The Huge Risk
After the unqualified disaster of the too - dark Black Cauldron, no one at the studio dared to suggest anything that didn’t fit the cheerful fairy tale mould of Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. And yet, as the 90s progressed, and films like the Lion King and Pocahontas had darker and more mature themes, the studio started striving towards making animated films with more substance than just a love story. Encouraged by the nomination of Beauty and the Beast for Best Picture at the Oscars, the animators were sure they could make a film just like it, except it would win this time. Thus, they tacked their most artistically challenging project and Disney darkest film to date.
The idea of an animated adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1831 Gothic classic Notre - Dame de Paris began in 1993 when development executive David Stainton proposed the idea to Katzenberg. In recent years, the musical adaptation of Les Misérables, also by Victor Hugo, had become a huge Broadway and West End hit, proving there was an appetite for Hugo’s themes. Notre - Dame de Paris (Hunchback of Notre - Dame in English) had been adapted by Hollywood many times throughout the 20th century, most famously a silent 1923 film starring the Man of A Thousand Faces, Lon Chaney and a 1939 drama starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara. Both the book and the films were decidedly sombre, rooted in misery and pain with tragic endings. On its surface, this grim story didn’t seem like typical Disney fodder.
But Disney knew itself to be capable of mining darker stories for animated treasure, especially after flipping the original ending of the Little Mermaid into something far more suitable for younger audiences. So Katzenberg approved Stainton’s idea and immediately started the hunt for a director, settling on Beauty and the Beast wizards, Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise who, at the time, were working on a film based on the Greek myth of Orpheus. Both were told to drop the Orpheus idea and begin work on Hunchback of Notre - Dame instead, alongside Beauty and the Beast producer, Don Hahn.
Oscar - nominated screenwriter Tab Murphy was tasked with adapting the novel into a screenplay, with a clear instruction to make Quasimodo the main character of the story, much like all live - action film. To lighten the story, a love triangle was created between Quasimodo, streetwise Romani Esmeralda and kindhearted soldier Phoebus. It was also decided to reworkthe bleak conclusion of the book, which features the death of almost everyone.
THE STORY
In 1482 in Paris, a Romani puppeteer named Clopin, tells the story of how Quasimodo, the bellringer of Notre - Dame Cathedral, came to live up there: One stormy night twenty years earlier, a group of Romani attempt to sneak into Paris by boat, but are ambushed by Judge Claude Frollo and his soldiers. A woman attempts to flee to sanctuary in Notre - Dame, but Frollo, thinking she’s carrying stolen goods, persues her and ends up inadvertently killing her on the steps of the church to retrieve them. But those stolen goods turn out to be a deformed baby boy, who Frollo then tries to drown in a nearby well, but the archdeacon of Notre - Dame intervenes and accuses Frollo of murdering an innocent woman. To atone for his sin, Frollo agrees to raise the boy as his own son, cruelly naming him Quasimodo. Twenty years later, Quasimodo has grown into a kind, isolated young hunchback who dreams of nothing more than to leave the bell tower he has lived in all his life to attend the Festival of Fools, despite Frollo’s warning that he would be shunned because of his deformity.
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In the novel, Claude Frollo was the archdeacon of the church, but Katzenberg was concerned that casting a member of the church as the lead villain in a Disney film could cause compaints from the Catholic Church. (Because why would the Catholic Church waste their time excommunicating the soulless bastards in their own ranks molesting children all over the world and stopping their followers dying of AIDS when they could be complaining about their portrayal in a children’s film?) Murphy was instructed to change Frollo to a ruthless judge who saw himself as the moral centre of decency in Paris. To create the character, the writing team were influenced by the nefarious figures of history, including Nazis, the Confederate South and Amon Goeth from Schindler’s List.
With an abundance of grim themes including infanticide, lust, damnation, genocide and sin, Trousdale and Wise added three talking gargoyles to serve as comedic relief and offer Quasimodo a trio of confidantes who offer timely advice and moral support. While it’s never confirmed, it’s obvious these characters are figments of his imagination, born from a life of seclusion - induced loneliness. Originally supposed to be named Chaney, Laughton and Quinn, after the three most famous portrayers of the role, Disney feared that the estates of these three actors might sue over the unauthorized use of their names, so instead the gargoyles were renamed Victor, Hugo and LaVerne with the latter named after an Andrews sister. TV comedians Charles Kimbrough and Jason Alexander were cast as the two male gargoyles and Mary Wickes as LaVerne. Sadly she passed away from complications from hip surgery before she finished her recordings so her last five lines were filled in by Jane Withers.
For the lead role of Quasimodo, Katzenberg first approached Broadway star Mandy Patinkin, but he left after clashing with the production team over the direction to create the role as less monstrous than past incarnations. Instead, Oscar nominee Tom Hulce was cast to perform with a younger voice more in line with the book’s description of the character being twenty years old. Apparently Hulce landed the role after only one audition in which he nailed the song “Out There”. Then, for a piece of star quality, Demi Moore was cast as the film’s heroine, La Esmeralda. While she had no singing training she did try to perform several demos for Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, but realised she wasn’t up to the task, so again, Disney had to enlist another performer to proved the singing, in this case, cabaret singer, Heidi Mollenhauer.
MY VERDICT
I love this film. I loved it when I first saw it in the cinemas. Plus I’ve read the book, and unlike Disney versions of the Jungle Book, I think this is about as perfect an adaptation as you could hope for from a studio that deals mainly in family - friendly cinema. The music is amazing, the voice cast is about perfect and the animation is stunning. But, as with everything there are problems with this film, though luckily, in this case only one. And that problem is Jason Alexander as Hugo. He. Is. Insufferable. He is not funny. I mean, maybe there’s a chance I just hate him because I saw him in Seinfeld and he made me never want to see it again, but every time I hear his loud, grating New Jersey accent, I just want to scream “for the love of all that is holy, would you please SHUT UP!”. Plus, the gargoyles and their childish brand of humour don’t really gel with this film in general. Though at least the other two gargoyles add something more to the film than that.
Is the Hunchback of Notre Dame a Disney Classic? Its inconsistent tones damage its overall impact, but the incredible animation and writing has so much majesty that never recieves due credit. Unlike some other Disney things I could name, this film has only gotten better over time, and that is a hallmark of a Disney Classic.
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