Maleficent

Disney presents Maleficent, the unedited story of the legendary witch from the Disney classic The Sleeping Beauty played by Academy Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie. Precisely this year we celebrate the 55th anniversary of this character who cast a spell against the young Aurora in the first film rendition of 1959, also distributed by Disney. Since its creation Maleficent has been by far the most famous of the villains of the Disney universe and now returns in this live action version of the story.

Maleficent explores the reasons that hardened the witch's heart. Thirsty for revenge and desperately eager to protect the lands it dominates, Malefica casts a cruel and irrevocable curse on Aurora, the king's newborn daughter who grows aware of the conflict between the beloved kingdom of the woods and the human kingdom of which she is legitimate heir. Aware of the possibility that the girl can bring peace to the territory, Maleficent is forced to commit radical actions that will forever change the face of both these worlds.

The character of Maleficent is a Disney creation, first presented in the 1959 animated feature film Sleeping Beauty, but the story of the princess who falls under the spell of eternal sleep had been told since the dawn of the fairy tale era. .

The history of The Sleeping Beauty it has evolved, with different titles, in the course of about 400 years (1000 if we count some elements that overlap, dating back to the Middle Ages). The first traces of history can be found in the French novel Perceforest (by an unknown author) written in 1527 and then arrive at a story by the Italian narrator Giambattista Basile (1636) entitled Sole, Luna and Talia inserted in Lo cunto de li cunti , generally considered the first collection of printed fables. In 1697, a version of the story was published by Charles Perrault in his book The Tales of Mother Goose. The Grimm brothers were inspired by this latest version in 1812, when they made public the story of Rosaspina , a beautiful princess awakened from a deep sleep caused by a spell. The spinning wheel is the only important element that we have always found in all versions of the story, in fact Sleeping Beauty has left a long series of princesses in heredity, all fallen into a deep sleep following the sting of a melted or some devilry. The origins of Maleficent as a female personification of evil are less clear. Basile's story brings us back to a cruel, jealous and vindictive Queen, married to the King and for this reason inserted in the royal family to whom she inflicts a curse. In Perrault, who introduced the element of the charming Prince whose kiss could break the spell, evil was represented by an evil fairy, so his version remains the closest to Disney's. It was therefore up to the writers and animators of the twentieth century and to the actress Eleanor Audley to invent Maleficent for the classic Disney The Sleeping Beauty. It took 10 years to make the film, which cost $ 6 million making it the most expensive film made by Studios to date. To this day Maleficent remains the favorite and at the same time most feared character in the gallery of Disney villains.

What the director wanted in this film was not only to have an element of fantasy and a surreal quality, but he wanted Maleficent to be a little more grounded in reality. In fact, in Maleficent we started from reality and it was enlarged and transformed. However, it was important to keep a sufficient number of elements of Sleeping Beauty in such a way that fans of the original could not be disappointed.

If Maleficent has long been the female model of the dark, the character of Aurora has always personified light and innocence. In selecting the actress for the role of the Princess, a victim of Maleficent's spell, the filmmakers hired one of the most talented actresses of her generation: Elle Fanning. Everyone knows Aurora as she is represented in Sleeping Beauty, but in the film, we see her going through different moods and the audience will be able to appreciate her true essence, a girl made pleasant and fascinating, as everything was denied.

Aurora's father in the film, King Stephen, was driven by a blind ambition to become king and stopped at nothing to achieve his goal. During the film it becomes evident that Stephen is thirsty for power while Maleficent is tied to the place he belongs to and feels the responsibility of having to take care of the creatures that inhabit it. We will thus follow his adventure, which will lead him to the castle in search of luck, money and power.

Although he is the head of the human kingdom, he is not without allies in the kingdom of the magical forest. Three fairies (Giuggiola, Florina and Verdelia), who fear Maleficent and feel her hostile towards them, are chosen by Stefano to raise his little daughter until the day after her sixteenth birthday. The king could not have made a worse choice when selecting what should have been guardians capable of taking care of a child. Funny, comical and totally inadequate, the fairies add a touch of lightheartedness and fun to the film. At first, fairies are depicted as tiny creatures with big ideas of what Maleficent should or shouldn't do. When King Stephen decides to entrust them with the task of looking after Aurora in the woods, the fairies take on human form. But they only look human, since in reality they have no idea how to behave in the world of human beings without being able to use magic. And anyway, big or small, with or without magical powers, each of them shows to have a well-defined personality. Giuggiola believes she is the most important fairy, she is very authoritarian, very organized and she has to control everything. Among them, the one who defined herself as an adult. Florina's gift is to make things blue and she believes that everything must be blue. There is a scene where he turns a person's dress from yellow to blue and gets indignant when this person wants their dress to turn yellow. Verdelia the youngest fairy is naive, innocent and distracted by nature: she just wants to smell the scent of flowers and dance.

Maleficent also has a faithful companion who in the original animated classic we see only in the form of a raven. In this new version, the witch transforms him into a man as she pleases, but also into a horse or dragon or wolf. Whatever his form, the character of Fosco, played by Sam Riley, is his faithful servant. It helps her on her journey in search of herself. Fosco shows up at the worst moment in Maleficent's life and, together with Aurora, tries to free her from the black hole into which she has fallen.

Disney films know how to amuse and entertain, always offering something new, something hidden deep inside that the public can take away with them. Therefore, the visual impact, the grandeur of the settings represent the novelty. As for that something that viewers will take away with them, no matter how guilty they may feel, no matter how hard they think their life is, the film offers a stone-hearted character who has come to love despite everything despite herself.

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More images from the Maleficent movie

Princess Aurora

Princess Aurora finds the spinning wheel

Princess Aurora with hood

Prince Philip and Maleficent

Maleficent witch

Maleficent witch

Maleficent witch with horns and black wings

Maleficent Witch casts the spell on the newborn Aurora

The three fairies

Maleficent witch with raven

Maleficent witch with black wings

Maleficent witch

Prince Philip

Princess Aurora in the woods

Princess Aurora asleep