The Disney Animated Canon: From Small beginnings to the House of Mouse: Fantasia

 

   Disney. No one name holds as much power over business and the world of Animation as much as Walter Elias Disney. Whether it was making the first animated motion picture in the English world, further revolutionizing the field of animation, or making one of the most powerful media companies in the world, Disney managed to become a titan of industry and media. Nowadays, we joke about the House of Mouse and its’ lasting impact in today’s world…but without Disney, much of the animated world today…well…wouldn’t be.

Fantasia: The Concert Feature

  For Disney’s third feature, he wanted to try something new. He decided to animate classical music. Unlike the other films, it told a bunch of stories instead of just one. They are:

•    Toccata and Fughe in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach: An introduction to the film and abstract art moving to the music.
• The Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: No nutcrackers or mice here, just the changing of the seasons and flowers.
• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas: This was the one that brought Mickey back to popularity. Mickey tries to practice Master Yen Sid’s magic and bring a broom to life. Things spiral out of control.
• The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky: Life evolves as single cells turn into Dinosaurs and they are then wiped out by what we thought was the cause (science has since moved on).
• The Pastoral Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven: A day in the Greco/Roman countryside, a Bacchanal, and a storm from Zeus occur in a short span of time as centaurs, satyrs, unicorns, pegasi and cherubs are caught in the middle.
• The Dance of Hours by Amilcare Ponchielli: Ostriches, hippos, elephants, and aligators dance high ballet, in a loose performance of La Gioconda.
• Night on Bald Mountain and Ave Maria by Modest Mussorgsky and Franz Shubert: Chernabog awakens on Walpergisnacht and plays with the dead for his own amusement before being silenced by church bells harking the coming dawn. We end with the sunrise.

It was bold, creative, groundbreaking, iconic…and it bombed. Badly. So badly that Walt thought it was his worst piece and decided he would never do artsy pieces ever again. Turns out, the opposite is true. Fantasia is considered Walt’s best piece he’s ever done. Nobody had ever truly adapted classical music to animation as Walt Disney had, and he managed to make one of the most awesome and scary villains ever without ever having him speak a single word: Chernabog.

Believe it or not, Walt wanted Fantasia to be a perpetual work in progress. More songs would be added, some old material might be used, however, the bombing of this piece shelved that idea until about 60 years later. On top of that, the only contemporary composer who actually saw the film, hated how his music was cut to fit the film (Igor Stravinsky was not a fan of the way his music was used). It also managed to be the longest Disney film at 2 hours and 4 minutes, and the first to use Surround sound.

It may have done a bit better if not for a little hiccup in the global market called WWII, which cut off the European Market from seeing it at launch, same with Pinocchio. However, it is still considered by many to be the best Disney movie. After all…Without Fantasia, we would have no Sorcerer Mickey, Yen Sid (Outright stated to be Disney put to ink), and no Chernabog (curiously called Satan in the original release…while Chernabog, or the Black God, isn’t a pleasant deity to run into in Slavic mythology, he’s nowhere near as evil as Satan/Lucifer). We have only to imagine what might…or might not have been if things had changed.