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Exhibition Reviews
"Behind the Magic: Fifty Years of Disneyland." Henry Ford Museum, 20900 Oakwood Blvd., Dearborn, MI 48124-4088.
Temporary exhibition, Sept. 2005–Jan. 8, 2006. 7,500 sq. ft. Donna R. Braden, lead experience developer; Scott Mallwitz, director of experience.
Conference, "Behind the Magic: Fifty Years of Disneyland," Nov. 11, 2005.
Behind the Magic. By Karal Ann Marling with Donna R. Braden. (New York: Disney Press, 2005. 112 pp. $19.95, ISBN 978-0-933728-05-9.) Available only through the Henry Ford Museum.
Internet: information on exhibition, conference, and book <http://www.hfmgv.org/museum/disney/default.asp> (March 27, 2006).
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| To find Walt in Henry's house you need to walk deep into the heart of the museum—past the car in which John F. Kennedy was shot, past the Rosa Parks bus, and past the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. Moving under industrial vaulted ceilings, you come, finally, to a walled-off area and a cash register with a smiling attendant. A small entranceway twinkles with tiny points of light showering you with Disney magic as you step into the 7,500-square-foot exhibition. |
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As its title, "Behind the Magic: Fifty Years of Disneyland," promises, the exhibition in the museum named for Henry Ford gives its visitors a glimpse into the process of bringing Walt Disney's ideas to life as it commemorates the park's fiftieth anniversary. It does this well. The exhibit successfully celebrates the fulfillment of Walt Disney's vision of a pristine and fantastic playground for American families at midcentury—Disneyland. |
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The exhibit moves chronologically. It introduces Disney as a family man and innovator; it recounts his research trips to Greenfield Village, Henry Ford's fantasy landscape for families, in the 1940s; it charts Disney's initial ideas for the park with early sketches and site plans; and it displays elements of the finished products and the evolving innovations of Disney's prolific and endlessly clever artists—his Imagineers. The exhibit consists largely of early drawings and sketches, photographs, pieces of rides and other park elements, and film footage of Disney and the park. Set against the exhibit's muted, slightly dark palette, the sketches and photographs of the emergent designs are particularly effective. The exhibit is dense with images and text. It is impressive to see, for example, longtime Disney artist Hal Ryman's aerial view of the future park. His sprawling, minutely detailed pencil sketch, the exhibit text explains, was the product of a long weekend during which Ryman took a sort of visual dictation as Disney laid out the scope and the particulars of his grand vision. |
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Devotees of the park and all things Disney surely will be fascinated by Ryman's work and the many other early sketches, drawings, and film clips that describe the building of "Frontierland" and the "Land of Tomorrow." But the exhibit can be frustrating for those who are less familiar with the final product. The curtain is pulled back, revealing the early ideas that inspired the park and its elements, but there is precious little information about what the finished products looked like when the park opened or now, fifty years later. That lack is particularly odd in a section on re-creating the look and feel of New Orleans. The text tells us, suggestively, that Disney and his Imagineers strove to create something "better than real"—and offers two sketches, some text, and a snapshot of a street in New Orleans that they used for reference. But there are no images of what the Imagineers created. It seems to be assumed that visitors to the exhibit will know what the final product looked like. And, perhaps more tantalizingly, there is no follow up on the idea of a city that is better than real. |
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