Fantasia (1940)

Some Facts: 

     Fantasia was released in 1940; however, its production story is quite different from other early Disney movies. The film consists of seven different animated segments set to pieces of classical music which was conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Leopold got this job by running into Walt Disney at a restaurant where they spoke about collaborating on one short, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” The budget to create this one short very quickly grew, and Walt decided to turn the one short into a collection of shorts that would showcase classical music along with animation. DIsney also brought in world-class scientists to help the animators understand the beginning of the earth for the “The Right of Spring” short and to make sure that all animations were as accurate as possible throughout the film. This was also when Disney made the decision not to include early earth mammals in the film, as he did not want the backlash of creationists. World-renowned ballet dancers were also brought in to help the animators capture natural movements on screen. A huge part of Fantasia for Disney was the reconstruction of Mickey Mouse. Up until that point, Mickey was much more round and only had two little dots as his eyes. However, animator Fred Moore changed Mickey’s eyes to have pupils as well as gave his body more of a pear shape, which created the MIckey we all know and love today. With all of that being said, the animation for Fantasia was the biggest workforce of this film. From creating new departments of the company to helping make smoke look more realistic, as well as bubbling mud baths to help simulate tar pits, the crew had their work cut out for them. For the Nutcracker Suite, the techniques used to create the animations took an unreal amount of time; to properly animate 1/24th of a second, it would take a group of animators around four hours to accomplish. That’s about ninety-six hours per second of film and five thousand, seven hundred and sixty working hours per finished minute on screen. To say that Walt cared about Fantasia and its quality is an understatement.This care doesn’t stop at animation, though. This is when  Walt Disney and Stokowski developed a new sound system for film called Stereophonic Sound. This is where the music is recorded from multiple different microphones so that when played back, it sounded like it was coming from different directions, which added to the perception that the sound was from a live band. Walt Disney ended with a budget of $2.28 million, the box office made around $80 million, which is $1.56 billion in 2021, which makes this the most successful Disney movie of the decade and is still a top twenty-five grossing movie of all-time. Not only was Fantasia received very well by the public, but it was a hit with the critics as well. Fantasia will go down as one of the most successful and best overall works of art by Disney Animated Studios. 

Right off the bat, I have to say, Fantasia breaks the live action rule; however, that is for good reason, as it is one of the most influential Disney movies of all time. The money made off of this film set Disney up to get through World War II and helped Disney become what it is today; therefore, I am breaking one of my rules for this film. 

Too Long;Didn’t Watch:

    The movie opens with the Philadelphia Orchestra as they warm up before playing the music for the movie, and we move into the first piece, which is “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” by Bach. This is played over some lighting and shadows showing the symphony playing the song, which then moves to an animated sky that depicts the notes played by light refracting and reflecting in the clouds. The second sequence is “The Nutcracker Suite” by Tchaikovsky, which is famously known for the stage play “The Nutcracker;” however, Disney depicts it as a changing of the seasons, with fairies helping the plants blossom and also shed their leaves in the fall, along with the famous mushroom dance scene. The third and probably most well-known piece from Fantasia is “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (no, not the crappy 2010 film with Nick Cage, in which a newly reimagined Mickey Mouse is the apprentice to a sorcerer) In this piece, Mickey is tired of his chores, so when the sorcerer leaves, Mickey steals the source of magical powers and charms a broom into doing his chore for him while Mickey naps. While Mickey naps, the broom continues to work and never stops, flooding the basement.Mickey awakes to about 40 feet of water. Mickey doesn’t want to get in trouble for the mess, so he figures the only way to solve his problem is to MURDER THE BROOM WITH AN AXE. You heard it here people, Mickey Mouse is a murderer. However, this only creates more problems for Mickey as the broken pieces of the broom all turn into their own individual brooms. Around one hundred brooms begin bringing water into the house, very quickly flooding the house to the point the sorcerer wakes up and calms the storm, and then Mickey returns to his normal work day. 

The fourth piece is known as “The Rite of Spring,” which moves from the beginning of time with no life and quickly moves through the theory of evolution to the reign of dinosaurs. We get to see a pretty awesome T-Rex vs Stegosaurus battle. Then it shows the death of the dinos as the land becomes very hot and dry, and there is no food for them to eat. We then move to the fifth portion of the movie with “Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony.” The song is used to show Mt.Olympus, the home of the Greek Gods, during which we see Zeus, who doesn’t look like he will age in the next, ohhh I don’t know, thirty-seven years or so. The sixth classical piece animated is the “Dance of the Hours,” which if you remember that cute, K9 Advantix song, where the little dog is off at summer camp and sings a song to his parents, that’s this song. ANYWAY, basically you have four groups of dancers representing four different times of the day. Ostriches have been chosen to represent the Morning Crew, Hippos are repping the Midday Gang, Elephants the Afternoon Squad, and Crocodiles the Nighttime Mob. All of these groups go straight America’s Best Dance Crew on this cute little soundtrack, with each crew beating the next. To finish the choreography, all four crews collaborate and end the show with a bang. The finale of Fantasia is a combination of two pieces of music. The first is “A Night On Bald Mountain,” and the second being Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria”- two songs that sound so different, they work. Bald Mountain is located above a little village, and it just so happens to be where Satan and his little demons all come together to worship Satan, because guess what, it is Halloween. They are having a fun time dancing and doing demon things until we hear church bells, which send the demons back into their darkness. “Ave Maria” comes in to show that good triumphs evil and the film ends on a beautiful sunrise. 

Winner of the Movie: 

    The overall winner of this movie is Walt Disney. There are a lot of times you could say that; however, this is Disney’s burst onto the scene as being a legitimate production studio. The  amount of money made off of Fantasia, how well it was received both publicly and critically, as well as the amount of time it took to produce all prove that Fantasia is Disney’s first true Masterpiece of Art. Fantasia set Disney up to rule the animated world, and they still do today!

Loser of the Movie:

    If I had to pick a loser for this movie, it would be Roy Disney, the older brother of Walt Disney. Walt was obviously the creative genius of Disney Animation; however, Roy was the CEO of the company until he retired in 1979. Roy did not believe in Fantasia or that it would be successful. Roy thought that Walt was spending too much money on production for a movie the public did not want to receive. Obviously, at the end of the day, Walt got his way, and the film was a huge hit, but Roy would be taking the back seat to his younger brother from now on. 

Song of the Movie:

    This category is a tough pick for me, mainly because Fantasia was made as an ode to classical music. All of the music used were different pieces written and composed before the movie was created. However if I had to pick one that I related the most to Fantasia it would have to be ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’. Composed by frenchman Paul Dukas in 1897, ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ lines the third portion of the movie. However, for me, it is the introduction of Mickey Mouse into Disney movies. Letting our fearless animated friend leap from the small screen to the silver screen. While you can not really sing along with the music, or really even hum along, when you listen to just the song, like I am as I type this, you can imagine the entire scene in your head. For me that is such an accomplishment for Disney and crew to be able to attach visuals that so perfectly match a piece of music composed almost 40 years earlier. Fantasia is more a work of art than it is a great movie. Appreciate art for art, and entertainment for entertainment. 

Awards Won:

    Fantasia won two Academy Awards in 1942. One was an honor for advancing the way that sound would be used in motion pictures, and the other award was given to Stokowski and his associates for their achievement in the creation of a new form of visualized music in Fantasia. To put it simply, Stokowski helped the artistic community at see how important of an artform film is. In 1990, Fantasia was selected to be in U.S. National Film Registry. In 1995, the Vatican placed Fantasia on their “45 Great Films” list, placing it in the art category (the other categories were religion and values). In 1998, Fantasia was ranked number 58 in the “100 Years,100 Movies” list created by the American Film Institute. Lastly, in 2008, The American Film Institute created the “AFI’s 10 top 10” list, a list of the 10 most important categories of film and the 10 best films in each category and Fantasia was placed 5th in the animation category. 

Overall Review:

    Fantasia is a centerpiece of Disney Animation Studios. I wouldn’t say this is because of how entertaining it is anymore, but because of how much the film industry changed from the technology developed to create Fantasia. Overall, I would give Fantasia 7.8/10 , my main knock being that it is not very rewatchable; however, to think that this movie was made in the 1940s after you’ve seen the other movies made at the same time is crazy. Fantasia is a piece of art and a great watch to see what someone can do with so little technology and two extremely creative minds.