The Hunchback of Notre Dame (film)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a 1996 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released to theaters on June 21, 1996 byWalt Disney Pictures. The thirty-fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, the film is based on the basic story of Victor Hugo's novel of the same name, but changes most of its substance. The plot centers on Quasimodo, the main character of Notre Dame, he is the kindhearted but deformed bell-ringer.

The film was directed by Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, directors ofBeauty and the Beast, and produced by Don Hahn, producer of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. The songs for the musical film were composed by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, and the film featured the voices of Tom Hulce, Demi Moore, Kevin Kline, Paul Kandel, Jason Alexander, Charles Kimbrough, David Ogden Stiers, Tony Jay, and Mary Wickes (in her final film role). It belongs to the era known as Disney Renaissance. A direct-to-video sequel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame ll, was released in 2002.

Plot
The movie opens in 1482 Paris with Clopin, a gypsy puppeteer, telling a group of children the story of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The story begins as three gypsies sneak illegally into Paris but are ambushed by a squadron of soldier-like thugs working for Judge Claude Frollo, the Minister of Justice and de facto ruler of Paris. A gypsy woman attempts to flee with her baby, but Frollo catches and kills her just outside Notre Dame, intending to kill her deformed baby (Frollo says to the Archdeacon that the baby is "an unholy demon" and that he is "sending it back to Hell where it belongs"), but the Archdeacon appears and accuses him of murdering an innocent woman. Frollo denies that he is in the wrong saying his conscience is clear, but the Archdeacon declares he can lie to himself all he wants, but he cannot hide his crime from heaven ('the eyes of Notre Dame', the statues of the saints outside the cathedral). Fearing for his soul and to atone for his sin, Frollo reluctantly agrees to raise the deformed child in the Cathedral as his son, naming him Quasimodo.

Twenty years later, Quasimodo has developed into a kind yet isolated young man with three gargoyles as his only company, constantly told by Frollo that he is a monster who would be rejected by the uncaring outside world. Despite these warnings, Quasimodo sneaks out of the Cathedral to attend the Feast of Fools, where he is crowned King of Fools but immediately humiliated by the crowd when Frollo's thugs start a riot. Frollo, in the audience, refuses to help Quasimodo, and the crowd only stops when a kind and beautiful gypsy, Esmerlada, frees Quasimodo from his restraints and openly defies Frollo. Frollo orders her arrested, but she escapes by means of illusions, which Frollo calls "witchcraft." Frollo scolds Quasimodo and sends him back inside the Cathedral.

Esmeralda follows Quasimodo to find him, but is herself followed by Phoebus, Frollo's Captain of the Guard. Phoebus, who himself does not approve of Frollo's methods, refuses to arrest her inside the Cathedral saying that she has claimed 'Sanctuary' and thus cannot be arrested as long as she remains in Notre Dame, Frollo finally leaves when the Archdeacon orders him out, but not before warning Esmeralda that his thugs will capture her the minute she leaves the Cathedral. Esmeralda finds Quasimodo in the bell tower and befriends him. As gratitude for helping him in the crowd, Quasimodo helps Esmeralda escape Notre Dame. In return, she leaves him with a map to the gypsy hideout, the Court of Miracles, should he ever choose to leave Notre Dame again. Frollo himself begins to realize his lustful feelings for Esmeralda and wishes to be free of them to escape eternal damnation. He soon learns of Esmeralda's escape, and orders a city-wide manhunt for her, burning down houses in his path. Realizing that Frollo has lost his mind, Phoebus defies Frollo, who orders him executed, but is aided in escape by Esmeralda. After being hit by an arrow, Phoebus falls into the river, but is rescued by Esmeralda, who takes him to Quasimodo for refuge.

Frollo soon returns to the Cathedral, forcing Quasimodo to hide Phoebus. Knowing that Quasimodo helped Esmeralda escape, Frollo bluffs that he knows where the Court of Miracles is and that he intends to attack it at dawn with a battalion. After he leaves, Phoebus requests Quasimodo's help in finding the Court before Frollo. Using the map Esmeralda left, they find it and are almost hung by the gypsies as spies, but are saved when Esmeralda intervenes and clears up the misunderstanding. However, Frollo's army appears and captures them all, with Frollo revealing that he followed Phoebus and Quasimodo.

Frollo then orders Esmeralda burned at the stake after she refuses his proposal of her becoming his mistress. Quasimodo, tied up in the bell tower, initially refuses to help, but when he sees Esmeralda in pain he gives in to his anger and rescues her, yelling "Sanctuary." As Frollo orders his men to attack the cathedral, Phoebus ignites a mutiny among the people of Paris who have had enough of Frollo's tyranny and a battle ensues in the street between the citizenry and Frollo's thug army. Quasimodo places Esmeralda's unconscious body on a bed and pours a cauldron of molten copper onto the streets to ensure nobody gets inside. Frollo, however, manages to break in and force his way past the Archdeacon. Quasimodo, believing Esmeralda to be dead, breaks down beside her body as Frollo comes into the room to kill him with a dagger. Quasimodo, in his fury, fights back and almost kills Frollo but stops when Esmeralda wakes up. Frollo chases them on to the balcony, where he and Quasimodo fight for the final time. The battle ends with both Frollo and Quasimodo falling from the balcony. When Frollo falls to his death, Quasimodo is caught by Phoebus on a lower floor, and the three friends reunite.

As the citizens celebrate their victory over Frollo, Quasimodo reluctantly emerges from the Cathedral to face the populace again, only this time, he is hailed as a hero.

English Voice Cast
Animation supervisors:
 * Quasimodo (voiced by Tom Hulce respectively) – The main character of the film. He is a courageous and enthusiastic character. He is the bellringer of the Notre Dame Cathedral. He is physically deformed with a hunched back and is constantly told by his guardian Judge Claude Frollo that he is an ugly monster who will never be accepted by the world outside. However, the opening song asks listeners to judge for themselves "who is the monster, and who is the man" of the two.
 * Esmerlada (voiced by Demi Moore respectively, singing voice by Heidi Mollenhauer) – The deuteragonist of the film. A beautiful, streetwise, talented, and always-barefoot gypsy girl who befriends Quasimodo and shows him that his soul is truly beautiful, even if his exterior isn't. She is incredibly independent and greatly dislikes the horrible ways in which gypsies are treated. Throughout the movie, Esmeralda attempts to seek justice for her people. She falls in love with Captain Phoebus and helps Quasimodo understand that gypsies are good people. 'Esmeralda' is the Spanish and Portuguese word for 'Emerald', which may be why the animators chose to give her emerald green eyes.
 * Judge Claude Frollo (voiced by the late Tony Jay respectively) – A ruthless and powerful judge who is Quasimodo's reluctant guardian. He is the main antagonist of the film. He also lusts after Esmeralda for which he feels shame, but is willing to kill her if she rejects him. Frollo generally does not see any evil in his deeds as he does them in honor of God, even though the Archdeacon often disapproves of his actions, which would make him more of an anti-hero than a villain. However, at one point during the song "Hellfire", the priests singing the Confiteor manifest as his conscience, chanting the Latin words "mea culpa" ("my fault"), to reveal that Frollo ultimately knows the truth of his actions.
 * Captain Phoebus (voiced by Kevin Kline) – A soldier who is Frollo's Captain of the Guard and the tritagonist of the film. He falls in love with (and later marries) Esmeralda. He is a heroic idealist with integrity and does not approve of what Frollo thinks or does. This distinguishes him severely from his character in the original story.
 * Clopin (voiced by Paul Kandel) – The mischievous leader of the gypsies who will defend his people at all costs. He introduces the audience to the story, explaining how Quasimodo, the bell ringer from Notre Dame, got to be there.
 * Victor, Hugo and Laverne (voiced by Jason Alexander, Charles Kimbrough, and Mary Wickes, respectively) – Three gargoyle statues who become Quasimodo's close friends and guardians. In the DVD audio commentary for Hunchback, Wise, Trousdale, and Hahn note that the gargoyles might exist only in Quasimodo's imagination and thus may well be split-off pieces of his own identity. This was Mary Wickes' (Laverne) last film. She died of cancer before finishing her work on the film. Jane Withers provided the remaining dialogue, and provided the voice for Laverne in The Hunchback of Notre Dame ll.
 * The Archdeacon (voiced by David Ogden Stilers) – A kind man who helps many characters throughout the course of the movie, including Esmeralda. He is the opposite of Frollo: kind, accepting, gentle, and wise. He is the only figure in the film with authority over Frollo while he is inside Notre Dame. He appears in the beginning of the movie when he orders Frollo to adopt Quasimodo for killing his mother. He disapproves of most of Frollo's actions, and at the film's climax, Frollo, in his rage, openly defies him and knocks him down a flight of stairs.
 * James Baxter (Quasimodo)
 * Tony Fucile (Esmeralda)
 * Kathy Zielinski (Frollo)
 * Russ Edmonds (Phoebus)
 * Michael Surrey (Clopin)
 * David Pruikensma (Victor and Hugo)
 * Will Finn (Laverne)
 * Ron Husband (Djali)
 * Dave Burgess (Archdeacon)
 * Art director:David Gotez
 * Story supervisor: Will Finn
 * Layout supervisor: Ed Ghertner
 * Background supervisor: Lisa Keene
 * Clean-up animation supervisor: Vera Lanpher-Pacheco
 * Effects animation supervisor: Chris Jenkins
 * Computer graphics supervisor: Kiran Bhakta Joshi

Music
The film's soundtrack includes a musical score written byAlan Menken and songs written by Menken and Stephen Schwartz. Songs include"The Bells of Notre Dame" for Clopin,"Out There" for Quasimodo and Frollo,"Topsy Turvy"also for Clopin,"God Help the Outcasts" for Esmeralda, "Heaven's Light" and "Hell Fire"for Quasimodo, the Archdeacon, and Frollo,'A Guy Like You" for the gargoyles and"The Court of Miracles" for Clopin and the gypsies.

Three songs written for the film were discarded during the storyboarding process and not used: "In a Place of Miracles", "As Long As There's a Moon", and "Someday", a candidate to replace "God Help the Outcasts". Though not included in the body of the film, "Someday" is heard over the end credits, performed by R&B group All-4-One in the North American English release, and Eternal in the British English version. Luis Miguel recorded the version for the Latin American Spanish version, which became a major hit in Mexico.

Production
The Hunchback of Notre Dame was the second Disney film directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise after the hugely successful Beauty and the Beast in 1991. The duo had read Victor Hugo's novel and were eager to make an adaptation, but made several changes in order to make the storyline more suitable for children. This included making the film's heroes, Quasimodo, Esmeralda, and Phoebus, kinder than in the novel, changing Frollo from Archdeacon to corrupt minister (and creating an original Archdeacon character), adding sidekicks in the form of three anthropomorphized stone gargoyles, and keeping Quasimodo and Esmeralda alive at the end. This ending is perhaps more inspired by Hugo's opera libretto based on his own book, in which Esmeralda is saved by Phoebus at the end of the drama.

The film's animators visited the actual cathedral at Notre Dame in Paris for a few weeks. They made and took hundreds of sketches and photos in order to stay fully faithful to the architecture and detail.

Several of the film's voice actors had been part of past projects Trousdale and Wise attended. For example,Tony Jay and David Ogden Stiers, the voices of Judge Claude Frollo and the Archdeacon, respectively, had previously worked on Beauty and the Beast, providing the voices of Monsieur D'Arque and Cogsworth/the narrator respectively (although their characters did not share any scenes together). Also, Paul Kandel, the voice of Clopin, was chosen after the directors saw him playing the role of Uncle Ernie in the opera production of  Tommy. Demi Moore was chosen for the role of Esmeralda based on her unusual voice, as the directors wanted a non-traditional voice for the film's leading lady.

Despite the changes from the original literary source material in order to ensure a G rating, the film does manage to address mature issues such as lust, infanticide, profanity, religious hypocrisy, the concept of Hell, prejudice, social injustice, and homosexuality. Songs also contain rather mature lyrical content such as the words"licentious"or"Strumpet" "which introduce the concept of sexual indulgence, as well as frequent verbal mentions of Hell. Also notably, it is the first animated Disney film to use the word "damnation.