The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (also known as The Bells of Notre Dame in some countries) is the thirty-fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released to cinemas on June 21, 1996, and based on Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. While the basic structure remains, the film differs greatly from its source material. The plot centers on the gypsy girl Esmeralda; Claude Frollo, a powerful and ruthless judge, who lusts after her; Quasimodo, the protagonist, Notre Dame's kind-hearted but deformed bellringer, who adores her; and Phoebus, the chivalrous if irreverent military captain, who holds affections for her.

Plot
The movie opens with a gypsy called Clopin telling a group of children "a tale of a man and a monster" about Notre Dame, its bells, and its bellringer ("The Bells of Notre Dame"). He then narrates a scene with several gypsies — including a mother and her baby — moving silently through Paris in the night. Judge Claude Frollo arrives on his horse and, driven by his loathing of gypsies, chases the mother, thinking the baby is a bundle of stolen goods. Frantic, she runs towards the Notre Dame cathedral, banging on the door and pleading for sanctuary. Frollo catches up to her, tries to wrench away the bundle, kicking her in the chest, causing her to let go and violently hit the steps of the cathedral, where she dies instantly. Frollo realizes that the bundle is a child, and discovers its hideous deformity. As he moves to drown it in a nearby well, the Archdeacon of the cathedral stops him. Outraged at the blood spilt on the steps of Notre Dame, he tells Frollo that, as penance, he must raise the child. Frollo agrees, however hesitantly, and proclaims that the child be raised in the cathedral and live in the belltower, where no one can see him. He christens the child Quasimodo, meaning "half-formed".

Twenty years later, Quasimodo desires to leave the solitude of the belltower and celebrate in the annual Feast of Fools. He debates the situation with his three gargoyle friends: Victor, Hugo, and Laverne. As the three gargoyles encourage him to leave for just one day, Frollo enters and tries to eat lunch with Quasimodo. But when the bellringer lets it slip that he wishes to see the festival, the judge becomes enraged, describing the world below as being full of sin and cruelty, hopefully deterring Quasimodo from leaving. Frollo leaves the belltower and Quasimodo reflects on his words, but grows even more determined to experience one day living amongst the people he has viewed for twenty years ("Out There").

Meanwhile, in the streets below, Phoebus, captain of the guard, comes back to Paris from the Crusades and spies the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda dancing with her goat, Djali, for coins. When some city guards harass her, Phoebus distracts them; later, when he finds Esmeralda and her goat disguised as an old man, he slips them some coins. He then moves to the Palace of Justice, where Judge Frollo tells him of his desire for control, and the extermination of the gypsies.

Later in the day, the Festival of Fools begins. Quasimodo dons a cape and decides to join the festivities, where he experiences the strange sights and events of the festival ("Topsy Turvy"). He stumbles upon Esmeralda as she is changing for her dance. Thinking Quasimodo is just another performer at the festival, she compliments him on his mask, not knowing that it is actually his face. He grins sheepishly and walks off. As the festivities continue, Clopin stands on a stage and creates a large red cloud. Out of the cloud steps Esmeralda, who dances for the crowd, even going so far as to humiliate Frollo. She dances towards him, wrapping a scarf around his neck, and leans in close as if to kiss him, only to hit his hat over his eyes and leave him. Clopin reappears onstage in order to begin the "ugliest face in Paris" contest. Esmeralda leads Quasimodo to the stage. She begins to take the masks off of the other contestants who make ugly faces once they are exposed. The crowd boos each contestant until only Quasimodo is left. Esmeralda tries to take off his mask, but realizes that it is actually his face. Everyone in the crowd, including Frollo, realizes that Quasimodo is the Bellringer of Notre Dame and is instantly repulsed. However, Clopin quickly reminds the crowd that they wanted the ugliest face in Paris, and Quasimodo is made "King of Fools". The crowd cheers as Frollo watches on, disgusted. Suddenly, one of the city guards throws a tomato at Quasimodo, and the crowd follows suit. Some men in the crowd attack Quasimodo and tie him to a giant wheel on the stage, torturing him. Angry and guilty, Esmeralda saves him and yells at Frollo for allowing the crowd to attack him. Frollo threatens her and the guards are ordered to seize her, but she escapes grandly.

Soon after, Quasimodo goes back inside the cathedral. Esmeralda does too, and then Phoebus enters. She argues with him (to the point of brandishing a candlestick), but he is taken with her. Having no choice but to allow her sanctuary within the Notre Dame, he leaves. Frollo sneaks up behind her and grabs her arm, saying that she outwitted him but that he is a patient man. He then sniffs her hair; she asks what he's doing, and while caressing her neck he says, "I was just imagining a rope around that beautiful neck". He soon leaves and she is trapped. The archdeacon consoles her at what happened at the festival means the archdeacon witnessed what Frollo did out there and letting the crowd tortured Quasimodo, and she walks around the cathedral praying. While the other parishioners are heard asking for fame, glory, love, and blessings upon themselves, she prays for the outcasts in society ("God Help the Outcasts"). Quasimodo overhears her and follows her from a distance about the cathedral. One of the parishioners shouts at Quasimodo thinking he is causing trouble; embarrassed, he runs back to his safe haven in the belltower. Esmeralda follows him after scolding the parishioner by the archdeacon for shouting at Quasimodo.

Very soon afterwards, Esmeralda happens upon Quasimodo's area in the belltower. Though timid and unsure, he introduces her to the bells and to his odd menagerie of relics from the street below — her world. Intrigued by his intellect and personality, she offers to read his palm. With a sincere look she tells him that despite what Frollo may have told him, he has not a single 'monster line'. Touched and beginning to fall in love with his newfound friend, he uses his skills to scale the towers and buttresses, thus freeing her. In her gratitude she offers him a woven necklace and the final words "You Hold the City in Your Hand". Lovestruck, he climbs up to ring the evening bells for Mass, thinking of the "Heaven's Light" that glows when love is around.

Frollo, on the other hand, hearing the bells, thinks only of "hellfire" and the day's events concerning Esmeralda ("Heaven's Light/Hellfire"). He prays to the Virgin Mary to relieve him of the lust that he is now experiencing, or at the very least, to give her to him. He is interrupted by a guard, who tells him that the gypsy has escaped. Frollo, enraged, vows that if he must, he will burn down all of Paris in pursuit of where she hides. The next morning, he meets his Guard and issues his command, offering ten, then twenty pieces of silver for information on Esmeralda's whereabouts. (It is never seen if he offers "Thirty pieces of silver" which would be a reference to the money the High Priests offered Judas Iscariot for his betrayal of Jesus Christ.) Unsatisfied, he commands Phoebus to burn down the home of a miller and his family that cannot supply him with the information. Phoebus defies him and tries to flee the scene on Frollo's horse. As he attempts, he is shot with an arrow, falling off the horse and into the river below. Esmeralda rescues him as well — dropping him off at Notre Dame with Quasimodo, whom she trusts.

Quasimodo agrees to keep their secret, but is heartbroken at the affection they display for one another.

Learning of Frollo's plot, Phoebus and Quasimodo set off for the Court of Miracles to warn the gypsies. Quasimodo discovers, much to his surprise, that the woven band given to him by Esmeralda is a map of the city — indicating the exact location of the famed gypsy hideaway. As they arrive, however, they are instead thought to be minions of Frollo ("The Court of Miracles"). Clopin and others gag and bind the two intruders, but Esmeralda arrives in time to stop them from being hanged — but at this point, Frollo also arrives, with the Guard in tow.

Frollo, after capturing the gypsies, is again outraged that Esmeralda refuses to submit to him. In retaliation, he prepares to burn her in a public square on charges of witchcraft. However, Quasimodo breaks free of where Frollo has chained him in the belltower and saves her.

Quasimodo then sets the gypsies free with Phoebus's help with help by the king of France and Frollo's successor and the French force and defeats Frollo's soldiers. The evil judge breaks down the door, and prepares to end this war. Back up in the tower, Esmeralda is unconscious, and Quasimodo thinks she has died. Frollo then approaches with a dagger in his hand, and prepares to kill the bellringer; but Quasimodo has finally found courage, and angrily informs his enemy that the only thing dark and cruel about the world is people like Frollo. Esmeralda regains consciousness and they escape to the outside. The battle between Quasimodo and Frollo is fierce, and Frollo hints to Quasimodo that he killed his mother. Just as he prepares to murder Esmeralda and Quasimodo, the pillar under him breaks, and he is left clinging on a gargoyle. Its eyes and mouth glow yellow, and Frollo falls from the cathedral to his death in the molten lead below. Phoebus then saves Quasimodo who able to get to Notre Dame, and the friends embrace. Esmeralda leads Quasimodo outside to a grateful crowd who are celebrating over the death of Frollo; however, they are still wary of him because of his appearance. It is a small child who leaves her mother's side and hugs Quasimodo that softens the crowd. The movies concludes with Clopin picking the girl up as the crowd carries Quasimodo, a hero, away. Clopin, taking out the Frollo handpuppet, tickles the girl and asks "Who is the monster and who is the man?" as she giggles.

Overview
Hunchback is considerably more adult-oriented than the usual Disney fare and touches on themes of sin, religion, and hate. In addition, some disturbing images appear throughout the movie, such as one scene in which the sounds of a prisoner being whipped are heard in the background. As the company has a reputation as a makers of children's animation, this resulted in criticism. On the other hand, others praised the film for the very same reasons it was criticized, and the film was one of the last products of Disney's renaissance in the production of animated features, which spawned Oliver & Company, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Hercules, Mulan, and Tarzan. The film was still successful, opening at #2 and taking just over $100 million in domestic income and $325 million worldwide.

Critiques
The film has been acclaimed for its visual and artistic merits, and its technical advances in the combination of hand-drawn and computerised animation. Notable details include the use of computer-generated imagery to create otherwise infeasibly large crowds, and the use of actual Christian latin texts and music in the background.

It has also been criticized, along with several other film adaptions of Hugo's novel, for oversimplifying, if not eliminating several of the thematic elements of the original book. The character of Gringoire is absent entirely, and Quasimodo's sidekick trio of gargoyles - Victor, Hugo and Laverne - would look rather out of place in the book, as would the eventual ending. As it is a production of Disney and geared primarily toward children and families, however, some of the alterations are far from irrational.

Both sides of the political spectrum had issues with the movie. Right wing conservatives wanted the song "Hellfire" removed, as Esmeralda looked "overtly seductive" and didn't like Frollo's faith as a character flaw, or hamartia for that matter. Liberals on the other hand objected to the term "Hunchback" and wished for a renaming of the title. Disney ignored both of these complaints.

One particularly notable criticism of the movie is that it handles the theme of religion very differently (and much less controversially) from the novel. The most striking illustration of this is that although the movie omits a number of characters from the novel (such as Gringoire and Paquette), it also adds a character in the person of the benevolent but ineffectual archdeacon of Notre Dame; Frollo was the archdeacon in the novel. Still, part of Frollo's hatred for the gypsies stems from his religious beliefs.

The Character of Phoebus is also completely inversed from the book. In this film, his love is not sanctioned, nor approved of, but other than the prejudices due to an interracial marriage, there is no problem. In the book, Phoebus is a cruel, manipulative man, who is engaged to a girl named Fleur-de-Lys, but spends a night with Esmeralda out of lust, not even learning her name. He ignores her later cries of love and for help and allows her to die to keep his fiancée.

Trivia

 * Tony Jay, which provided the voice for Frollo, died on August 2007.
 * The names of the three of the gargoyles are Victor, Hugo, and Laverne, after Victor Hugo, author of the original novel, and one of the three Andrews Sisters, LaVerne.
 * For its 1997 and 2003 VHS release in Burbank, approximately two minutes of the film were edited out to maintain a PG rating. The scenes removed were portions of Frollo's interaction with Esmeralda in the cathedral and bountiful verses of the song Hellfire. The 2003 DVD release of the film included these scenes.

Adaptations
This was adapted into a darker, more gothic musical production, re-written and directed by James Lapine and produced by the Disney theatrical branch, in Berlin, Germany. Considered to be a great boost for tourists in Germany, the musical Der Glöckner von Notre Dame (translated in English as The Bellringer of Notre Dame) was very successful and played from 1996 to 2003, before closing. A cast recording was also recorded in German. More recently, The Lion King (1994) family film on Disney Channel's, as well as a possible American theatrical production, like Disney's other successful musical adaptations of their films now playing on Broadway.