The 44th Best All-Time Film

(16th 1973-1998)
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
(Robin Hood (1973); The Rescuers (1977); The Aristocats (1970))

The 44th spot on my all time best film list belongs to the Disney films of the seventies, in particular “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.” (But the other films “Aristocats” (1970), “The Rescuers” (1977) and especially, “Robin Hood” (1973) are all gems in their own right.

“Winnie the Pooh” is a film pieced together from three shorts that Disney had already released. It stands out, however, as a very early example of metafiction. (It may be the very first example that I ever saw.) The way that the film plays with the idea that the stories are adapted from a book—a book that itself highlights the fact that it is born out of a father reading to his children—is masterful. The breaking of the fourth wall, the flipping of the pages, the interaction of the narrator with the characters, and the way action takes place on the pages, are all wonderful ways of showing the art of story while telling a story. Not to mention, the way that the story plays with a child-like-level of imagination with words spelled and pronounced incorrectly.

But the real treasure of Winnie the Pooh finds its way into the film from the source material. Milne had a way of thinking and looking at the world that is a joy to experience. The final scene of the movie is a great example of the sort of perspective that the book gifts us nearly every page.