Fantasia (1940)

Disney-animatoren voorzien beroemde stukken klassieke muziek, uitgevoerd door het Philadelphia Orchestra, van beelden. In 'The Sorceror's Apprentice' zien we Mickey Mouse als aanstaande magiër, 'The Rite of Spring' vertelt het evolutieverhaal, 'Dance of the Hours' is een komisch ballet uitgevoerd door verschillende dieren en 'Night on Bald Mountain' en 'Ave Maria' zetten de krachten van duisternis en licht tegenover elkaar.

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Fantasia, Walt Disney's animated masterpiece of the 1940s, grew from a short-subject cartoon picturization of the Paul Dukas musical piece The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Mickey Mouse was starred in this eight-minute effort, while the orchestra was under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. Disney and Stokowski eventually decided that the notion of marrying classical music with animation was too good to confine to a mere short subject; thus the notion was expanded into a two-hour feature, incorporating seven musical selections and a bridging narration by music critic Deems Taylor. The first piece, Bach's "Toccata and ...
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Fugue in D Minor", was used to underscore a series of abstract images. The next selection, Tschiakovsky's "Nutcracker Suite", is performed by dancing wood-sprites, mushrooms, flowers, goldfish, thistles, milkweeds and frost fairies. The Mickey Mouse version of "Sorcerer's Apprentice" is next, followed by Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", which serves as leitmotif for the story of the creation of the world, replete with dinosaurs and volcanoes. After a brief jam session involving the live-action musicians comes Beethoven's "Pastorale Symphony", enacted against a Greek-mythology tapestry by centaurs, unicorns, cupids and a besotted Bacchus. Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours" is performed by a Corps de Ballet consisting of hippos, ostriches and alligators. The program comes to a conclusion with a fearsome visualization of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain", dominated by the black god Tchernobog (referred to in the pencil tests as "Yensid", which is guess-what spelled backwards); this study of the "sacred and profane" segues into a reverent rendition of Schubert's "Ave Maria". Originally, Debussy's "Clair de Lune" was part of the film, but was cut from the final release print; also cut, due to budgetary considerations, was Disney's intention of issuing an annual "update" of Fantasia with new musical highlights and animated sequences. A box-office disappointment upon its first release (due partly to Disney's notion of releasing the film in an early stereophonic-sound process which few theatres could accommodate), Fantasia eventually recouped its cost in its many reissues. For one of the return engagements, the film was retitled Fantasia Will Amaze-ya, while the 1963 reissue saw the film "squashed" to conform with the Cinemascope aspect ratio. Other re-releases pruned the picture from 120 to 88 minutes, and in 1983, Disney redistributed the film with newly orchestrated music and Tim Matheson replacing Deems Taylor as narrator. Once and for all, a restored Fantasia was made available to filmgoers in 1990. A sequel, Fantasia 2000, was released in theaters in 1999.
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Walt Disney took a big chance with this ambitious anthology of animated fantasies. First, he set them to lengthy classical music pieces, and then he boldly experimented with different forms of animation, sometimes jettisoning any sort of narrative altogether. The result is a sometimes mesmerizing, sometimes hilarious, sometimes frightening, but always beautiful moviegoing experience. A box-office failure when first released, it's now considered a timeless treasure. Highlights include: Mickey Mouse in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," the leaping hippos and alligators in "Dance of the Hours," the rise and fall of the d...
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inosaurs set to Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," the dancing mushrooms of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite," and Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain," with its fearsome winged demon raging at the heavens.

One of Walt Disney's ambitions for the project was to rerelease the film periodically over the years with new sequences. Though the film was regularly rereleased, it wasn't until 1999 that his intention was finally realized with the premiere of Fantasia 2000, a lavish follow-up that included a digitally restored "Sorcerer's Apprentice" and a host of new material. The original Fantasia, however, remains a one-of-a-kind auditory and visual experience that is still, in many ways, far ahead of its time.
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