Bambi, A Life in the Woods
Encyclopedia
Bambi, a Life in the Woods, originally published in Austria as Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, is a 1923 Austrian novel
written by Felix Salten
and published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag
. The novel traces the life of Bambi, a male roe deer
, from his birth through childhood, the loss of his mother, the finding of a mate, the lessons he learns from his father and experience about the dangers posed by human hunters in the forest. Considered to be one of the first environmental novels published, an English translation by Whittaker Chambers
was published in North America by Simon & Schuster
in 1928. The novel has since been translated and published in over 20 languages around the world. Salten released a sequel, Bambis Kinder, eine Familie im Walde (Bambi's Children), in 1939.
The novel was well received by critics and is considered a classic. It was adapted into a theatrical animated film, Bambi
, by Walt Disney Studios
in 1942, two Russian live-action adaptations in 1985 and 1986, and a stage production in 1998. A ballet adaptation was written by an Oregon troupe, but never released. Janet Schulman released a children's picture book adaptation in 2000 that featured realistic oil-paintings and many of Salten's original words.
fawn born in a thicket
to a young doe in late spring one year. Over the course of the summer, his mother teaches him about the various inhabitants of the forest and the ways deer live. When she feels he is old enough, she takes him to the meadow
which he learns is both a wonderful but also dangerous place as it leaves the deer exposed and in the open. After some initial fear over his mother's caution, Bambi enjoys the experience. On a subsequent trip, Bambi meets his Aunt Ena, and her twin fawns Faline and Gobo. They quickly become friends and share what they have learned about the forest. While they are playing, they encounter princes, male deer, for the first time. After the stags leave, the fawns learn that those were their fathers, but that the fathers rarely stay with or speak to the females and young.
As Bambi grows older, his mother begins to leave him alone. While searching for her one day, Bambi has his first encounter with "He"—the animal's term for humans—which terrifies him. The man raises a firearm and aims at him; Bambi flees at top speed, joined by his mother. After he is scolded by a stag for crying for his mother, Bambi gets used to being alone at times. He later learns the stag is called the old Prince, the oldest and largest stag in the forest who is known for his cunning and aloof nature. During the winter, Bambi meets Marena, a young doe, Nettla, an old doe who no longer bears young, and two princes Ronno and Karus. Mid-winter, hunters enter the forest, killing many animals including Bambi's mother. Gobo also disappears and is presumed dead.
After this, the novel skips ahead a year, noting that Bambi was cared for by Nettla, and that when he got his first set of antlers he was abused and harassed by the other males. It is summer and Bambi is now sporting his second set of antlers. He is reunited with Faline. After he battles and defeats first Karus then Ronno, Bambi and Faline express their love for one another. They spend a great deal of time together. During this time, the old Prince saves Bambi's life when he nearly runs towards a hunter imitating a doe's call. This teaches the young buck to be cautious about blindly rushing toward any deer's call. During the summer, Gobo returns to the forest having been raised by a man who found him collapsed in the snow during the hunt where Bambi's mother was killed. While his mother and Marena welcome him and celebrate him as a "friend" of man, the old Prince and Bambi pity him. Marena becomes his mate, but several weeks later Gobo is killed when he approaches a hunter in the meadow, falsely believing the halter he wore would keep him safe from all men.
As Bambi continues to age, he begins spending most of his time alone, including avoiding Faline though he still loves her in a melancholy way. Several times he meets with the old Prince who teaches him about snares, shows him how to free another animal from one, and encourages him not to use trails to avoid the traps of men. When Bambi is later shot by a hunter, the Prince shows him how to walk in circles to confuse the man and his dogs until the bleeding stops, then takes him to a safe place to recover. They remain together until Bambi is strong enough to leave the safe haven again. When Bambi has grown gray and is "old", the old Prince shows him that man is not all powerful by showing him the dead body of a man who was shot and killed by another man. When Bambi confirms that he now understands that "He" is not all powerful, and that there is "Another" over all creatures, the stag tells him that he has always loved him and calls him "my son" before leaving to die.
At the end of the novel, Bambi meets with twin fawns who are calling for their mother and he scolds them for not being able to stay alone. After leaving them, he thinks to himself that the girl fawn reminded him of Faline, and that the male was promising and that Bambi hoped to meet him again when he was grown.
, targeting an adult audience.
The novel was first published in Austria by Paul Zsolnay Verlag
in 1923, and republished in 1926 in Vienna.
, became intrigued with the novel, and contracted with the author to release it in North America. Clifton Fadiman
, an editor at the firm, engaged his Columbia University classmate Whittaker Chambers
to translate the book. In 1928, Simon & Schuster published this first English edition under the title Bambi. A Life in the Woods.
Over 200 editions of the novel have been released, with almost 100 German and English editions alone, and numerous translations and reprintings in over 20 other languages. It has also been released in a variety of formats, including printed medium, audio book
, Braille
, and E-book
formats.
When the two companies were unable to reach a solution, Twin Books filed suit against Disney for copyright infringement. Disney argued that because Salten's original 1923 publication of the novel did not include a copyright notice, by American law it was immediately considered a public domain
work. It also argued that as the novel was published in 1923, Anna Wyler's 1954 renewal occurred after the deadline and was invalid. The case was reviewed by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
, which ruled that the novel was copyrighted upon its publication in 1923, and not a public domain work then. However, in validating 1923 as the publication date, this confirmed Disney's claim that the copyright renewal was filed too late and the novel became a public domain work in 1951.
Twin Books appealed the decision, and in March 1996 the Ninth Circuit Court reversed the original decision, stating that the novel was a foreign work in 1923 that was not in its home country's public domain when released, therefore the original publication date could not be used in arguing American copyright law. Instead, the 1926 publication date, the first in which it specifically declared itself to be copyrighted in the United States, is considered the year when the novel was copyrighted in America. As such, Anna Wyler's renewal was timely and valid, thereby upholding Twin Books ownership of the copyright. The Twin Books decision is still regarded as controversial by many copyright experts, however.
The American copyright of the novel is currently set to expire on January 1, 2022.
, after being forced to flee Nazi occupied Austria
, Salten wrote a sequel to Bambi that follows the birth and lives of Bambi's twin offspring, Geno and Gurri. The young fawns interact with various deer, and are educated and watched over by Bambi as they grow. They also learn more about the ways of man, including both hunters and the forest rangers seeking to protect the deer. Due to Salten's exiled status, the English translation of the novel was published in the United States in 1939 by Bobbs-Merrill. It would take another year before the sequel was published in Austria.
in 1936 as "political allegory on the treatment of Jews in Europe." Many copies of the novel were burned, making original first editions rare and difficult to find.
In his foreword
of the novel, John Galsworthy
called it a "delicious book" and a "little masterpiece" that shows a "delicacy of perception and essential truth". He notes that while reading the galley proof
of the novel while crossing the English Channel
, he, his wife, and his nephew read each page in turn over the course of three hours in "silent absorption." The New York Times
reviewer John Chamberlain praised Salten's "tender, lucid style" that "takes you out of yourself." He felt that Salten captured the essence of each of the creatures as they talked, catching the "rhythm of the different beings who people his forest world" and showed particular "comprehension" in detailing the various stages of Bambi's life. He also considered the English translation "admirably" done. A reviewer for Catholic World
praised the approach of the subject, noting that it was "marked by poetry and sympathy [with] charming reminders of German folklore and fairy tale". However, they disliked the "transference of certain human ideals to the animal mind" and the vague references to religious allegory
. The Boston Transcript called it a "sensitive allegory of life". The Saturday Review considered it "beautiful and graceful" piece that showed a rare "individuality". The Times
Literary Supplement stated that the novel is a "tale of exceptional charm, though untrustworthy of some of the facts of animal life." Isabel Ely Lord, reviewing the novel for the American Journal of Nursing, called the novel a "delightful animal story" and Salten a "poet" whose "picture of the woods and its people is an unforgettable one." In comparing Bambi to Salten's later work Perri
—in which Bambi makes a brief cameo
—Louise Long of the Dallas Morning News considered both to be stories that "quietly and completely [captivate] the heart". Long felt the prose was "poised and mobile and beautiful as poetry" and praises Salten for his ability to give the animals seemingly human speech while not "[violating] their essential natures."
Vicky Smith of Horn Book Magazine
felt the novel was gory compared to the later Disney adaptation and called it a "weeper". While criticizing it as one of the most notable anti-hunting novels available, she concedes the novel is not easily forgettable and praises the "linchpin scene" where Bambi's mother dies, stating "the understated conclusion of that scene, 'Bambi never saw his mother again,' masterfully evokes an uncomplicated emotional response". She questions Galsworthy's recommendation of the novel to sportsmen in the foreword, wondering "how many budding sportsmen might have had conversion experiences in the face of Salten's unrelieved harangue and how many might have instead become alienated." In comparing the novel to the Disney film, Steve Chapple of Sports Afield
felt that Salten viewed Bambi's forest as a "pretty scary place" and the novel as a whole had a "lot of dark adult undertones." Interpreting it as an allegory for Salten's own life, Chapple felt Salten "[came] across [as] a little morbid, a bleeding heart of a European intellectual." The Wall Street Journals James P. Sterba also considered it an "antifascist allegory" and sarcastically notes that "you'll find it in the children's section at the library, a perfect place for this 293-page volume, packed as it is with blood-and-guts action, sexual conquest and betrayal" and "a forest full of cutthroats and miscreants. I count at least six murderers (including three child-killers) among Bambi's associates."
novels.
looming, Max Schuster aided the Jewish Salten's flight from Nazi Germany
and helped introduce him, and Bambi, to Walt Disney Studios. Sidney Franklin, a producer and director at MGM films, purchased the film rights in 1933, initially desiring to make a live-action adaptation of the work. Deciding such a film would be too difficult to make, he sold the rights to Walt Disney in April 1937 in hopes of it being adapted into an animated film instead. Disney began working on the film immediately, intending it to be the company's second feature length animated film and his first to be based on a specific, recent work.
The original novel, written for an adult audience, was considered too "grim" and "somber" for the young audience Disney was targeting, and with the work required to adapt the novel, Disney put production on hold while it worked on several other works. In 1938, Disney assigned Perce Pearce and Carl Fallberg to develop the film's storyboards, but attention was soon drawn away as the studio began working on Fantasia
. Finally, on 17 August 1939, production on Bambi began in earnest, although it progressed slowly due to changes in the studio personnel, location and the methodology of handling animation at the time. The writing was completed in July 1940, by which time the film's budget had swelled to $858,000. Disney was later forced to slash 12 minutes from the film before final animation, to save costs on production.
Heavily modified from the original novel, Bambi
was released to theaters in the United States on 8 August 1942. Disney's version severely downplays the naturalistic and environmental elements found in the novel, giving it a lighter, friendlier feeling.
The addition of two new characters, Thumper
the Rabbit and Flower
the Skunk, two sweet and gentle forest creatures, contributed to giving the film the desired friendlier and lighter feeling.
Considered a classic, the film has been called "the crowning achievement of Walt Disney's animation studio" and was named as one of the Ten Top Ten—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—by the American Film Institute
, listed as the third best film in the animation genre.
format in the Soviet Union
by Gorky Film Studios. It was directed by Natalya Bondarchuk
, who also co-wrote the script with Yuri Nagibin
, and featured music by Boris Petrov. Natalya 's son Ivan Burlyayev and her husband Nikolay Burlyaev starred as the young and adolescent Bambi, respectively, while Faline (renamed Falina) was portrayed by Yekaterina Lychyova as a child and Galina Belyayeva as an adult. In this adaptation, the film starts using animals, changes to using human actors, then returns to using animals for the ending.
A sequel, (Yunost Bembi), lit. Bambi's Youth, followed in 1986 with Nikolay and Galina reprising their voice roles as Bambi and Falina. Featuring over 100 species of live animal and filmed in various locations in Crimea
, Mount Elbrus
, Latvia
and Czechoslovakia
, the film follows new lovers Bambi and Felina as they go on a journey in search of a live-giving flower. Both films were released to Region 2 DVD with Russian and English subtitle options by the Russian Cinema Council in 2000. The first film's DVD also included a French audio soundtrack, while the second contained French subtitles instead.
entitled Bambi: Lord of the Forest. It was slated to premiere in March 2000 as the main production for the company's 2000–2001 season. A collaboration between artistic director
James Canfield and composer Thomas Lauderdale, the ballet's production was to be an interpretation of the novel rather than the Disney film. In discussing the adaptation, Canfield stated that he was given a copy of the novel as a Christmas present and found it to be a "classic story about coming of age and a life cycle." He went on to note that the play was inspired solely by the novel and not the Disney film. After the initial announcements, the pair began calling the work The Collaboration, as Disney owns the licensing rights for the name Bambi and they did not wish to fight for usage rights. The local press began calling the ballet alternative titles, including Not-Bambi which Canfield noted to be his favorite, out of derision at Disney. Its release was delayed for unexplained reasons, and it has yet to be performed.
James DeVita, of the First Stage Children's Theater
, created a stage adaptation of the novel. The script was published by Anchorage Press Plays on 1 June 1997. Crafted for young adults and teenagers and retaining the title Bambi—A Life In The Woods, it has been produced around the United States at various venues. The script calls for an open stage
set up, and utilizes at least nine actors, five male, four female, to cover the thirteen roles. The American Alliance Theatre and Education awarded the work its "Distinguished Play Award" for an adaptation.
as part of its "Atheneum Books for Young Readers" imprint. In the adaptation, Schulman attempted to retain some of the lyrical feel of the original novel. She notes that rather than rewrite the novel, she "replicated Salten's language almost completely. I reread the novel a number of times and then I went through and highlighted the dialogue and poignant sentences Salten had written." Doing so retained much of the novel's original lyrical feel, though the book's brevity did result in a sacrifice of some of the "majesty and mystery" found in the novel. The illustrations were created to appear as realistic as possible, using painted images rather than sketches. In 2002, the Schulman adaptation was released in audio book format by Audio Bookshelf, with Frank Dolan as the reader.
Austrian literature
Austrian literature is the literature written in Austria, which is mostly, but not exclusively, written in the German language. Some scholars speak about Austrian literature in a strict sense from the year 1806 on when Francis II disbanded the Holy Roman Empire and established the Austrian Empire...
written by Felix Salten
Felix Salten
Felix Salten was an Austrian author and critic in Vienna. His most famous work is Bambi .-Life:...
and published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag
Paul Zsolnay Verlag
-Overview:The company was created in 1923 by Paul Zsolnay. It was the most successful publishing company during the interregnum period, publishing authors such as John Galsworthy, H.G. Wells, Pearl S. Buck, A.J...
. The novel traces the life of Bambi, a male roe deer
Roe Deer
The European Roe Deer , also known as the Western Roe Deer, chevreuil or just Roe Deer, is a Eurasian species of deer. It is relatively small, reddish and grey-brown, and well-adapted to cold environments. Roe Deer are widespread in Western Europe, from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, and from...
, from his birth through childhood, the loss of his mother, the finding of a mate, the lessons he learns from his father and experience about the dangers posed by human hunters in the forest. Considered to be one of the first environmental novels published, an English translation by Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
was published in North America by Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
in 1928. The novel has since been translated and published in over 20 languages around the world. Salten released a sequel, Bambis Kinder, eine Familie im Walde (Bambi's Children), in 1939.
The novel was well received by critics and is considered a classic. It was adapted into a theatrical animated film, Bambi
Bambi
Bambi is a 1942 American animated film directed by David Hand , produced by Walt Disney and based on the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten...
, by Walt Disney Studios
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
in 1942, two Russian live-action adaptations in 1985 and 1986, and a stage production in 1998. A ballet adaptation was written by an Oregon troupe, but never released. Janet Schulman released a children's picture book adaptation in 2000 that featured realistic oil-paintings and many of Salten's original words.
Plot
Bambi is a roe deerRoe Deer
The European Roe Deer , also known as the Western Roe Deer, chevreuil or just Roe Deer, is a Eurasian species of deer. It is relatively small, reddish and grey-brown, and well-adapted to cold environments. Roe Deer are widespread in Western Europe, from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, and from...
fawn born in a thicket
Thicket
A thicket is a very dense stand of trees or tall shrubs, often dominated by only one or a few species, to the exclusion of all others. They may be formed by species that shed large amounts of highly viable seeds that are able to germinate in the shelter of the maternal plants.In some conditions the...
to a young doe in late spring one year. Over the course of the summer, his mother teaches him about the various inhabitants of the forest and the ways deer live. When she feels he is old enough, she takes him to the meadow
Meadow
A meadow is a field vegetated primarily by grass and other non-woody plants . The term is from Old English mædwe. In agriculture a meadow is grassland which is not grazed by domestic livestock but rather allowed to grow unchecked in order to make hay...
which he learns is both a wonderful but also dangerous place as it leaves the deer exposed and in the open. After some initial fear over his mother's caution, Bambi enjoys the experience. On a subsequent trip, Bambi meets his Aunt Ena, and her twin fawns Faline and Gobo. They quickly become friends and share what they have learned about the forest. While they are playing, they encounter princes, male deer, for the first time. After the stags leave, the fawns learn that those were their fathers, but that the fathers rarely stay with or speak to the females and young.
As Bambi grows older, his mother begins to leave him alone. While searching for her one day, Bambi has his first encounter with "He"—the animal's term for humans—which terrifies him. The man raises a firearm and aims at him; Bambi flees at top speed, joined by his mother. After he is scolded by a stag for crying for his mother, Bambi gets used to being alone at times. He later learns the stag is called the old Prince, the oldest and largest stag in the forest who is known for his cunning and aloof nature. During the winter, Bambi meets Marena, a young doe, Nettla, an old doe who no longer bears young, and two princes Ronno and Karus. Mid-winter, hunters enter the forest, killing many animals including Bambi's mother. Gobo also disappears and is presumed dead.
After this, the novel skips ahead a year, noting that Bambi was cared for by Nettla, and that when he got his first set of antlers he was abused and harassed by the other males. It is summer and Bambi is now sporting his second set of antlers. He is reunited with Faline. After he battles and defeats first Karus then Ronno, Bambi and Faline express their love for one another. They spend a great deal of time together. During this time, the old Prince saves Bambi's life when he nearly runs towards a hunter imitating a doe's call. This teaches the young buck to be cautious about blindly rushing toward any deer's call. During the summer, Gobo returns to the forest having been raised by a man who found him collapsed in the snow during the hunt where Bambi's mother was killed. While his mother and Marena welcome him and celebrate him as a "friend" of man, the old Prince and Bambi pity him. Marena becomes his mate, but several weeks later Gobo is killed when he approaches a hunter in the meadow, falsely believing the halter he wore would keep him safe from all men.
As Bambi continues to age, he begins spending most of his time alone, including avoiding Faline though he still loves her in a melancholy way. Several times he meets with the old Prince who teaches him about snares, shows him how to free another animal from one, and encourages him not to use trails to avoid the traps of men. When Bambi is later shot by a hunter, the Prince shows him how to walk in circles to confuse the man and his dogs until the bleeding stops, then takes him to a safe place to recover. They remain together until Bambi is strong enough to leave the safe haven again. When Bambi has grown gray and is "old", the old Prince shows him that man is not all powerful by showing him the dead body of a man who was shot and killed by another man. When Bambi confirms that he now understands that "He" is not all powerful, and that there is "Another" over all creatures, the stag tells him that he has always loved him and calls him "my son" before leaving to die.
At the end of the novel, Bambi meets with twin fawns who are calling for their mother and he scolds them for not being able to stay alone. After leaving them, he thinks to himself that the girl fawn reminded him of Faline, and that the male was promising and that Bambi hoped to meet him again when he was grown.
Publication history
Felix Salten penned Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde after World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, targeting an adult audience.
The novel was first published in Austria by Paul Zsolnay Verlag
Paul Zsolnay Verlag
-Overview:The company was created in 1923 by Paul Zsolnay. It was the most successful publishing company during the interregnum period, publishing authors such as John Galsworthy, H.G. Wells, Pearl S. Buck, A.J...
in 1923, and republished in 1926 in Vienna.
English translation
Max Schuster, a co-founder of Simon & SchusterSimon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
, became intrigued with the novel, and contracted with the author to release it in North America. Clifton Fadiman
Clifton Fadiman
Clifton P. "Kip" Fadiman was an American intellectual, author, editor, radio and television personality.-Literary career:...
, an editor at the firm, engaged his Columbia University classmate Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
to translate the book. In 1928, Simon & Schuster published this first English edition under the title Bambi. A Life in the Woods.
Over 200 editions of the novel have been released, with almost 100 German and English editions alone, and numerous translations and reprintings in over 20 other languages. It has also been released in a variety of formats, including printed medium, audio book
Audio book
An audiobook or audio book is a recording of a text being read. It is not necessarily an exact audio version of a book or magazine.Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the...
, Braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
, and E-book
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
formats.
Copyright dispute
When Salten originally published Bambi in 1923, he did so under Germany's copyright laws, which required no statement that the novel was copyrighted. In the 1926 republication, he did include a United States copyright notice, so the work is considered to have been copyrighted in the United States in 1926. In 1936, Salten sold some rights to the novel to MGM producer Sidney Franklin who passed them on to Walt Disney for the creation of a film adaptation. After Salten's death in 1945, his daughter Anna Wyler inherited the copyright and renewed the novel's copyrighted status in 1954. In 1958, she formulated three agreements with Disney regarding the novel's rights. Upon her death in 1977, the rights passed to her husband, Veit Wyler, and her children, who held on to them until 1993 when he sold the rights to the publishing house Twin Books. Twin Books and Disney disagreed on the terms and validity of Disney's original contract with Anna Wyler and Disney's continued use of the Bambi name.When the two companies were unable to reach a solution, Twin Books filed suit against Disney for copyright infringement. Disney argued that because Salten's original 1923 publication of the novel did not include a copyright notice, by American law it was immediately considered a public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
work. It also argued that as the novel was published in 1923, Anna Wyler's 1954 renewal occurred after the deadline and was invalid. The case was reviewed by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
United States District Court for the Northern District of California
The United States District Court for the Northern District of California is the federal United States district court whose jurisdiction comprises following counties of California: Alameda, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San...
, which ruled that the novel was copyrighted upon its publication in 1923, and not a public domain work then. However, in validating 1923 as the publication date, this confirmed Disney's claim that the copyright renewal was filed too late and the novel became a public domain work in 1951.
Twin Books appealed the decision, and in March 1996 the Ninth Circuit Court reversed the original decision, stating that the novel was a foreign work in 1923 that was not in its home country's public domain when released, therefore the original publication date could not be used in arguing American copyright law. Instead, the 1926 publication date, the first in which it specifically declared itself to be copyrighted in the United States, is considered the year when the novel was copyrighted in America. As such, Anna Wyler's renewal was timely and valid, thereby upholding Twin Books ownership of the copyright. The Twin Books decision is still regarded as controversial by many copyright experts, however.
The American copyright of the novel is currently set to expire on January 1, 2022.
Sequel
While living in exile in SwitzerlandSwitzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, after being forced to flee Nazi occupied Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Salten wrote a sequel to Bambi that follows the birth and lives of Bambi's twin offspring, Geno and Gurri. The young fawns interact with various deer, and are educated and watched over by Bambi as they grow. They also learn more about the ways of man, including both hunters and the forest rangers seeking to protect the deer. Due to Salten's exiled status, the English translation of the novel was published in the United States in 1939 by Bobbs-Merrill. It would take another year before the sequel was published in Austria.
Reception
Bambi was "hugely popular" after its release, becoming a "book-of-the-month" selection and selling 650,000 copies in the United States by 1942. However, it was subsequently banned in Nazi GermanyNazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in 1936 as "political allegory on the treatment of Jews in Europe." Many copies of the novel were burned, making original first editions rare and difficult to find.
In his foreword
Foreword
A foreword is a piece of writing sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between the writer of the foreword and the book's primary author or the story the book tells...
of the novel, John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy OM was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter...
called it a "delicious book" and a "little masterpiece" that shows a "delicacy of perception and essential truth". He notes that while reading the galley proof
Galley proof
In printing and publishing, proofs are the preliminary versions of publications meant for review by authors, editors, and proofreaders, often with extra wide margins. Galley proofs may be uncut and unbound, or in some cases electronic...
of the novel while crossing the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
, he, his wife, and his nephew read each page in turn over the course of three hours in "silent absorption." The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reviewer John Chamberlain praised Salten's "tender, lucid style" that "takes you out of yourself." He felt that Salten captured the essence of each of the creatures as they talked, catching the "rhythm of the different beings who people his forest world" and showed particular "comprehension" in detailing the various stages of Bambi's life. He also considered the English translation "admirably" done. A reviewer for Catholic World
Catholic World
Catholic World was a periodical founded by Paulist Father Isaac Thomas Hecker in April 1865. It featured many articles by Orestes Brownson, including the May 1870 essay "Church and State", which described Brownson's understanding of the proper relationship between the Church and the state.-...
praised the approach of the subject, noting that it was "marked by poetry and sympathy [with] charming reminders of German folklore and fairy tale". However, they disliked the "transference of certain human ideals to the animal mind" and the vague references to religious allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
. The Boston Transcript called it a "sensitive allegory of life". The Saturday Review considered it "beautiful and graceful" piece that showed a rare "individuality". The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
Literary Supplement stated that the novel is a "tale of exceptional charm, though untrustworthy of some of the facts of animal life." Isabel Ely Lord, reviewing the novel for the American Journal of Nursing, called the novel a "delightful animal story" and Salten a "poet" whose "picture of the woods and its people is an unforgettable one." In comparing Bambi to Salten's later work Perri
Perri (book)
Perri is a 1938 novel by the author of Bambi, Felix Salten. Its title character is an Eurasian red squirrel. Bambi makes a brief appearance in "Perri".In 1957, Walt Disney adapted it into a True Life Fantasy of the same name....
—in which Bambi makes a brief cameo
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
—Louise Long of the Dallas Morning News considered both to be stories that "quietly and completely [captivate] the heart". Long felt the prose was "poised and mobile and beautiful as poetry" and praises Salten for his ability to give the animals seemingly human speech while not "[violating] their essential natures."
Vicky Smith of Horn Book Magazine
Horn Book Magazine
The Horn Book Magazine, founded in Boston in 1924, is a bimonthly periodical about literature for children and young adults. It began life as a "suggestive purchase list" prepared by Bertha Mahony Miller and Elinor Whitney Field, proprietresses of the country's first bookstore for children, The...
felt the novel was gory compared to the later Disney adaptation and called it a "weeper". While criticizing it as one of the most notable anti-hunting novels available, she concedes the novel is not easily forgettable and praises the "linchpin scene" where Bambi's mother dies, stating "the understated conclusion of that scene, 'Bambi never saw his mother again,' masterfully evokes an uncomplicated emotional response". She questions Galsworthy's recommendation of the novel to sportsmen in the foreword, wondering "how many budding sportsmen might have had conversion experiences in the face of Salten's unrelieved harangue and how many might have instead become alienated." In comparing the novel to the Disney film, Steve Chapple of Sports Afield
Sports Afield
Sports Afield was founded in 1887 as a hunting and fishing magazine by Claude King and is the oldest continuous outdoor publication in North America. The first issue, in January 1888, was eight pages long and printed on newspaper stock, published in Denver, Colorado...
felt that Salten viewed Bambi's forest as a "pretty scary place" and the novel as a whole had a "lot of dark adult undertones." Interpreting it as an allegory for Salten's own life, Chapple felt Salten "[came] across [as] a little morbid, a bleeding heart of a European intellectual." The Wall Street Journals James P. Sterba also considered it an "antifascist allegory" and sarcastically notes that "you'll find it in the children's section at the library, a perfect place for this 293-page volume, packed as it is with blood-and-guts action, sexual conquest and betrayal" and "a forest full of cutthroats and miscreants. I count at least six murderers (including three child-killers) among Bambi's associates."
Environmentalism
Critics believe Bambi to be one of the first environmentalEnvironmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
novels.
Walt Disney animated film
With World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
looming, Max Schuster aided the Jewish Salten's flight from Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and helped introduce him, and Bambi, to Walt Disney Studios. Sidney Franklin, a producer and director at MGM films, purchased the film rights in 1933, initially desiring to make a live-action adaptation of the work. Deciding such a film would be too difficult to make, he sold the rights to Walt Disney in April 1937 in hopes of it being adapted into an animated film instead. Disney began working on the film immediately, intending it to be the company's second feature length animated film and his first to be based on a specific, recent work.
The original novel, written for an adult audience, was considered too "grim" and "somber" for the young audience Disney was targeting, and with the work required to adapt the novel, Disney put production on hold while it worked on several other works. In 1938, Disney assigned Perce Pearce and Carl Fallberg to develop the film's storyboards, but attention was soon drawn away as the studio began working on Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...
. Finally, on 17 August 1939, production on Bambi began in earnest, although it progressed slowly due to changes in the studio personnel, location and the methodology of handling animation at the time. The writing was completed in July 1940, by which time the film's budget had swelled to $858,000. Disney was later forced to slash 12 minutes from the film before final animation, to save costs on production.
Heavily modified from the original novel, Bambi
Bambi
Bambi is a 1942 American animated film directed by David Hand , produced by Walt Disney and based on the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten...
was released to theaters in the United States on 8 August 1942. Disney's version severely downplays the naturalistic and environmental elements found in the novel, giving it a lighter, friendlier feeling.
The addition of two new characters, Thumper
Thumper (Bambi)
Thumper is a fictional rabbit character from Disney's animated movie Bambi. He appeared again in Bambi II. He is known and named for his habit of thumping his left hind foot...
the Rabbit and Flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
the Skunk, two sweet and gentle forest creatures, contributed to giving the film the desired friendlier and lighter feeling.
Considered a classic, the film has been called "the crowning achievement of Walt Disney's animation studio" and was named as one of the Ten Top Ten—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—by the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
, listed as the third best film in the animation genre.
Russian live-action films
In 1985, a Russian-language live-action adaptation, (Detstvo Bembi), lit. Bambi's Childhood), was produced and released in VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
format in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
by Gorky Film Studios. It was directed by Natalya Bondarchuk
Natalya Bondarchuk
Natalya Sergeyevna Bondarchuk is a Soviet and Russian actress and film director, best known for her appearance in Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris as "Hari". She is the daughter of the Ukrainian actor Sergei Bondarchuk and the Russian actress Inna Makarova...
, who also co-wrote the script with Yuri Nagibin
Yuri Nagibin
Yuri Markovich Nagibin was a Soviet writer, screenwriter and novelist.He is best known for his screenplays, but he also has written several novels and novellas, and many short stories. He is known for his novel The Red Tent that he later adapted for the screenplay for the film of the same name...
, and featured music by Boris Petrov. Natalya 's son Ivan Burlyayev and her husband Nikolay Burlyaev starred as the young and adolescent Bambi, respectively, while Faline (renamed Falina) was portrayed by Yekaterina Lychyova as a child and Galina Belyayeva as an adult. In this adaptation, the film starts using animals, changes to using human actors, then returns to using animals for the ending.
A sequel, (Yunost Bembi), lit. Bambi's Youth, followed in 1986 with Nikolay and Galina reprising their voice roles as Bambi and Falina. Featuring over 100 species of live animal and filmed in various locations in Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
, Mount Elbrus
Mount Elbrus
Mount Elbrus is an inactive volcano located in the western Caucasus mountain range, in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia, Russia, near the border of Georgia. Mt. Elbrus's peak is the highest in the Caucasus, in Russia...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, the film follows new lovers Bambi and Felina as they go on a journey in search of a live-giving flower. Both films were released to Region 2 DVD with Russian and English subtitle options by the Russian Cinema Council in 2000. The first film's DVD also included a French audio soundtrack, while the second contained French subtitles instead.
Ballet
The Oregon Ballet Theatre adapted Bambi into an evening-length balletBallet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
entitled Bambi: Lord of the Forest. It was slated to premiere in March 2000 as the main production for the company's 2000–2001 season. A collaboration between artistic director
Artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company, that handles the organization's artistic direction. He or she is generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the organization is generally a non-profit organization...
James Canfield and composer Thomas Lauderdale, the ballet's production was to be an interpretation of the novel rather than the Disney film. In discussing the adaptation, Canfield stated that he was given a copy of the novel as a Christmas present and found it to be a "classic story about coming of age and a life cycle." He went on to note that the play was inspired solely by the novel and not the Disney film. After the initial announcements, the pair began calling the work The Collaboration, as Disney owns the licensing rights for the name Bambi and they did not wish to fight for usage rights. The local press began calling the ballet alternative titles, including Not-Bambi which Canfield noted to be his favorite, out of derision at Disney. Its release was delayed for unexplained reasons, and it has yet to be performed.
Theater
PlaywrightPlaywright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
James DeVita, of the First Stage Children's Theater
First Stage Children's Theater
The First Stage Children's Theater is a professional American children's theater based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin founded in 1987. Its season consists of six mainstage plays and a touring production....
, created a stage adaptation of the novel. The script was published by Anchorage Press Plays on 1 June 1997. Crafted for young adults and teenagers and retaining the title Bambi—A Life In The Woods, it has been produced around the United States at various venues. The script calls for an open stage
Thrust stage
In theatre, a thrust stage is one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by its up stage end. A thrust has the benefit of greater intimacy between performers and the audience than a proscenium, while retaining the utility of a backstage area...
set up, and utilizes at least nine actors, five male, four female, to cover the thirteen roles. The American Alliance Theatre and Education awarded the work its "Distinguished Play Award" for an adaptation.
Disney adaptation
Disney has published several book versions of its film over the years [dates forthcoming].Schulman adaptation
In 1999, the novel was adapted into an illustrated hardback children's book by Janet Schulman, with illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher, and published by Simon & SchusterSimon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
as part of its "Atheneum Books for Young Readers" imprint. In the adaptation, Schulman attempted to retain some of the lyrical feel of the original novel. She notes that rather than rewrite the novel, she "replicated Salten's language almost completely. I reread the novel a number of times and then I went through and highlighted the dialogue and poignant sentences Salten had written." Doing so retained much of the novel's original lyrical feel, though the book's brevity did result in a sacrifice of some of the "majesty and mystery" found in the novel. The illustrations were created to appear as realistic as possible, using painted images rather than sketches. In 2002, the Schulman adaptation was released in audio book format by Audio Bookshelf, with Frank Dolan as the reader.
See also
- Bambi AwardsBambi (prize)The Bambi - Deutschlands Wichtigster Medienpreis, often simply called Bambi Awards and stylized as BAMBI, are presented annually by Hubert Burda Media to recognize excellence in international media and television "with vision and creativity who affected and inspired the German public that year",...
, an international television and media prize, named for the novel's titular character and featuring fawn-shaped statuettes - Bambi effectBambi Effect"The Bambi effect" is a term used anecdotally or in editorial media that refers to objections against the killing of animals that are perceived as "cute" or "adorable", such as deer or dolphins, while there may be little or no objection to the suffering of organisms that are perceived as somehow...
, a phrase that refers to emotional objections to the killing of "adorable" animals, inspired by the Disney depiction of the death of Bambi's mother by human hunters