US 126m Dir: Samuel Armstrong, James Algar, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Ben Sharpsteen, David Hand, Hamilton Luske, Jim Handley, Ford Beebe, T. Hee, Norman Ferguson and Wilfred Jackson
There had never been anything quite like Fantasia before and other than the 2000 'sequel' there hasn't been again. Walt Disney strived to combine the world of classical music with animation, proving that his new medium was a sophisticated artform.
The film actually opens in live action as we see the orchestra arrive in silhouette, including conductor Leopold Stokowski, adding some weight to this endeavour. This idea makes it feel like this is an evening out, an experience, and I can only dream of what seeing this in a cinema in 1940 would have been like, complete with the new 'Fantasound' sound system.
Each section of the film is introduced by Deems Taylor and essentially it gives us the rationale behind putting animation to music and the choices the animators made. I really like how the first piece starts with showing us the orchestra playing before evolving into gradually more sophisticated animation.
Like any sort of anthology, the individual sections vary in quality. There's a reason that 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' segment starring Mickey Mouse is the one that everyone remembers- it's utterly delightful, a just lovely piece of animation. It was the first time that Mickey Mouse was given more expressive eyes and this is really effective. I really like 'The Rite of Spring' section which tells the story of life on Earth from the volcanic age to the dinosaurs- the makers of this section worked closely with scientists and this results in something which feels actually fairly scientifically accurate given it's age. The final section, featuring 'Night on Bald Mountain' and 'Ave Maria' is a nightmarish vision full of demons worshipping Satan himself that is superb if somewhat frightening for the children.
Some sections are less impressive. 'Dance of the Hours' featuring ballet dancing hippos is lovely but isn't quite some visually impressive. I personally didn't get a lot out of 'The Nutcracker Suite' section set in an enchanted forest and clearly the worst segment is Beethoven's 'Pastoral' set on Mount Olympus featuring creatures from classical mythology- it just goes on for ages without much happening and the design work is not the best. There are also some racist stereotypes including in these sections (though the worst one has long since been excised).
All in all, the film is an astounding piece of art which really demonstrated what animation could do. Walt Disney had planned to continually release new versions of the film with segments replaced with new ones when they were animated but the expensive release strategy and the Second World War meant that never happened. It's a shame because it would have been great to see how Fantasia evolved as animation did.
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