Films # 038 & 039 - Fantasia (1940) and Fantasia 2000 (1999)
Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 are two of Disney’s more interesting releases. Originally envisioned by Walt Disney as an “event” (one that you would dress up for, as if going to a real concert), Fantasia was a financial disaster for the company, almost bringing them to ruin.
And it wasn’t all that warmly received critically, either. It seems a lot of members of the Intellectual elite thought that Walt was aiming out of his league by trying to create “art” when they preferred him as an “entertainer”. But Walt did create art with Fantasia, just as he had with Snow White and Steamboat Willie and hundreds of previous creations. The “Intellectuals” were just too blinded to see it. Unfortunately, they were at least partly right, though. Fantasia is art, but it is hardly an artistic triumph.
There are certainly some wonderful pieces in Fantasia. Particularly strong is the well-known “Sorceror’s Apprentice” sequence, which used Mickey Mouse to great effect as a little screw-up, and Beethoven’s 6th Symphony with it’s beautiful portrayal of centaurs and other creatures of myth. And the hippo/alligator ballet of “Dance of the Hours” is always good for a chuckle. But most of the rest of the piece drags. The “Nutcracker Suite” is nice, but long. And it seems an odd choice not to use it to actually portray the nutcracker story. The “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” is utterly forgettable and “The Rite of Spring” (dinosaurs, etc.) is ponderous. But nothing matches “Night on Bald Mountain” / “Ave Maria” for putting me to sleep almost every time.
These complaints are, of course, related to the storytelling and entertainment value of the work as a film. Artistically, everything is gorgeous. Even “Bald Mountain” looks great. It just can’t hold my interest. I can certainly see why it failed to connect with an audience back in the day. I can also see why it’s been so influencial in the years since. People interested in animation can look to this film to see how to marry image to music and movement. They just can’t really learn how to tell a story.
Things aren’t helped by the narration, which was apparently meant to help people understand what they were seeing, but instead act as a barrier to immersing oneself in the experience. A lot of the narration was cut out by Disney after its disastrous initial release and has been restored for the recent DVD release. While I commend this decision as a historian, I can’t help but feel that the cuts actually improved the film.
Most of the problems with Fantasia return in Fantasia 2000, but to a lesser degree. In place of “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”, there is an abstract on Beethoven’s Fifth. The “Nutcracker Suite” is matched by “Piano Concerto No. 2″, a re-telling of the Steadfast Tin Soldier and just as overlong. And as boring and tiresome as “Night on Bald Mountain” / “Ave Maria” is the “Firebird Suite” (the coming of Spring) and “Pines of Rome” (Flying whales - don’t ask me). “The Carnival of the Animals”, with its wacky flamingos is a mostly successful attempt to caapture the comedy of “Dance of the Hours”. “Rhapsody in Blue” stands on its own due to the jazzy music, very different from the rest, as well as its use of the art of Al Hirschfeld as its inspiration. It’s a good piece and keeps the beginning of the film from flagging under the weight of the early pieces.
“The Sorceror’s Apprentice” was considered so iconic that it made a return in Fantasia 2000, but that was probably not a good idea. The then sixty-year-old footage looks terrible up against the clean imagry from the rest of the film (and looked even worse ehen I first saw Fantasia 2000 on an Imax screen). And putting it right before the film’s strongest sequence, Donald Duck in a retelling of the story of Moses and the flood set to “Pomp and Circumstance” makes matters worse. “Pomp and Circumstance” (best known from endless graduations) is a beautiful sequence that actually tells a story (Donald works as Moses’ assistant and thinks that Daisy has been left behind) and tells it well. They probably should have ended on this one for a nice, upbeat conclusion. Instead, we go to that “Firebird Suite” I mentioned earlier and the audience collapses into as stupor.
Fantasia 2000 was the pet project of Roy E. Disney (son of Roy O. and nephew of Walt) when he was still the head of Disney Animation. It didn’t help his personal stock that the film (unsurprisingly) tanked and it’s high cost (about $80M) may have contributed to his butting heads with Michael Eisner, a fight that Roy eventually won. But I’m sorry that the failure of Fantasia 2000 led to the cancellation of the proposed Fantasia 2006, but as the original’s failure killed its “neverending updates”. (One piece begun for that film emerged as The Little Matchgirl - 2007 Oscar nominee.) The Fantasia films were both variable in their quality, but were wonderful artistic expressions, even if unsuccessful. A company like Disney should be willing to blow some cash on almost purely artistic endeavors every now and again. It help keep their animators and directors engaged and consious of their artistic cores, something they can bring to their next commercial product. Hopefully, Disney will re-visit this premise again someday. I’m sure it will be the same mix of success and failure and boredom, but I’ll watch it. Even when I don’t like what they come up with, I’m always fascinated to see what it is.