The Fantastic and the Real: Fairy-Tale Films in the 21st Century

Abstract

This article provides a critical examination of Pauline Greenhill’s monograph, Reality, Magic, and Other Lies: Fairy-Tale Film Truths (2020) and situates it within her larger body of scholarship. The title reflects the contradictory nature of fairy tales, which often contain moral and social truths beneath their fictional surfaces. Though related to her previous work, this book represents a departure from her earlier collections. Here, she provides close readings of various films, employing a sophisticated and detailed analysis of film techniques, and supplying a relevant social commentary. She asserts that fairy-tale films are multi-layered works that do more than simply convey aesthetically pleasing imagery. She breaks downs scenes into minute details, and occasionally provides diagrams that allow readers to understand and visualise scenes of films that, perhaps, they have not even seen. While these characteristics are present in her previous works, here they coalesce to form a perspective that reflects in a detailed way Greenhill’s vision of fairy-tale films and situates it within the larger context of fairy-tale film studies.