The story of Sleeping Beauty has, of course, been around in various forms for literally centuries. The earliest written version that we know about dates to about 1340 and is found in Le Roman de Perceforest, a chivalric romance written in French which fills a lengthy six volumes. It contains a lot of ancient myths and stories including some from the Roman Empire, Arthurian tales and, obviously, an early version of Sleeping Beauty, no doubt taken from an existing oral fable. This version was later included by the Italian writer Giambattista Basile in his collection of fairy tales The Pentamerone (1634). Admittedly, this version is very creepy and rape-y; the feminists who screech about Prince Philip kissing Aurora being sexual assault would have to be hospitalized if they read the actual tale it's based on. There's also a rather bizarre subplot about attempted cannibalism... it's complicated.
My first exposure to the story was in a huge, hardcover book of fairy tales my family had when I was a child- so big that I could barely carry it when I was small. It was of course the Grimm's version of the tale, and was illustrated with the excellent artwork of Gustave Dore (1832-1883). Here are a few of the images I remember so well:
The name Aurora comes from an earlier version of the fairy tale- Basile's- although it's the name of the princess's daughter, not hers (she's unnamed). Her alias Briar Rose is lifted from Grimm's version, in which that's her name. Oh, and Philip is named after Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip; he was actually the first Disney prince to get his own name, something which those who complain about the objectification of the princesses might want to consider. Also, a lot of the music from the movie is lifted from Tchaikovsky's 1890 ballet The Sleeping Beauty.
Add this to the fact that he- with a lot of help from the three good fairies, of course- rescues the fair maiden, and you've got the recipe for a proper progressive meltdown... which reminds me of another portion of scripture: Psalm 2 "Why do the heathen rage...?" Just kidding. Sort of.
All in all, 1959 Sleeping Beauty holds up pretty well... the nostalgia factor certainly doesn't hurt. And Maleficent is a great, memorable villain. At least, she was until Disney decided to make a woke, anti-hero of her a few years ago, turning her from a strong-willed, unapologetic baddie into a sad, misunderstood victim of the patriarchy. Wow. How inspiring. They've done the same thing to another great Disney villainess- Cruella Deville- with the same predictable, ruinous results. It's an awkward and unconvincing task to try to convince your audience that a character who has literally allied herself with the devil in order to murder an innocent young girl, and another whose entire raison d'etre is to kill and skin hundreds of puppies, are not actually the bad guys. Uh huh.
Anyway, my nieces really enjoyed the movie, especially the almost- 4 year old, who had her eyes glued to the screen the whole time. At one point- when Maleficent materializes in Aurora's fireplace looking particularly malignant- I heard my niece gasp and looked over to see her staring wide-eyed at the scene, one hand covering her mouth. Then, when Maleficent really got going with the evil, she climbed up on her Dad's lap and snuggled in to watch the scary stuff. The two year old was mostly interested in the animals, especially Philip's horse, and also the dragon. After Philip killed the dragon, which then turned back into dead Maleficent, she kept asking where the dragon went. Oh, in conclusion, the older niece also informed us in no uncertain terms that Merriweather was right: the dress should be blue.
Looking back over this post, it's obvious that I've kind of meandered off in a bunch of different directions on the topic of Sleeping Beauty... hopefully it sort of makes sense, even if it's a little unfocussed.