different from pop songs, and of his love for Sondheim. It makes me want to hear his score for the failed Bennett project, Scandal, even more).

The attempts to capture Beagle's meta-fiction mediation on fairy tales (which I really think Goldman cribbed from for Princess Bride) don't work--the butterfly early on referencing then current pop songs is a mess--but I think the movie still has a strange, melancholic power. And the voice acting is some of the best done for any animated film I can think of (Jeff Bridges and Mia Farrow's singing aside).

Anyway, judge for yourselves if you can--it seems to, for the moment, be on youtube in its entierty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ozslKLWH-g

I love this review from Richard Scheib's excellent fantasy and sci fi and horror film review site https://moria.co.nz/

Almost all cartoons, even seemingly those with most serious adult aspirations, have the spectre of ‘Hanna-Barberism’ to them – of characters who speak in simplistic alto voce. While no exception, The Last Unicorn is certainly it is one of the most impressive surmountings of the standard adolescent mindset of cartoons. The film was made by Julie Bass and Arthur Rankin, who were responsible for other puppet and animated children’s fare such as Willie McBean and His Magic Machine (1965), Mad Monster Party? (1967), The Hobbit (1977), The Flight of Dragons (1982) and the various Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman tv specials. Rankin-Bass’s good sense here was to turn to a 1968 children’s book by Peter S. Beagle. Beagle is one of the most strongly acclaimed (but not widely read) living fantasy authors – Beagle even co-wrote Ralph Bakshi’s screen adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (197 – and his The Last Unicorn is regarded as a fantasy and children’s classic. Rankin-Bass wisely allow Peter S. Beagle to adapt his own novel and the result is a children’s film of beautifully melancholic power that is streets ahead of any near competition.

Peter S. Beagle’s adaptation of his own book is very good indeed – the last third of the film, with the unicorn slowly forgetting who she is and the sullen, sepulchral figure of King Haggard, achieves a uniquely melancholic adult mood unlike anything you are likely to see in any other children’s film.

Beagle’s dialogue is incredibly haunting – the unicorn’s line upon becoming a human “I can feel this body dying about me – I am afraid of more than the Red Bull” and the final fadeout “Of all the unicorns, she is the only one who knows what regret is” – are pieces that linger. The characterisations are all exceptional, particularly good being Rene Auberjonois’s appearance as the skull and the unmistakeable, rich baritone of Christopher Lee as the doleful King Haggard. The film contains images of great beauty – like the final return of the thousands of unicorns, cresting the waves out of the sea; the conjured ghosts of Robin Hood and the Merry Men passing through the bandits and the fire; or the image of the unicorn licking the tears from Molly’s face. There is also a superb musical score.

The great sense of regret that this film leaves one with is the fact that it was not a success. Originally completed in 1981, it languished in distribution limbo, being sporadically shown in various parts of the world throughout 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985. Even then, it was rarely promoted – it is almost impossible to find any reviews of it from the time it came out, for instance. All of which is a shame as The Last Unicorn is a film seriously in need of revision as a small modern fantasy and children’s classic.

A live-action remake of The Last Unicorn was announced in 2006 from director Geoff Murphy and intriguingly to feature many of the actors here – Mia Farrow, Christopher Lee, Rene Auberjonois, Angela Lansbury – reprising their original roles. Unfortunately, this appears to have vanished from any production slates and is no longer an active project.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 10/13/12 at 11:40pm

I have sung this song frm the Last Unicorn MANY a time:
(feminised version)
When I was a young lass and very well thought off
I couldn't ask aught that the lads denied
I nibbled their hearts like a handful of raisins
And I ne'er spoke love but I knew that I lied.

But I said to myself" Ah they none of them know
The secret I shelter and savour and save
I wait for the one who will see through my seeming
And I'll know that I love by the way I behave."

The years drifted over like clouds in the meadows
The lads when by me like snow on the wind.
I charmed and I cheated, deceived and dissembled
And I sinned and I sinned and I sinned and I sinned.

But I said to myself "Ah they none of them see
There's part of me pure as the whisp of a WAve,
My love is late but he'll find I'VE been Faithful
And i'll know that I love by the way I behave."

AT LAST came a fellow both knowing and tender,
Saying "You're not at all what they take you to be.'
I betrayed him before he had QUITE finished speaking
And he swallowed cold poison and jumped in the sea.

And I say to myself, when there's time for a word,
As I gracefully grow more debauched and dePraved
"Ah love may be strong, but a habit's still stronger.
And I knew that I loved by the way I Be HAVed."

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 10/16/12 at 8:42pm

I'm not ashamed to admit that I wrote settings for all the songs when I was in high school.

(I'm a teensy bit sheepish--if not ashamed--to say that was before this film version.)

Sabrelady, that one was my masterpiece.