Fantasia - Not So Fantastic

I know you are all probably used to glowing reviews where I praise Disney’s work as if it were heaven sent, even after only two posts, but be warned that this will be a very different blog entry.  To put it simply, I really disliked Fantasia.  Maybe I am missing some “appreciation for sound and cinema” gene or maybe I like classical music a lot less than I thought I did, but this movie bored me to death.

I’m going to try my best to explain why I was so turned off by Fantasia, because I feel like I might be the only person in the world who is not completely in love with it. But honestly, I think that the likely scenario is that everyone decided to like Fantasia post-viewing, because I literally cannot imagine anyone sitting in rapture as they watch it. It isn’t anyone’s favorite Disney movie and it isn’t the type of movie you watch with your friends on a Friday night.  Can we agree on that?

Before I give my honest opinion of Fantasia, we should go over what this movie is about and what makes it different from other Disney films. Fantasia is a series of short animations set to different pieces of classical music.  The movie is hosted by radio personality Deems Taylor and the music is conducted by Leopold Stokowski and played by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Fantasia does not run like a regular film, but instead is more like a live concert.  Taylor introduces each piece and gives a short history lesson about the music while also explaining why Disney chose to animate each one the way they did. There are eight sequences, none of which connect with reoccurring characters or a continuous plotline.

Let’s start with the first of many issues I had with the film.  Unlike most of the sequences in Fantasia, which mostly feature a distinct story, the first segment (set to “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”) shows a few shots of the orchestra silhouetted against colorful backgrounds, but mostly just blobs of color on the screen.  In my opinion, this was the worst way to start an already offbeat movie.  If the point of Fantasia was to make audiences more interested in classical music by pairing it with beautiful animation, then they should not have begun with such a lackluster sequence.  I have never in my life seen something so completely “hipster” come out of the 1940’s.  I’d like to think that maybe my opinion of the film as a whole was influenced by my initial impression of “Toccata and Fugue,” but alas, there are even more reasons why this movie failed to impress me.

The middle chunk of Fantasia is just a mess of cartoons that I half remembered from childhood, but none of which were as remarkable as they needed to be to make this movie entertaining. “The Rite of Spring” depicts the formation of life, from a tiny amoeba to the rise and fall of the dinosaurs.  Basically, it is dinosaurs dying a fiery, dusty death. The most interesting part is that it must have been a direct influence for the dinosaur dioramas featured on the Disneyland Railroad here at Disneyland Park.

“The Pastoral Symphony” was, I admit, fun to watch, but also way too long. This piece revolves around centaur ladies who meet up with centaur men to set up a festival for Bacchus, the god of wine.  Their party is quickly interrupted by Zeus, who throws lightning bolts at them from the sky.  I think I enjoyed this segment more than others because it had more of a story, and more intriguing characters than the other shorts.  Not being able to enjoy art unless it contains a discernable story probably isn’t a great quality of mine, but I’d rather be honest with you guys about my opinions than blindly give good reviews of every Disney movie I see. I need a plot!

But now that we are through most of the nonsense that is Fantasia, we can talk about the two sequences that do make this movie memorable. The “climax” of this film (in quotes because there can be no real climax if there is no real story, right?) is accompanied by the piece “Night on Bald Mountain.”  In this short, the devil Chernabog summons the dead from their graves to praise him. Ghosts and demons ride to him only to be thrown into fire. This cartoon, made in 1940, is to this day one of the scariest cartoons ever made.  It is so iconic that it was chosen to be included in Disneyland’s “Fantasmic” show and even more recently in California Adventure’s “World of Color.”  People are still scared of Chernabog, or maybe just obsessed with him because we have somehow figured out his name even though it is clearly never mentioned in this dialogue-free film. If you watch “Night on Bald Mountain” you will see how un-Disney is it; its haunting atmosphere is something I’d expect to see from foreign animators and not from the creators of the loveable Mickey Mouse.

Chernabog featured in Fantasmic

Demons falling into a pit of fire

Speaking of Mickey, I know you all know the most memorable part of Fantasia. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is one of the most popular Mickey cartoons of all time. As someone who did not enjoy Fantasia, I can at least appreciate it for giving us all Sorcerer Mickey and the walking broomsticks.  It’s a classic, and Fantasia would not have been made without Walt’s dedication to making this short.  That is something I found out in my desperate attempt to find something that would make me feel differently about Fantasia.  After watching the film, I was eager to watch the DVD special features so I could hear why Walt wanted to make this movie and (hopefully) be inspired by the history of the film.  Unfortunately for me there were no such special features on my DVD.  So I hit the Internet for information and found out the real reason Fantasia was created. 

In the 30’s The Walt Disney Company experienced a decline in the popularity of their Mickey Mouse cartoons.  The original plan was to make an incredible Mickey Mouse short, one that combined the 1797 poem “Der Zauberlehrling,” the famous concert piece “L’apprenti sorcier” by Paul Dukas, and Mickey Mouse as the title role.  So much money was spent on the production of this short that Walt realized he would not be able to make back what was spent unless the piece was incorporated into a full-length feature.  And so Walt went about selecting other pieces of music for his animators to work with and Fantasia was born. What is hilarious to me is that Dopey was considered to be the Sorcerer’s Apprentice as well, but Walt demanded it be Mickey. Can you imagine?

            Aside from the long-lasting popularity of Chernabog and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, Fantasia made one other important contribution to the art of filmmaking.  When the concept of a “live concert” type movie was decided upon, Walt decided he wanted to attempt to change the way sound was played during a movie.  If this was going to be a concert film, he wanted the audience to feel like they were standing on the conductor’s podium, surrounded by music.  The company succeeded in creating “Fantasound”, which was one of the first ever stereophonic sound systems and which led to the commonality of surround sound.  Fantasia was the first film to make use of surround sound and while other Disney films made advances in art, color and character, Fantasia changed sound and music forever.

I think I have already fully explored my frustration and disappointment with Fantasia, but really what confuses me the most is why this is Disney’s 3^rd feature film.  It seems like such an experimental project would have come later.  Bambi was already in production and was actually supposed to be the company’s second film, so why did they do Fantasia so early? Mickey’s declining popularity partially explains it, but I still will never really understand taking the risk of this project so early in the company’s history, though in retrospect, it didn’t do any lasting damage and Disney went on to be a great success. If I try really hard I can appreciate the dedication to pairing animation with classical music.  There is actually a quote from Walt that says “This film is going to open this kind of music to a lot of people like myself who've walked out on this kind of stuff" which makes me want to love this film so much, but I just can’t. While I am glad that I trudged through my Fantasia viewing and have reacquainted myself with it, I just don’t like it.  And I don’t have to like it.  After my past two blog posts I have become unexpectedly enamored with both Pinocchio and Snow White, but after watching Fantasia I had a different reaction and that is really what this blog is about.  I didn’t start this project as a tribute to Disney.  I am supposed to come out of each film with a different feeling about each and about animation as a whole. I am excited, not discouraged, to have disliked Fantasia because it is the start of me creating well-thought out opinions on these classic films. I know a lot of you are Fantasia fans and I’m sorry if you are dissatisfied with my review. To those of you who have either never watched this film, or haven’t in years, I encourage you to watch it again, even if you might hate it, because what I truly believe is that Disney films affected all of entertainment.  It’s not always going to be sunshine and roses here on Treasures Untold, but at the very least we can all appreciate each Disney movie for what small (or large) contribution it has made in film. 

Next up: Dumbo

Money spent so far: $50.20