The King and the Mockingbird

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 (mahogany) 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 • Cecil Trouncer (The Statue) • Joan Heal (The Kitten) • Frank Muir (The Commentator) 1980 version Additional voices • Thomas Pollard (Museum Security Guard) • Allan Wenger (Wedding Priest) == Production ==

Originally titled La Bergère et le Ramoneur ( "The shepherdess and the chimney sweep"), Grimault and Prévert began the film in 1948 (following their first collaboration, Le Petit soldat, "The little soldier", also a Hans Christian Andersen adaptation), 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 (Les Gémeaux). Grimault's partner André Sarrut (the producer) 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. 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 his website. == 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 (lower city), as in the movie. The city, with its dark, industrial underbelly recalls Metropolis by Fritz Lang, 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 (mustache and hair strongly resembling Hitler's) and in the cult of personality, but also in the king's statement that "work…is liberty", alluding to the infamous "Arbeit macht frei" (work sets you free), written over the entrances to concentration camps, and also the iconic Stahlhelm (steel helmets) seen in places. The king's number alludes to Louis XVI, though visually the film recalls more the "Sun King" Louis XIV, which, fittingly, given the long production of the movie, includes the lines "Parfois l'oiseau arrive vite / mais il peut aussi bien mettre de longues années / avant de se décider" (Often the bird arrives quickly / but he can also take many years / before he decides himself). == Reception and legacy ==

The King and the Mockingbird has been called one of the greatest animated films produced in France. The film had a profound influence on Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, who later founded Studio Ghibli. and "It was through watching ''Le Roi et l'Oiseau by Paul Grimault that I understood how it was necessary to use space in a vertical manner." For his part, Takahata states "My admiration towards Paul Grimault and Le Roi et l'Oiseau has always been the same, probably because he achieved better than anyone else a union between literature and animation." The influence is also visible in The Castle of Cagliostro, whose castle resembles the castle in The King and the Mockingbird. They discuss this at length in a documentary on the deluxe edition of the Japanese DVD, noting for example that they took frame-by-frame photographs of some sequences (such as the king elbowing the court painter aside) to be able to study how the animation was done. The film would be dubbed into Japanese for the release and star the voice of Gorō Naya, the voice of Koichi Zenigata, who had reprised his role for The Castle of Cagliostro''. It was also officially selected for the 2014 New York Film Festival. == Editions ==

The King and the Mockingbird has been released in various editions, in various languages. Beyond the fundamental distinction between editions based on the incomplete 1952 version and the 1980 version, the film has been dubbed in many languages, including Japanese and Dutch. In 1957, the 1952 version of the film was released in the United States and given an English-dubbed soundtrack under the title of The Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird. Peter Ustinov narrates and provides the voice of the bird in this version. Since then, the Mr. Wonderbird version is now in the public domain and has been released as bargain video releases. Adventures of Mr. Wonderful was another name given to this version among many of its releases. Now Mr. Wonderbird is available for free online on the Internet Archive. The 1980 version of the film was also dubbed into English with a cast of France-based American voice actors, and released in the United Kingdom in 1984, in cinemas under the title The King and Mister Bird by the Institute of Contemporary Arts A Japanese-subtitled DVD version, titled , is available through Ghibli Museum Library, and went on sale 4 April 2007, following a theatrical release in Japan starting 29 July 2006. In 2013, the 2003 digital restoration of the film was re-released in French cinemas in the summer, this time as a Digital Cinema Package, by Sophie Dulac Distribution. It was then released on DVD in Germany on September 5 and in France in both a standard DVD edition, a Blu-ray Disc edition, and a collector's box set on October 15. by the Independent Cinema Office, both in French with English subtitles and in the King and Mister Bird dub, and on DVD with English subtitles and this dub, for the first time in both cases, on April 28, 2014. Previously, it was not available in the English-speaking world except by import of the French, Japanese and German editions. Although the film does not contain a lot of dialogue, fan-created English subtitles for the completed 1980 edition are available at this page at Open Subtitles. Rialto Pictures released the film in select theaters in the United States and Lionsgate made it available on Amazon Prime Video and on Vudu. == See also ==