i try to like it.but not enough to enjoy it.
Disney Classics Marathon :pound_symbol:3
Fantasia is an odd one, isn’t it? And I mean that in the most positive way. It’s clearly a passion project and a bold choice for Disney’s third animated feature film. It is so out of the box that’s almost unbelievable today that it was released third in line, after two movies based on children’s stories.
Despite gorgeous animation it is a tough movie to sell to children after all. The only pieces of dialogue are provided by Deems Taylor, who guided audiences through the movie explaining the music that’s being played and what animated sequences are chosen to represent them and that’s it. The movie is also very long compared to previous outings "Snow White" and "Pinocchio." I remember enjoying "Fantasia" as a kid for its colorful sequences and images, but I also believe it’s a movie you'll probably enjoy way more as an adult.
I‘m not gonna pretend to know anything about classic music at this point, I do know some pieces but I couldn’t tell you anything about them that is even closest to being profound, so my opinion on this film is probably pretty "basic."
Segment 1: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach
Obviously I know Bach, so yay me! The opening sequence already pulls you right in, with shots of the Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Leopold Stokowski with mesmerizing animated shapes and shadows. The animation slowly becomes the more dominating part and Taylor’s narration suggest to let yourself fall and imagine what you see while listening to the music, which works perfectly fine.
Segment 2: The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky
I actually really love the Nutcracker Suite and I believe this movie was my first introduction to it. The music is accompanied by various animations of fairies, flowers, fish and other things related to nature and it’s gorgeous. It has always been one of my favorite parts of the film and it still is.
Segment 3: The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Paul Dukas
Fantasia‘s most famous segment and the one everybody thinks about when the movie is mentioned, which probably has a lot to do with Mickey Mouse being so recognizable (and hey it’s his feature film debut) and Apprentice Mickey being used as one of Disney’s most used promotional images for years to come. The "story" is also mostly recognizable if you are familiar with Goethe's poem "Der Zauberlehrling." While Mickey and the broomsticks are als an image burned into my mind and one of the most memorable Disney movie moments, I also admit that this is not and has never been my favorite segment. I don’t know exactly what it is, maybe it has become too overplayed after a while? Too hyped up to stand the rest of time? I do enjoy it, I just think the film has more to offer.
Segment 4: Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky
This piece chronicles the beginnings of Earth, from Life in the water to first creatures on land to different kind of dinosaurs and their extinction in the end. It is beautifully done and the first appearance of the T-Rex another very memorable moment from the movie. I do think it feels a little bit lengthy at times. While I enjoy the music, it it’s probably my least favorite piece. Shocking, since I love dinosaurs.
Segment 4.5: Intermission/Meet the Soundtrack
This little intermission "introduces" the Soundtrack an the instruments by animating them briefly into shapes and forms. It’s really just a cute segment.
Segment 5: The Pastoral Symphony by Beethoven
Welcome to the beautiful Word of Greek Mythology (and that long before "Hercules" would grace our screens)! This used to be my favorite segment as a kid, mostly because of the adorable Pegasi. And oh, I still love them so much. I generally enjoy the first half of this segment more then the latter half, with Diyonisus (Bacchus) and Zeus's wrath, but I still think it’s beautiful to watch. And no, I have never watched the uncensored version, at least not that I‘m aware of. I don’t think I even knew about the controversy surrounding this segment until much, much later on.
Segment 6: Dance of the Hours by Amilcare
Ponchielli
Everybody remembers the dancing hippos! Even if you don’t remember the rest of the movie, I assure you, you remember the dancing hippos. Or the elephants. Or alligators. Or even the ostriches. This is the "wild" ballet segment where every piece showcases a different hour of the day, with dancing hippos as the grand finale. It’s just as much fun as I remembered it.
Segment 7: Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky and Ave Maria by Franz Schubert
Final segment of the movie and the one that had children cry in terror and parents writing angry letters to Disney. Honestly, I don’t remember if Chernabog terrified me as a child or not, but rewatching some of these movies (or other animated ones, Secret of Nimh, anyone?) really shows how cookie cutter these movies have become, compared to the nightmare fuel they used to offer. I‘ll be honest, I absolutely love Bald Mountain. It’s expressive and dark and the animation exceptional.
"Fantasia" is not a movie to rewatch a lot. It’s not one of those to put on a rainy day and just watch to escape the world for an hour or two. It’s not a funny adventure or fairytale. It’s something you need to be in the mood for. Compared to all the other movies (Fantasia 2000 being the exception) this one really is to enjoy as a piece of art to get lost in. It’s also a very early testament to what animation is capable of and it remains absolutely stunning, even for today’s standards. It is one of the most beautifully animated movies ever made.
Favorite Segment: Night on Bald Mountain
8 out of 10 Stars
More of an experience than a movie. I think some of the later stories are a lot weaker than the first few. It is hard to stay so focused on this when there is no real narrative thread throughout the whole 2 hours. I kinda wish this would of cut the olympus one and made it shorter. Still it is something unique and I'm sure was really cool at the time to see in theaters.
Beautiful classical music, but not a film I can completely sit and watch whilst doing nothing else. I like to play it in the background whilst drawing.
Upon rewatch as an adult, I was surprised how hilariously mature this is. "Behold Satan, and the creatures of evil gathering to worship their master." "So now, imagine yourself in space, looking down on this lonely, tormented planet, spinning through an empty sea of nothingness." Good one, Deems!
Judged in historical context, this movie seems shockingly avant-garde. Really beautiful, wonderful ideas and it must have been a trip to see it at the time. These days, the various segments have aged at various rates. The standout sequences for me were Bach, the Nutcracker, and Bald Mountain. The dinosaurs and the Rite of Spring were quite dull. But the pinnacle was Mickey and the Sorcerer's Apprentice, which is just mainlining classic Disney magic for ten minutes. Doesn't get better than that.
3 Thoughts After Watching ‘Fantasia’:
How does one possibly rate Fantasia? I feel like there are two ways: for what it’s accomplished and for its entertainment value — which, in my mind, are wildly opposing thoughts. It’s iconic, it’s gorgeous, and it’s groundbreaking for its time. On the other hand, I had to fight to stay awake.
Sorcerer Mickey is the best Mickey.
The dinosaur scenes were fairly depressing.
The film is a masterpiece of audiovisual art, a delicious experiment where, through a perfect soundtrack and a game of sequences, the logos merges with the mythos. The staging is daring, unique, transgressive and above all magical. A play of light and shadow transports us to a fantasy theater that we will never see or shape. The only hint we are given of the setting is with the American-style opening of the curtain. The film plays with disorientation (as in a magic trick) from the first second, where the fourth wall is broken.
It is a unique work of its kind, combining reality with animation, theater with cinema, dance and classical music. It does not need a script adulterated with dialogues to flow, so it is not limited to an age or a time, which is why it has not aged almost, retaining its magic and charm. It is timeless and for all audiences. The only condition is to love art, because if you are one of those who watch movies to be entertained by their stories, without taking into account the mise-en-scène and everything that goes with it (lighting, set design, composition, camera positions...), you will not enjoy the film.
[7.6/10] In a weird way, Fantasia is a reminder of the importance of storytelling to what Disney accomplished over its many decades of existence. The film features some of the most melodious and venerated pieces of classical music in history. It can boast some of the studio’s best animation, evincing different styles and approaches from the comic to the dramatic to the abstract to the downright frightening.
And yet, for all that achievement, it doesn’t hit as hard as many of the studio’s other efforts because, outside of the famed “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment, there’s not really a story amid this audio-visual carousel. Sometimes, as our humble presenter notes, there’s a general idea, or an outline of what’s happening as part of a given piece. But this is more of a showcase, a chance to simply give life to the music rather than spin a yarn with a beginning, middle, and end.
Love it or hate, though, you have to appreciate the ambition of Disney with Fantasia. To put together what amounts to a two-hour classical music concert, light on slapstick, heavy on theatrics, unlikely to hold a moppet’s attention for the entire runtime, took guts. Even without knowing the behind-the-scenes history behind it, it reads as a labor of love, one meant to show off the medium’s artistic potential that ought to place its practitioners alongside the classical masters of old.
More than that, if you squint, you can make out hints of Disney’s releases to come, both in the near term and the far future. You can see embryonic versions of Tinkerbelle in “the Nutcracker Suite.” Early echoes of The Little Mermaid are present in “Rite of Spring”’s underwater segments. The foundation for Hercules is present in “The Pastoral Symphony.” Hell, you can even see shades of The Land Before Time and Primal in the dinosaur-focused portions of the film.
Even as a showcase, you can see the studio trying out different moods and settings, some of which Disney itself would pick up years or decades down the line, and some of which others, inspired by its example, would realize in other ways in other company.
The film is, undoubtedly, a feast for the eyes. One of its most impressive aspects is the way that liquid is a unifying element across the different segments, and looks wonderfully realistic while also being just impressionistic enough to seem fantastical. Mickey nearly drowns in an unexpected, magic-induced whirlpool; magma erupts from volcanic spouts and washes over a prehistoric countryside; a flood of wine, of all things, subsumes a collection of mythical revelers. In every instance, the swishes and splashes of the fluids at play capture the unpredictable movement, but also the beauty, of their real life equivalents.
It can also boast incredible flashes of color and light. The film’s figures may be bathed in a golden hue or hidden in shadow or creep from one to the other. We might see mythical creatures horsing around in a rainbow forged by a benevolent god, or demons shifting across the grayscale birthed by a malevolent demon. As pure vision, Fantasia works at almost every level, sporting beauty in nearly every frame.
Just as notably, it has the noble aim of bringing these classic musical pieces to life. I’ll admit to finding myself doing the same while listening to classical music: imagining scenes, conjuring stories, seeing images dance across my mind. It’s hard to know whether that it an essential part of how a human being processes melodic sound, or a chicken-and-egg reversal, where decades of seeing scores compliment images on screen, in movies, music videos, and animation features like this one, have made it the default setting for processing song and melody for folks like me.
Whatever the source, Disney finds creative ways to realize these tunes. While there’s a natural bent toward the fantastical, there’s marked differences between an abstract introduction, the journey from the primordial to the present, a tour of Greek myth, a funny animal dance number, a floral boogie, a magical mishap, and an impressionistic rise and fall of evil and good seen as darkness and light. There is, if nothing else, variety to how the famed classical interludes are done up in animated splendor, even if common principles creditably abound between the different segments.
And yet, I will sheepishly confess to zoning out at times, despite that variety at hand and the unquestionable visual splendor on display. I can appreciate the artistry of Russian dancers realized in a floral aesthetic, or hippos doing pointe, or melodies visualized as bursts of hue and color over a cloudy vista.
But over the course of a two hour block, it starts to become densitizing after a while. Maybe that’s just evidence of the minute modern (read: my) attention span, but it’s hard not to think that this film may have been easier to appreciate in 2020 if I’d watched the segments individually (or at least availed myself of that intermission) rather than trying to swallow the whole thing in one big bite.
Still, the moments that stood out the most are the ones that had characters, if not exactly stories. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” has rightfully become iconic for its splendid animation and iconography, but it’s also the most memorable segment because it’s the only one that tells a tidy little tale.
The other stretches of the film that stand out feature recognizable personalities or clear situations, even if there’s not a great deal of narrative propulsion. Two dinosaurs struggle while others flee in fear; a herd of centaurs court one another while attended to by cherubs; a terrifying demon summons the armies of the night. There’s not exactly a plot to these sections, but there’s more in the way of major players and scenarios that help give form to the art.
That reaction is, in many ways, a failing on my part. The music alone is great art. The imagery by itself is great art as well. Why do I need some tale to envelope both of those things to hold my attention for the length of the feature? The only poverty I can plead is indoctrination by Disney itself, where a lifetime of movie-watching has taught me that beautiful music paired with luminous aesthetic delights should be matched with a story no less engrossing or compelling.
It’s invigorating to see the studio step beyond that framework, to experiment, to put its talents on display in a different way than usual. But it’s tough for a generation raised on that framework to feel, not just intellectually appreciate, a diversion that represents no less of an achievement, but strips away the stories that roped us in for so long.
An incredible visualization of what animation could achieve about 80 years ago. Even now, in 2020 it has an impressive air. I cannot imagine how difficult it had to have been to time hand drawn animation to composed music. It is important to remember this movie, as it helped shape the industry.
I enjoyed the music, my cat enjoyed the visuals, both of us had a great time.
For many of us, “Fantasia” served as our first proper encounter with classical music, not merely as passive listeners but with thoughtful reflections on the expressive value of sound and images. The intentions behind the film remain exceptionally noble and noteworthy to this day, although I must confess that I found the quality of the segments a little uneven. The introductory first 30 minutes, despite the variety of images, felt somewhat lackluster, mostly due to technical limitations. As a disturbed child, I naturally adored “A Night on Bald Mountain”, although the renowned “The Sorcerer's Apprentice” is probably even better.
A different way of looking at classical music, I love it.
It had it’s ups and downs.
The intermediate was kinda bored and forced, there was way to much exposition. And the moments which I think were supposed to be funny felt so fake that it came across as cringy.
The first music was a nice introduction but it was way to long and got boring quick.
The second was my favourite, the visuals are all very nice and despise the lack of a concrete story it still conveyed a beautiful image of nature.
The third is a classic, it’s probably my favourite music but the visuals can get too repetitive. It is also the only one with a concrete story, which honestly I wasn’t that invested in.
The forth is definitely the worst. Only Disney can make a story with dinosaurs just boring, this was SO boring, I can’t even describe it in words. I had to stop two times before I fell asleep.
The fifth is quite fun, but nothing that original. I mostly had fun because I like Greek and Roman mythology. All of the mythical creatures were a lot of fun.
The sixth one is pretty forgettable, I had no memory of watching it. It was just a ballet dance with animals with nothing original about it.
The last one was also very boring, I didn’t get what was going on and honestly I didn’t care about it either.
A fascinating experimental film that explores music and imagination, Fantasia is a triumph of vision. Combining the talents of the Walt Disney Studio and the Philadelphia Orchestra, several pieces of classical music are brought to life through a series of animated vignettes. With the aid of animation the evocative nature of music is explored, from the expression of mood to complex storytelling. Surprisingly none of Disney’s trademark characters appear (other than Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment). Instead the segments feature nature scenes and animals and fairy tale creatures engaged in frivolity. Most of the animation is quite impressive, but some of it is a little crude and generic. Still, Fantasia is an extraordinarily well-craft and artistic film that celebrates the power of music to express thoughts and feelings.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was disappointed by the lack of coelacanths.
Shout by Ward MuylaertBlockedParent2012-10-31T21:42:17Z
Original, most likely impressive for the time, but not my cup of tea.