Fantasia

An ambitious project featuring classical music and no dialogue, Disney’s 1940 release of the film Fantasia began as an attempt by Walt Disney to re-energize the career of Mickey Mouse, Disney’s alter ego. Starring in the title role of the segment “the Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, a fairy tale which had been interpreted as a poem by Goethe and set to a concert piece by French Composer Paul Dukas, Mickey played the apprentice who inadvertently wreaks havoc when he misuses a sorcerer’s powers. It soon became clear that one segment would not be enough, and seven other classical music scores were chosen with the help of the Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, and noted critic and composer Deems Taylor. After a brief introduction by Taylor, The film begins with an abstract animation set to Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach.


Segment One: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor-Bach
This segment begins with abstract, multicolored shapes and super-imposed shadows shifting and fading over live-action footage of the silhouetted orchestra, eventually changing into a series of moving abstract images that flow, zip, dance and tumble across the screen, set in time to the music. At the end of the piece, the animation fades and slowly changes back to live-action footage of Stokowski and the orchestra.

Segment Two: The nutcracker Suite-Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
This segment shows the change of the seasons from summer to autumn, then autumn to winter, set to the music and using the imagery of small, multi-colored fairies waking then frolicking and dancing along with the music, in addition to jumping flowers, elegant goldfish, dancing mushrooms, fluttering leaves and spiraling snowflakes. The color palette of the animation changes with the seasons, shifting from soft, glowing pastels, to vibrant reds, yellows and oranges, finally to deep blues and whites.

Segmant Three: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice-Paul Dukas
The first segment created for the film and based on the poem by Goethe, this segment follows the misadventures of a young sorcerer’s apprentice, played by Mickey Mouse, as he dons his master’s wizard’s hat and attempts to magically complete his cleaning duties. Things get out of hand, however, when he realizes that he can no longer control the relentless army of water-bucket hauling brooms he has summoned to help him complete his chores, which flood everything until the angry Sorcerer himself appears and descends the stairs, taking matters into his capable hands and undoing the chaos his apprentice has created.


Segment Four: The Rite of Spring-Igor Stravinsky
This segment follows the creation of life on Earth, from the formation of the Earth out of the void into a rocky, lava-covered orb, to its cooling and the appearance of the first single-celled organisms, following them as they evolve into the first invertebrates and fish; slowly adapting to land and evolving into dinosaurs. A dramatic scene unfolds as a Tyrannosaurus and Stegosaurus battle to the death, as other dinosaurs look on dispassionately, and the segment ends with the extinction of the great lizards, trudging hopelessly through the arid desert.

Segment Five: The Pastoral Symphony-Ludwig Van Beethoven
The fifth segment employs images and characters from classical Greek mythology, including half-nude centaurs, graceful flying horses, cupids, and several Greek Gods. The mythical creatures are preparing for a celebration in honor of the chubby and happily inebriated god of wine, Bacchus, who arrives on the scene clumsily riding his horned donkey, Jacchus. The festivities are cut short, however, when a bored Zeus begins throwing lightening bolts at the party-goers, sending the revelers scurrying for cover. The segment ends when Zeus becomes bored with the destruction, and falls asleep in his cloud as the Goddess Athena cloaks the landscape in night.

Segment Six: Dance of the Hours-Amilcare Ponchielli
This segment portrays a light-hearted ballet about the hours of the day, featuring gangly ostriches, enormous yet graceful hippos, gallumphing elephants and aggressive alligators who each attempt to dance the ballet. The ostriches begin dancing at dawn, bobbing and jumping with bows atop their heads. The tutu-clad hippos begin to dance at midday, followed by the elephants in the afternoon. As darkness falls, the alligators arrive, and chaos ensues as they aggressively attempt to attack the animals in a humorous, frantic ballet version of “cat and mouse”, with the alligators losing the battle until the animals finally decide to dance together.

Segment Seven: Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria-Modeste Mussorgsky/Franz Schubert
The final segment of the film is a departure from the light-hearted and comic segments of the rest of the film. Contrasting the sacred with the profane, it begins with the awakening of the enormous horned demon Chenabog on top of Bald Mountain. He summons ghosts and evil phantasms from the graveyard in the sleeping town below, swirling about him as he makes them dance around a burning hell-scape he’s created on his mountain, transforming some into naked women, then into monstrous animals before growing bored and destroying them in a fiery pit. Chernabog gleefully continues his grotesque game until a church-bell chimes in the distance, startling him and causing him to retreat, settling back into the mountain as the music fades. The bell continues to chime, and the strains of Ave Maria begin. A torch-lit line of worshippers solemnly walks through the trees to a cathedral and as the sun rises, the film ends.


Fantasia is the third feature-length animated film produced by Disney, and despite it’s initial luke-warm reception, is considered my most critics to be a classic of Disney animation.