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Fantasia (1940)
Fantasia (1940), a Disney animated feature-length "concert" film
milestone, is an experimental film integrating eight magnificent
classical musical compositions with enchanting, exhilarating,
and imaginative, artistically-choreographed animation. The
conceptual framework of the individual pieces embraces such
areas as prehistoric times, the four seasons, nature,
hell/heaven, mythology, and legend.
This Disney production was an ambitious experiment to try to
popularize classical music, especially by accompanying it with
animation. Originally, the film was to consist of only The
Sorcerer's Apprentice segment, but it was expanded to include
the full anthology of shorts. And it was slightly controversial
for its depiction of bare-breasted centaurettes in the Pastoral
Symphony segment. At the request of the Hays Production Code,
the figures were garlanded with flower bras for cover-up after
swimming in a brook. Also, in later releases of the film, in the
Pastoral Symphony segment (again), two black Nubian/zebra
centaurs who attend the Bacchus celebration and shine the hooves
of the white centaurs were edited out (along with a pickaninny
centaurette).
The film, with a production cost of more than $2 million,
initially failed at the box-office (partially due to the
expensive installation of "Fantasound" sound reproduction
equipment in theatres), but then its popularity increased and
its cult status was assured when the members of the 60's drug
culture adopted it as a favorite hallucinatory experience. Since
then, it has been warmly embraced, and a sequel titled Fantasia
2000 (2000) appeared as an IMAX attraction. It illustrated seven
more classic pieces, from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony to
Respighi's Pines of Rome to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and the
climactic 1919 version of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite - and it
reprised the The Sorcerer's Apprentice sequence.
A variation on this type of film was Disney's own 'unofficial'
sequel Make Mine Music (1946), its 8th full-length animated
feature, that substituted pop music for the classics. Two of its
most famous segments (of ten animated vignettes) were (1)
Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (narrated by Sterling Holloway)
[distributed with the re-release of Fantasia in 1947 as an
'update'], and (2) Casey at the Bat. Another of the segments,
Blue Bayou, was originally set to Debussy's Claire de Lune and
was intended to be included in Fantasia, but it was cut due to
length.
As the film begins, musicians (cellists, violinists, brasses,
wood-winds, etc.) of the Philadelphia Orchestra (to be conducted
by Leopold Stokowski, the orchestra's conductor from 1912 to
1938) are displayed in shadow and color and are silhouetted
against a blue backdrop in the opening as they take their
accustomed places and tune their instruments. Screen narrator
Deems Taylor (popular musical commentator with the New York
Philharmonic radio broadcasts) welcomes the audience to a "new
form of entertainment," and in his introduction sets the scene:
What you're going to see are the designs and pictures and
stories that music inspired in the minds and imaginations of a
group of artists. In other words, these are not going to be the
interpretations of trained musicians which I think is all to the
good.
The resident presenter of the NY first explains that there are
three kinds of music: music that tells a definite story, music
that paints a series of pictures, and "absolute music" that
exists simply for its own sake.
The eight memorable animated fantasies/sequences of the entire
film begin with a pictorial kaleidoscope - a pure fanciful
flight of imagination:
1. J. S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
This first piece is an example of "absolute music." Bach's music
is interpreted in terms of light-hearted, abstract and
semi-abstract forms and impressionistic images:
that might pass through your mind if you sat in a concert hall
listening to this music. At first, you are more or less
conscious of the orchestra. So our picture opens with a series
of impressions of the conductor and the players. Then the music
begins to suggest other things to your imagination. They might
be, oh, just masses of color, or they may be cloud forms or
great landscapes or vague shadows or geometrical objects
floating in space.
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Taylor's introduction concludes with the figure of Leopold
Stokowski moving center stage to mount the podium and call
attention with his hands to orchestral members. As the piece
begins, sections of the orchestra - shadows of the players
including violinists, cellists, and French hornists - light up
to emphasize their playing, against other colorful backdrops.
After the opening Toccata, images of the orchestra's instruments
and players turn more abstract and bizarre in the Fugue. The
ends of violin bows become silver streaks darting through the
heavens. Clouds and sky cover the screen. Music is projected as
yellow streaks of light. Abstract forms and shapes (concentric
circles, patterns, waves) move in a lively fashion, synchronized
to the musical tones. Strings are suspended in air played with
soaring bows. Discs or wafers resembling objects in space appear
and disappear. As the music builds, sparkling bits of fireworks
dance and explode in a metamorphosis of light and color. The
piece concludes with a huge, orange sunset, over which is
superimposed the black silhouette of conductor Stokowski - and
then it all fades to black.
Deem Taylor's continuing "music lesson" narration holds together
various pieces of the film:
You know it's funny how wrong an artist can be about his own
work. Now the one composition of Tchaikovsky's that he really
detested was his Nutcracker Suite, which is probably the most
popular thing he ever wrote. Incidentally, uh, you won't see any
nutcracker on the screen. There's nothing left of him but the
title.
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2. Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite (the original piece was
shortened and the order of the movements was rearranged) - the
familiar piece is an animated dance sequence celebrating nature
through the changing seasons (from summer to winter), with six
movements. The series of ballets are led by fairies, mushrooms
in Chinese costumes, flowers and flower petals, underwater
fan-tail fish, and thistles:
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies: multi-colored fireflies turn
into tiny sparkling blue Dewdrop Fairies and dragonfly sprites
who dart and flit among flowers, touching them with their wands
and spreading sparkling dew droplets across the forest As buds
open, more little fairies are awakened. A spider web is
illuminated by the dazzling bits of moisture. Three sprites
collide, producing a white explosion of dew drops that fall on
red-topped mushrooms
Chinese Dance: six red-topped mushrooms shake off the dew, then
become wide, coolie-hatted Chinese men with round heads, long
robes and pigtails that are choreographed into a dance. Hop Low,
smaller than the rest of the mushrooms, cannot keep up with the
steps and routines of the larger mushrooms. He hops back into
place just in time to take a final bow
Dance of the Reed Flutes: multi-colored flower petals and
blossoms spin and drift downward to the surface of a stream. On
the water surface, their petals spread out and they are
transformed into tiny, wide-skirted ballerinas. A breeze sends
them spinning across the water surface and among the branches of
overhanging trees, until they are swept over a bubbling cascade
and vanish
Arab Dance: underwater bubbles from the cascade rise gracefully
to the surface where the flower blossoms vanished. Underwater,
in a forest of undulating water plants that becomes a harem,
exotic gold and black fish with long flowing tails create
beautiful patterns in an aqua ballet. The goldfish become
coquettish chorines with pink eyelids and fluttering lashes.
Bubbles again rise to the surface at the end of the sequence
Cossack/Russian Dance: one thistle with six pink blossoms bursts
from the largest bubble, becoming six separate, Russian-looking,
mustached, high-kicking thistles. More groups of thistles join
the dance, spinning and dancing with groups of orchids that
resemble slim-waisted peasant girls with full skirts and quaint
headdresses. The pace gets faster and faster until it freezes on
a final tableau
Waltz of the Flowers: the change of seasons from fall to winter
is beautifully illustrated in four dances.
(1) Autumn Fairies fly among the trees, touching green leaves
which take on yellowish-brown fall colors. The leaves drop from
their branches and drift with the wind.
(2) The Autumn Fairies also touch milkweed pods which burst,
releasing their silky milkweed seeds. The seeds resemble
classical ballerina dancers with white bouffant skirts and
smooth, sleek black hair.
(3) Bluish Frost Fairies decorate nature with tiny needles of
bluish white ice. They skim and skate across the surface of the
pond, changing it to ice and leaving patterns. A new wintry
season has arrived.
(4) Snowflake Fairies with whirling skirts begin to fall,
dancing and covering the entire landscape
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