Early in Mufasa: The Lion King, one shot quickly differentiates the new movie from the other CGI-heavy spins on classic Disney cartoons. Just before a cast of familiar characters begins recounting the titular patriarch's origin story, his young granddaughter bounds toward the screen. For a moment, the photorealistic cub aims a warm, open look at the audience'and, instantly, we're reminded that this is a Barry Jenkins production. The prominence of this archetypal Jenkins image, in which a subject directly returns the viewer's gaze, neatly captures the tension of the creative pairing that brought the film to life. Mufasa: The Lion King follows the original Lion King's uncanny 2019 reworking, which had felt like an obvious nostalgia play'the continuation of an ongoing trend in which studios like Disney remake films from their archive and benefit by placing a familiar piece of intellectual property at the box office. So it was a surprising development when Jenkins, an auteur best known...
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