‘Life Animated’ director on the transformative power of storytelling and making Disney execs cry

‘Life Animated’ director Roger Ross Williams talks to Stephen A. Russell about the extraordinary story of a young autistic boy, whose life was transformed by Disney films.

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Once upon a time there was a boy who loved his younger autistic brother so much he considered teaching him the birds and the bees through the means of Disney porn.

Strangely bittersweet, this interaction between Walt (no relation to the great animator) and Owen, who is autistic, leads to one of the most memorable moments in Life, Animated, a new documentary directed by Roger Ross Williams, based on the book of the same name written by the boys’ father, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind.

“You don’t just use your lips, you use your…” Walt broaches, with Owen responding while grinning triumphantly, “Feelings.”

Owen retreated into himself aged three, much to the distress of Ron and wife Cornelia Kennedy. Later diagnosed with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder, he wasn’t expected to regain speech or be able to live independently. His cherished Disney movies were the only thing that could hold his attention.

In an effort to reach out to his younger brother, Walt would mimic the animation company’s colourful cast of treasured characters, from the The Lion King’s brave Simba to the evil Jafar and his squawking sidekick macaw Iago from Aladdin. As Owen’s seeming gibberish began to form into lines of dialogue recited wholly from memory, soon he was using the characters stories in complex ways to convey emotion and empathy, helping him communicate with his family.

Williams, the first African-American director to win an Academy Award, for his 2010 documentary short Music by Prudence, worked with Ron for years at ABC News and was a natural fit to tell their story. He does so beautifully.

Debuting at the Sundance Film Festival, Life, Animated picks up where the book left off. “When the Suskinds decided to do this, it was because Owen came to them and said, ‘People look past me, they don’t know who I am or they don’t want to,’” Williams says. “To me it was always a coming-of-age film about the power of story to transform us all really. It was never a film about autism.”

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