The King and the Mockingbird

The King and the Mockingbird is a traditionally-animated fantasy film directed by Paul Grimault. Prior to 2013, it was released in English as The King and Mister Bird.
Begun in 1948 as La Bergère et le Ramoneur, the film was a collaboration between Grimault and popular French poet and screenwriter Jacques Prévert. However, the film suddenly stopped production and was released unfinished by its producer in 1952, without the approval of either Grimault or Prévert. Through the course of the 1960s and 1970s, Grimault obtained the rights to the film and was able to complete a new version as they originally intended. The film was completed over 30 years after production commenced.
The film is today regarded as a masterpiece of French animation and has been cited by the Japanese directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata as an influence. It was released in the United Kingdom dubbed into English in cinemas in 1984 and subsequently on VHS, but then had poor availability in English until 2014. After being re-released in France in 2013, it was re-released in cinemas in the United Kingdom, and the first English-friendly DVD release was made there in April 2014.
While the completed version has not been released on home video in North America, it was available for streaming on The Criterion Channel.
A low-budget English-language release of the 1952 version, titled The Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird, is in the public domain and available free online. In that version, Peter Ustinov narrates and voices the main role of the bird.

Plot

The huge kingdom of Takicardia is ruled by a king under the unwieldy title of Charles V + III = VIII + VIII = XVI. He is a heartless ruler, hated by his people as much as he hates them. The King is fond of hunting, but is unfortunately cross-eyed – not that anyone would dare acknowledge this in front of him, as the numerous statues and paintings that adorn the palace and the land show him with regular eyes. Occasionally, the King does hit his target, though; notably, the wife of the bird. The bird, known only as l'Oiseau, is the narrator of the story and takes pleasure in taunting the king at every opportunity.
In his secret apartment, the King dreams of the beautiful shepherdess whose painting he keeps on his wall, but the shepherdess is in love with the chimney sweep whose hated portrait is on the opposite wall. At night, the paintings come to life and attempt to escape from the palace, but are pursued by a non-cross-eyed painting of the king that also has come to life. He deposes the real king, takes his place, and orders the capture of the shepherdess and the sweep, but the bird is there to help when called upon.
Later, the shepherdess and the chimney sweep find themselves in the lower city, where the inhabitants have never seen the light. Meanwhile, the King summons a robot built for him, and he attacks the village. He takes the shepherdess and captures the chimney sweep, the bird, and a blind organ-grinder from the village, putting the organ-grinder in a pen of lions and tigers. The King forces the shepherdess to agree to marry him, threatening to kill the chimney sweep if she does not accept. When she does, the King sends the chimney sweep and the bird to paint manufactured sculptures of his head on a conveyor belt. They begin to ruin the sculptures, and are sent to jail, where the lions and tigers have been listening to the organ-grinder playing. The bird convinces them to help the shepherdess, saying that her marriage to the King prevents her from tending to the sheep, which the animals eat. The animals break out of the jail and attack the interviewers and king in the chapel. The bird and his sons take control of the robot and start destroying the castle. Once the castle is in rubble, the King attacks the couple, but the robot grabs him and blows him into the distance. Sitting on the ruins of the castle the next morning, the robot sees one of the bird's sons trapped in a cage. After freeing the bird, the robot smashes the cage.

Variations

Only the early scene in the secret apartment is based on "The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep", while the rest of the movie focuses much more on the king and the bird, hence the ultimate title. In Andersen's tale, the shepherdess and the chimney sweep are china figurines, rather than paintings, and a wooden satyr wishes to wed the shepherdess, supported by a Chinaman, rather than a king and a classical statue. In both tales, the Chinaman/statue breaks, and the duo escape up the chimney, and delight in celestial bodies, but in Andersen's tale the shepherdess is afraid of the wide world and the duo return; this is echoed in the movie where the statue predicts that they will return.
The 1952 film ends with the bird taking a photo of the newly-wed shepherdess and chimney sweep along with the king's dog, all of the bird's sons, and others after the king is vanquished.

Cast

1952 version

Additional voices

Thomas Pollard
Allan Wenger
Production

Originally titled La Bergère et le Ramoneur, Grimault and Prévert began the film in 1948, and it was highly anticipated, but in 1950, the film was taken out of their control, and subsequently the expense of the film caused the failure of the studio. Grimault's partner André Sarrut then released the film unfinished in 1952, against Grimault and Prévert's wishes, which caused a rift between partners, and they went their separate ways. In 1967, Grimault regained possession of the film, and spent the next decade trying to finance a new version under his supervision. By 1977 he had arranged financing, and thus the film was completed over the two-year period of 1977–79. In 1980 the finished film was finally released under a new title, Le Roi et l'Oiseau – to make clear the distinction from the earlier version – and shortly after the death of Prévert, to whom the film is dedicated.
The completed film uses 42 of the 62 minutes of the 1952 footage, and, at 87 minutes, includes significant new animation, completely different music, and a very different, more symbolic ending. Some footage is cut, such as the bird taking over the role as announcer at the wedding and the original ending. The new footage includes both entirely new scenes, and changes to existing scenes. For example, in the completed film, the initial scenes of the king practicing target shooting and having his portrait painted are new, while the scene of the king shooting at the baby bird, which falls between these two, was from the 1952 footage. The differences between the old and new animation are visible at some points in a single scene, most noticeably in the lion pit, where the lions are drawn in two very different styles; the simpler, more abstract lions are the new animation.
The production of the music is unusual in that Grimault left it entirely in the hands of Wojciech Kilar – Grimault gave no instruction as to what music he desired, nor was there any back-and-forth, but simply shared the movie with Kilar, who studied it carefully, then went to Poland, recorded it, and returned with the completed score, which was accepted unchanged. The score was made available on an album of music from the original soundtrack, but no official sheet music exists. However, Simon Bozonnet, an amateur musician and fan of the film, released a faithful transcription of the piano theme on .

Cultural references

The movie is rife with cultural references. Most basically, the castle is similar to 19th century fairy-tale castles, the best known of which is Neuschwanstein Castle, while the best-known such model in France is the medieval town Carcassonne, which notably has a surrounding ville basse, as in the movie. The city, with its dark, industrial underbelly recalls Metropolis by Fritz Lang, and the enslaved work recalls Modern Times of Charlie Chaplin. File:Montmatre bordercropped.jpg|thumb|upright|The long staircases in the film recall the walk down the Rue Foyatier in Montmartre, Paris
The castle, presiding over a city, has been compared to a "Neo-Sacré-Cœur", this basilica being the highest point of Paris, presiding over the city from the top of Montmartre. The visual style is painterly, with strong perspective, recalling surrealist artists, most notably Giorgio de Chirico, but also Yves Tanguy, friend of Prévert's youth. See for a sampling of scenes.
There are extensive allusions to Germany, particularly connections between the king and Adolf Hitler, most obviously in the king's appearance on leaving water and in the cult of personality, but also in the king's statement that "work…is liberty", alluding to the infamous "Arbeit macht frei", written over the entrances to concentration camps, and also the iconic Stahlhelm seen in places.
The king's number alludes to Louis XVI, though visually the film recalls more the "Sun King" Louis XIV, and parts of the castle resemble Venice, with the canals, gondola, and Bridge of Sighs. The mustached, bowler-hatted police recall Thomson and Thompson from The Adventures of Tintin.
The robot's behavior recalls King Kong, notably both in his chest-pounding and in his waving off the circling bird. He also rests in the figure of The Thinker, by Auguste Rodin.
Some potentially unfamiliar phrases and concepts used in the movie include lettres de cachet, gallows birds, lèse-majesté, and the Mayor of the Palace. The bird also mentions having seen Les Cloches de Corneville, having been to the Place d'Italie, and having attended the Neuilly festival. It also mentions dernières cartouches which alludes to an episode in the Franco-Prussian War involving the Blue Division of the French marines, memorialized in a painting by that name by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville.
Others see connection with Ubu Roi of Alfred Jarry, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Magritte.
Grimault details some of the specific inspirations: for example, the bird was inspired by Jean Mollet and by actor Pierre Brasseur, playing the character of Robert Macaire in ''Les Enfants du paradis.''