Kenneth
Branagh’s Cinderella is the latest of
a series of live-action adaptations of classic fairy-tales Hollywood has been
constantly attempting the past few years, mainly after Tim Butron’s take on Alice in Wonderland. The peak of this
cinematic trend was the year 2012 and the fairy-tale of Snow-White. During that year, not only did two Hollywood studios
make two different blockbusters based on the same popular story, but also a
Spanish silent adaptation was released, called Blancanieves (Spanish for Snow-White)!
Snow-White is arguably the most interesting of all
fairy-tales in terms of film adaptations. First of all, Walt Disney’s Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves (1937)
is the first sound and colour animated feature film ever made. It is therefore
a film of great historical significance, as well as one of the best films in
Disney studios’ filmography. But the tale’s modern cinematic adaptations are of
great interest too, as the story has been seen on screen on significant
variations.
Before
2012, an alternative take on the famous story was created in 1997 by director
Michael Cohn, who envisioned the tale of Snow-White
as a gothic horror film. Snow White: A
Tale of Terror, starring Sigourney Weaver as the evil queen, heavily relies
on its dark atmosphere, without however providing anything truly memorable as
an adaptation, except for some gruesome alterations of some parts of the story.
In 2012,
both Relativity Media and Universal Studios released their own takes on Snow-White, with none of the films being
very faithful to the source material. However, Relativity’s Mirror Mirror is the only one of all
these modern adaptations that actually tries to include little children into
its target group. It is also probably the weakest of all. Indian director
Tarsem Singh’s film was an effort to blend comedy, fairy-tale, action and
fantasy elements at the same time, perhaps so that the result would be suitable
for all kinds of audiences, but it failed to maintain a balance between all
these genres.
Universal
Studios’ response to Mirror Mirror
was Snow-White and the Huntsman,
starring Kristen Stewart as Snow-White. This film is very loosely based on the
original tale and it rarely tries to even feel like a fairy-tale. Instead, it
makes it absolutely clear (in contrast to disoriented Mirror Mirror) that it is but a dark, epic-fantasy blockbuster, which
draws inspiration from the Lord of the
Rings mythology. It might feel slightly disappointing as a fairy-tale
adaptation, hence the mixed reviews, but it turned out to be an unexpectedly
solid and visually compelling epic adventure, with amazing direction by Rupert
Sanders.
Lastly, the
Spanish film Blancanieves is arguably
the most special of all the above, as it is basically a modern silent film
about Spanish tradition and the cruelty of the entertainment industry! Still,
it is probably the most fairy-tale-like of all three 2012 adaptations, thanks
to its traditional style of storytelling. Also, comparing to all the above
Snow-Whites, Macarena Garcia in the role (and even with a short haircut) truly
is the fairest of them all! Blancanieves
is a masterful, moving fairy-tale set in the real world, which uses dark humour
to brilliantly highlight that, in real-life, there is no such thing as happy-endings…
With four
modern film adaptations, three of which came out in the same year, Snow-White has therefore had a truly
interesting cinematic history…
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