Introduction: Fairy Tale Films, Old Tales with a New Spin

Abstract

The downtrodden heroine who triumphs in the end; an enchantment that forces a male protagonist to change; the acquisition of fabulous riches — and their potential cost; marriage to a monster; and unhappy families rife with danger and abuse — these are all familiar narratives, with a history that extends back to some of the earliest stories people have exchanged. Cinema has continued this process, effectively telling the same tales (or, rather, variations on a similar theme) since the medium began, and the focus of this book is to examine this fascinating interrelationship, paying particular attention to contemporary narratives that take such tales as ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Ali Baba’ and ‘Bluebeard’, and give them a new spin. Films and fairy tales go back a long way. As scholars such as Marina Warner (1993a) and Jack Zipes (2011) have pointed out, the film industry’s interest in adapting fairy tales is evident from the earliest days of cinema, when film-makers were drawn by the familiarity of the material, its propensity for staging visual spectacle and potential to attract widespread appeal. In many ways not much has altered in terms of these incentives; a film industry, struggling to hold the attention of a global market, has ploughed considerable resources into reimagined fairy tales. A notable trend in adapting fantastical stories has been apparent since the mammoth commercial success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001, 2002, 2003) and Tim Burton’s 3D Alice in Wonderland (2010), prompting a spate of remakes, including two versions of the ‘Snow White’ story released in the same year, pantomime renditions of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘Hansel and Gretel’, and revised treatments planned of virtually every well-known wonder tale, from novels such as Peter Pan and Pinocchio, to classic fairy tales such as ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Cinderella’.¹