The Hidden Meaning of Snow White (Part IV): Heidegger’s Holzwege & The Primeval Forest

In Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the forest scene stands out as particularly nightmarish. In her essay, ‘Snow White in 1930s Britain’, Annette Kuhn writes that it is this phantasmagoric forest scene that affected the film’s age rating:

A fortnight before the UK release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it was announced that the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) had recommended that the film be given an ‘A’ certificate — meaning that under-16s should be accompanied by an adult. This was on the grounds that parts of the film were considered “nightmarish” and undesirable for children

When the huntsman spares Snow White, she flees into the forest and confronts, for the first time in her sheltered life, primeval nature. What she experiences is an ordeal the philosopher Hans Blumenberg refers to as ‘the absolutism of reality’; a ‘state of indefinite anticipation’ — i.e. anxiety — brought on by one’s lack of, or perceived lack of control over the conditions of one’s existence. Central to this…