Without Howard Ashman’s influence, the Disney renaissance of the 1990s wouldn’t have been the same. The songwriter/lyricist best-known for his work with composer Alan Menken on The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin reinvigorated the animation side of Walt Disney Studios and launched a slew of well-crafted animated films like The Lion King and Hercules that each followed Ashman’s songwriting style.
In Howard, director Don Hahn, who produced Beauty and the Beast, gives a tribute to his friend who died at age 40. It retraces his early days at the WPA Theater, the conception of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater to Little Shop of Horrors, and his final years collaborating with Disney Animation to start a renaissance of animated feature films while being secretly ill with AIDS. Howard adopts the style of Hahn’s previous feature documentary on the Disney renaissance, Waking Sleeping Beauty. Traditional “talking heads” are replaced by voice-over interviews, and archival images are presented to the audience. By doing this, the film is a mildly insightful and often frustrating documentary. Devoid of any focus and comprehension on Ashman’s career and creative process, Howard doesn’t soar as intended.
The most exciting aspect of a documentary on a musical artist’s life is getting to understand their creative process. In this regard, Howard provides us with a bit of insight. For Ashman, a song needs to serve a purpose to the film or play by deepening the characters’ arc while also moving the story forward. For example, in The Little Mermaid, we understand Ariel’s reasons to become human through the lyrics of “Part of Your World” (which almost got cut from the movie, nearly preventing us from one of Disney’s most iconic songs). Yet throughout the film, there is little mention of what drives Ashman as an artist and how his creative thinking led him to become the “genius” that he is.
In a vocal interview with Ashman’s sister, Sarah Gillespie, she states that in his early life, Ashman was “always writing” because his mind was so creative. That’s the only mention of Howard’s path as an artist — that he was a prodigy since he was born. By doing so, the film presents Howard Ashman as a God-like figure; whose lyrics become instant gold without giving us a sole insight on how an artist works and how his process came to be. From the bits of dialogue we hear at the beginning illustrating his imaginative mind and knack for wonder Ashman had as a child, his personality (and his writing process) seems really elaborate and complex, yet there’s never a moment where we get a compelling understanding of his passion for art and songwriting. “He was a natural” oversimplifies his background and his passion and what drove him to write complex plot-driven songs.
The film mostly focuses on the work he’s done for Disney instead of giving us a proper portrait of the work he did for the studio, what he achieved with WPA, and Ashman’s individuality. Hahn barely scratches the surface on how Ashman incorporated his struggles battling AIDS through “The Mob Song” in Beauty and the Beast, which presents the Beast’s curse as an allegory for the disease and touches on the stigmatization of HIV at the time. Instead of giving us insight on whether or not Ashman inserted his struggles with AIDS in his lyrics, Peter Schneider simply tells the audience that “he was not political,” and the film moves on to celebrate his contributions with Disney yet again.
However, one of the fascinating aspects of Ashman’s career as an artist was that he did insert political or social messaging in many of his lyrics. “Part of Your World” presents Ariel’s wishes to move away from a patriarchal society where men dictate every rule and control everyone’s movements in the undersea world. Ariel only wants to be able to stand on her own two feet (literally) and be freed from the shackles of her overprotective father, King Triton. She wants to explore the potentialities the human world has to offer for “bright young women” who are “sick of swimming” and “ready to stand.” Maybe the song isn’t political, but its lyrics contain social messages of female empowerment. It presents Ariel’s ideas to move to a better world — which she thinks guarantees freedom — and total independence and the physical prison of her tail, which doesn’t allow her to emancipate as a human and liberate herself from a male-dominated system. “He was not political,” but he certainly added current political and social issues in his lyrics to deepen the characters of the film and give young women a legitimate sense of empowerment.
The entirety of Howard is filled with facile testimonials of Ashman as an artist, without giving any insight into his individuality and creative process. The archival footage perfectly complements what the interviewees say through voice-over, and there are some insightful elements on Ashman’s early days. For example, his master’s thesis was a staged adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, the source material of Disney’s Frozen. However, Howard will only leave you wanting to know more about his personal life and artistic process. The film only glosses over many important parts of his life to focus on the Disney aspect of his career.
Of course, focusing on the most-known aspect of an artist’s career is fine, but the testimonials often feel jumbled and repetitive, filled with affirmations and lacking any explanation. The interviews are unfocused, as multiple individuals say the same thing about Ashman: he’s a “genius,” without ever explaining why that is so. A musical pioneer who was partially responsible for resurrecting Disney Animation only receives a moderately insightful and moving tribute. With all the love and care Ashman crafted with every song he wrote, he deserved better.
