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Fantasia

Plot

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 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. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Review

Among other things, Walt Disney was a man who was good at letting things spiral out of control -- usually to the enjoyment of the public for generations to come. In this case, it was a "Silly Symphony" featuring Mickey Mouse as the title character in Paul Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice which eventually blossomed into Fantasia -- Disney's longest animated feature, which went from being a box-office bomb when it was released in 1940 to a widely recognized masterpiece decades later. It's not hard to see why; despite stunning, powerful animation that is unparalleled to this day, audiences in 1940 didn't know what to make of a feature cartoon with prancing centaurs, pirouetting nymphs, tutu'd hippos, and no story or narration. It wasn't until the psychedelic '60s that Fantasia began ascend to its current status, and the rise of increasingly thorough animation historical studies didn't hurt either. After decades of various alterations (including an ignominious shortened version, rescored sound, and new narration), a restored, nearly intact print of the original Fantasia was re-released in 1990 to critical and popular acclaim. Disney's original plan was to periodically re-release the movie, gradually replacing old segments with new music and animation, but its initial failure kept that dream from becoming reality. Work began on just such a sequel shortly after the 1990 restoration, which was eventually released in late 1999 as Fantasia 2000. ~ Emru Townsend, Rovi

Cast

Leopold Stokowski - Himself; Bela Lugosi - Model for Tchernabog; Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra - Orchestra; Walt Disney - Mickey Mouse; Deems Taylor - Himself

Credit

Ken Anderson - Art Director, John Hubley - Art Director, Dick Kelsey - Art Director, Kendall O'Connor - Art Director, Terrell Stapp - Art Director, Al Zinnen - Art Director, Ernest Nordli - Art Director, Robert Cormack - Art Director, Curtiss D. Perkins - Art Director, Arthur Byram - Art Director, Bruce Bushman - Art Director, Tom Codrick - Art Director, Charles Philippi - Art Director, Zack Schwartz - Art Director, Hugh Hennessy - Art Director, J. Gordon Legg - Art Director, Herbert Ryman - Art Director, Yale Gracey - Art Director, Lance Nolley - Art Director, Harold Doughty - Art Director, Kay Nielsen - Art Director, Charles Rayzant - Art Director, Thor Putnam - Art Director, McLaren Stewart - Art Director, Jack Campbell - Animator, Les Clark - Animator, Eric Larson - Animator, Philip Duncan - Animator, Norman Ferguson - Animator, Bill Justice - Animator, Ward Kimball - Animator, John Lounsbery - Animator, Don Lusk - Animator, Daniel MacManus - Animator, Joshua Meador - Animator, Fred Moore - Animator, James Moore - Animator, Ray Patterson - Animator, Wolfgang Reitherman - Animator, George Rowley - Animator, Art Stevens - Animator, Harvey Toombs - Animator, Marvin Woodward - Animator, Don Patterson - Animator, Edwin Aardal - Animator, Grant Simmons - Animator, Vladimir Tytla - Animator, Arthur Babbitt - Animator, Milt Neil - Animator, Hicks Lokey - Animator, Berny Wolf - Animator, Walt Kelly - Animator, Cy Young - Animator, Art Palmer - Animator, Cornett Wood - Animator, Robert Stokes - Animator, Riley Thompson - Animator, Preston Blair - Animator, Ugo D'Orsi - Animator, John McManus - Animator, Paul Busch - Animator, Don Tobin - Animator, Paul B. Kossoff - Animator, Don Towsley - Animator, John Bradbury - Animator, John Elliotte - Animator, Lynn Karp - Animator, Murray McLennan - Animator, Robert W. Youngquist - Animator, Harry Hamsel - Animator, Howard Swift - Animator, Norman Tate - Animator, Art Elliott - Animator, Franklin Grundeen - Animator, William N. Shull - Animator, Robert W. Carlson, Jr. - Animator, Lester Novros - Animator, John F. Reed - Animator, Ed Love - Animator, Hugh Fraser - Animator, Jules Engel - Choreography, John Walbridge - Consultant/advisor, John P. Miller - Consultant/advisor, Martin Provensen - Consultant/advisor, James Bodrero - Consultant/advisor, Elmer Plummer - Consultant/advisor, Ethel Kulsar - Consultant/advisor, Lorna S. Soderstrom - Consultant/advisor, Duke Russell - Consultant/advisor, Earl Hurd - Consultant/advisor, James Algar - Director, Samuel Armstrong - Director, Ford I. Beebe - Director, Walt Disney - Director, Graham Heid - Director, Wilfred Jackson - Director, Hamilton Luske - Director, Bill Roberts - Director, Paul Satterfield - Director, Ben Sharpsteen - Director, Norman Wright - Director, Sylvia Moberly-Holland - Director, Albert Heath - Director, Bianca Majolie - Director, Jim Handley - Director, T. Hee - Director, Leopold Stokowski - Musical Direction/Supervision, Edward Plumb - Musical Direction/Supervision, Walt Disney - Producer, Gail Papineau - Special Effects, Leonard Pickley - Special Effects, George Stallings - Screen Story, Campbell Grant - Screenwriter, Otto Englander - Screenwriter, Norman Ferguson - Screenwriter, Joe Grant - Screenwriter, Graham Heid - Screenwriter, Perce Pearce - Screenwriter, Bill Peet - Screenwriter, Erdman Penner - Screenwriter, Norman Wright - Screenwriter, Arthur Heinemann - Screenwriter, Webb Smith - Screenwriter, Elmer Plummer - Screenwriter, Lee Blair - Screenwriter, Phil Dike - Screenwriter, Sylvia Moberly-Holland - Screenwriter, Albert Heath - Screenwriter, Bianca Majolie - Screenwriter, Carl Faliberg - Screenwriter, Leo Thiele - Screenwriter, Robert Sterner - Screenwriter, John Fraser McLeish - Screenwriter, Joseph Sabo - Screenwriter, William Martin - Screenwriter, Brice Mack - Background Artist, Ollie Johnston - Supervising Animator, Johann Sebastian Bach - Featured Music, Ludwig van Beethoven - Featured Music, Franz Schubert - Featured Music, Igor Stravinsky - Featured Music, Pyotr Tchaikovsky - Featured Music, Paul Dukas - Featured Music

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