Fantasia (1940)

This week, we have a great movie. A perfect marriage of music and animation; sight and sound; art and entertainment. For a long time, I’ve considered this to be my favorite all time Disney movie. We’ve got Fantasia. And, unfortunately, for the absolute masterpiece that this movie is, it’s not very well remembered. To be clear, in my experience, most people have seen this at some point, but like Snow White, it’s probably been a long time and they don’t remember it. This is a shame, not only because it’s been my personal favorite, but because it’s an excellent movie for people of all ages and gives people a little experience with both quality animation and “classical” symphonic music.

Original Poster Source by IMDB

Summary: Not really much of a plot to follow here. If you haven’t seen it, this movie is a collection of shorts that were made with and for different “classical” pieces of music. Each individual short may or may not have it’s own plot to follow, but the important part of this movie is the pure expression of animation.

Besides the animation shorts, there are some interstitials showing the Philadelphia Orchestra and their conductor, Leopold Stokowski. The interstitials are narrated by Deems Taylor, a music commentator from the time. Besides couple of lines from Mickey Mouse, Deems narration is the only spoken word in the whole movie. Due to the interesting structure of the movie, I plan to go through each short instead of doing a long form review of the whole movie.

The Man, the Myth, the Deems
Source: IMDB

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach:

As Deems introduces, the music piece is “Absolute Music” meaning that it’s abstract, with no story or meaning. That makes this a great option for the opening short, because it can act as a transition between the grounded, real world of the musicians and the fanciful world of animation that the rest of the movie mostly exists in. The abstract visuals and music are almost hypnotizing and immensely beautiful. Everything has this painted quality, which makes it look like a moving Impressionist paining. A similar style is used for the backgrounds of most of the other shorts, which frees up the visual space to showcase the animation better. As a sort of “overture” for the rest of the movie, this short lays the groundwork that everything else is built upon.

Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky:

The Nutcracker has always held a very special place in my heart. To this day, Tchaikovsky is my favorite composer of all time, which makes sense for a slavaboo such as myself. For a time when I was young, my family would go see a production of The Nutcracker every year. The selections of songs they decided to arrange for this short were a great bunch, especially for the faerie/nature imagery that the short is based around. I also think it’s great that they kept true to the ballet roots of the original music, by making most of the short revolve around the dancing of these fae nature spirits. The themes from the music hold true as well. For example, the mushroom dance bit is set to the “Tea (Chinese Dance)” song and the mushrooms have an obvious Asian. The same is with the “Candy Canes (Russian Dance)” section, where the flowers were obviously drawn to look like men wearing traditional Papakhas. The one that I just realized on this viewing is that the “Coffee (Arabian Dance)” piece is put together with fish which do seductive, belly dance type movements, with their tails standing in for traditional Bedlah softwear, such as a long skirt or a hip scarf. All in all, it’s a very interesting take on how these different ethnic dances can be portrayed.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas:

This is probably the best known part of this movie, so much so that Disney decided to showcase it again in Fantasia 2000. Mickey from this short is the literal poster of this movie. They also made a live action movie with the title, though it’s hard to call it a retelling or anything. I’ve always had a problem with this short, because of it’s overwhelming popularity compared to any other part of this movie. Don’t get me wrong, this is a really great short and it’s definitely better than a lot of shorts from this movie, but I don’t think it’s the best. Unfortunately, the Mickey recognition seems to overwhelm any other qualities. The animation is pretty good and the art of Mickey and the Sorcerer (Yen Sid) seems to really set the standard for Disney animation for the future of their feature films, springboarding off of the groundwork that Pinocchio seemed to lay out.

Source: IMDB

The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky:

So, I’m going to be real here and come clean; I actually find this section a bit boring. Until my teens, I would pretty much always fall asleep when it came to this short, for real. Don’t get me wrong here, I actually love The Rite of Spring as a piece of music, one of my favorite pieces of “classical” music to listen to. And, I won’t say that the art is bad or uninteresting for this section, it’s really beautiful and it’s a great archive of what people thought dinosaurs looked like back to the 1940’s. I just think that some of the slower, more drawn out parts of the music combined with the realistic browns of the art combine for a soporific effect for me. This is still a good piece, it’s just not the best for me.

At this point, there’s a short intermission as well as the “Meet the Soundtrack” section, which seems to have been put in here specifically to get people back into an appropriate mindset after the intermission, much like Toccata and Fugue did for the beginning.

Symphony No. 6 AKA The Pastoral Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven:

This is a fun short. It’s hard to say much more about it. The art is beautiful and the translation of the Greek mythology into a really colorful, cartoony style is just pleasant to watch. There’s a few small subplots, one with a baby pegasus trying to learn to fly, one with a centaur trying to find a mate, and then there’s the drama at the end with Zeus throwing lightening bolts at everyone for seemingly no reason. Nothing too profound, but just a nice pleasant little story. The music is great, as you would expect from Beethoven. Pastorale is one of his lesser known symphonies, but it’s easily as good as Eroica or his 5^th Symphony. All in all, animation good; no complaint.

Dance of the Hours from La Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli:

This is another piece that, like The Nutcracker Suite, really stays true to it’s ballet roots. For a long time, when I was younger, I actually forgot about this short, but since I’ve gotten a bit older, it’s actually becoming one of my favorite parts of this movie. Take that for what you will. This is a great piece for just showcasing music/animation synchronization. Overall, it’s a good short, the music is nice.

Night on Bald Mountain/ Ave Maria by Modest Mussorgsky/ Franz Schubert:

This is probably my favorite section of the movie, primarily for how much of a tone shift it is from everything preceding it. Unlike most of the other shorts, this looks back in art and animation style, emulating 1930’s style short animation, particularly more Halloween/scary animations that were much more common before the Hays Code came into effect full swing. It’s a fun and spooky short that, combined with the Ave Maria, fulfills a spiritual bend that Toccata and Fugue alludes to near it’s end. Night on Bald Mountain brings a very frantic, energetic feeling that goes with the animation theme of a sort of “devil’s dance” happening in the dead of night and the Ave Maria breaks through that frantic energy and dissipates it into this beautiful, revelation-esque ending. It’s this really great feeling of being bathed in some sort of “divine grace” which cleanses you from the from the frantic nature of the previous song. Basically, it’s just an overall cathartic experience and a great end to work of beauty that is this movie.

Overall, Fantasia remains my favorite Disney film, but I am ready to challenge that with all the movies that are upcoming. It’s just a great anthology movie. We have a couple of those coming up, particularly in the wartime era, but I’m feeling very cautious of those. Fantasia, on the other hand, shows that a bunch of shorts put together in one film can actually make a really great movie.

-CJ

Source: IMDB

Unlike Snow White and Pinocchio, Fantasia has always been one of my favorite Disney movies of all time, so when it came up this week I was really excited to see if it would stand the test of time. While Fantasia is one of my favorite films it's lack of distribution has stopped me from seeing it within the last six or seven years. 

Looking at Fantasia, I would easily say this is where Disney truly found their style. There's only a few areas that seem to hold over from the 30's, and even still they're hardly noticeable. Unlike Snow White or Pinocchio, the animation for the characters feels cleaner and more stylized than Disney's first two works. We're not bombarded with humans with overly pale, and undefined faces, or figures with are overly reminiscent of the 20's and 30's. Instead, we're given a wide range of Disney animator talent that, while different, holds together under a dominant art style.

The use of abstract backgrounds is extremely beneficial to this film. Instead of being overwhelmed by both the animation and music we're slowly led in by lights over the orchestra, which then morphs into cloud forms, and hints of golden bow tips, stings, and flashes of instrument pieces. It provides a very calming atmosphere that allows you to sink into the artwork, and the music together. The animations while very detailed are also very rhythmic, simplistic, and easy to follow with their soft colors. Along with the simplistic details, there's a almost sketchy quality to some of the animation. I especially noticed this in the "Nutcracker Suite." When we view the fish underwater, it's easy to see that the elongated fins have clear brush strokes that define them. Even with this effect it animates very well, and lends a visual texture. This brushwork is also heavily used in "The Rite of Spring" to provide crashing waves, and shifting magma. I think this all works very well for the film, it gives you more to latch on to, and it almost makes you feel like you're in a moving museum.

Source: IMDB

Once we're eased into the world of music and art, we start getting lots of bright enjoyable animation, and again I think this is perfect. We're shown that we're not limited to just the abstract, or to calm nature scenes. We're shown that the world of animation can provide us with a wide variety of content. I will admit, when "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" made its appearance, I felt that it was a bit out of place. However, I didn't mind it once it started picking up. The lack of detail in the backgrounds allowed it to fit into the rest of the start of the film without issue, and by the time we got to the second half ("The Pastoral Symphony," "Dance of the Hours," and "Night on Bald Mountain"; all pieces with higher detailed back grounds, and foregrounds) I found that I didn't mind the added detail. I actually came to welcome it, as it allowed me to more fully immerse myself in these scenes.

I honestly struggled to find anything to dislike about Fantasia but I really couldn't find anything. There's hardly an issue with pacing since each music selection only lasts about 7 to 10 minutes. All of the stories move at a good pace, and have plenty of action to keep your attention focused on the screen. Even the rotoscoping has been done very well in this. While it's used primarily in "The Rites of Spring," to change out each scene, the other areas where it's been used are very limited and don't feel overly realistic.

Music wise, I think this is Disney's best use of music. I know it's not original scores and sing along numbers, but the pieces they chose are fantastic. They set the pace and tones for us, and range from soothing, to primal violence. There are a multitude of pieces that they could've chosen, but I don't think it would've had the same kind of effect (Here's looking at you Fantasia 2000...)

My overall thoughts on Fantasia, is that it's still one of the best Disney movies out there. It blows both Snow White, and Pinocchio out of the water in all categories as far as story, music, animation, etc. I truly feel like Disney hit the nail on the head with Fantasia it's got a perfect blend of abstract, and realism, and a fantastic set up. I honestly can't find anything to critique as far as this movie goes, it's a piece of timeless art that showcases how animation and music were meant to go together.

If anyone is interested I'd rank my favorite parts as:

1. The Dance of the Hours

2. The Pastoral Symphony

3. Night on Bald Mountain / Ave Maria

4. The Rites of Spring

5. Sorceresses Apprentice

6. Terracotta and Fugue

7. The Nutcracker Suite

-AJ

Source: IMDB