Pocahontas

Pocahontas is a 1995 American animated musical historical drama film based on the life of Powhatan woman Pocahontas and the arrival of English colonial settlers from the Virginia Company. The film romanticizes Pocahontas's encounter with John Smith and her legendary saving of his life. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg (in his feature directorial debut) and produced by Jim Pentecost, from a screenplay written by Carl Binder, Susannah Grant, and Philip LaZebnik. It stars the voices of Irene Bedard and Mel Gibson as Pocahontas and Smith, respectively, with David Ogden Stiers, Russell Means, Christian Bale, Michelle St. John, James Apaumut Fall, Billy Connolly, Joe Baker, Gordon Tootoosis, and Linda Hunt in supporting roles. The score was composed by Alan Menken, who also wrote the film's songs with lyricist Stephen Schwartz. After making his directorial debut with The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Gabriel conceived the film during a Thanksgiving weekend. Goldberg, who had just finished up work as the supervising animator of the Genie in Aladdin (1992), joined Gabriel as co-director shortly after that film was released. The project went into development concurrently with The Lion King (1994), and attracted most of Disney's top animators. Meanwhile, Disney studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg decided that the film should be an emotional romantic epic in the vein of Beauty and the Beast (1991), in hope that like Beauty, it would also be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Screenwriters Binder, Grant, and LaZebnik took creative liberties with history in an attempt to make the film palatable to audiences. Pocahontas premiered at Central Park on June 10, 1995, and was released in the United States on June 16, to mixed reactions from critics and audiences, who praised its animation, voice performances, and music, but criticized its story with its lack of focus on tone. The film's historical inaccuracies and artistic license received polarized responses. Pocahontas earned over $346 million at the box office. The film received two Academy Awards for Best Musical or Comedy Score for Menken and Best Original Song for "Colors of the Wind". According to critics, the depiction of Pocahontas as an empowered heroine influenced subsequent Disney films like Mulan (1998) and Frozen (2013).