Rating:

If you want to watch an animated feature, this is the one to watch. Don’t screw around with such latter-day cinematic turds as Treasure Planet, Rugrats in Paris or Pocahontas. For sheer enjoyment, and for appreciation of the amazing things the art of real, hand-drawn animation can do, you can’t beat the Disney classics, and Fantasia is the best of the best.

The concept behind Fantasia is familiar to nearly everyone now that more than sixty years have gone by since the film’s original release. That familiarity could make us forget just how innovative and downright daring this project, this “concert feature,” was.

Just in case you’ve grown up entirely under a rock or with marshmallow creme tightly packed into your eyes and ears, I’ll explain Fantasia to you. It’s not a motion picture in the conventional sense; there’s no unifying story, or for that matter any story at all. Instead, Fantasia presents a series of animated vignettes set to eight pieces of classical music. Between the vignettes there are brief narrations by Deems Taylor (Deems? He’s gotta be making that up.), but it’s the drawings and the music that drive this picture. Combining animation by the Disney studio and music conducted by Leopold Stokowski (essentially the two rulers of their respective fields) created something that was not only unlike anything that had come before it, but also introduced classical music to countless people who would otherwise be uncultured jackasses listening to Blink 182.

What follows, then, are brief descriptions of the individual segments that together make up Fantasia.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (Johann Sebastian Bach)
Peculiar, that’s what I’d call this. Fortunately, it’s supposed to be peculiar. This piece is described as “pure music,” in that it doesn’t tell any particular story. So we start off with the silhouettes of the conductor and assorted members of the orchestra tooting their horns or whacking their kettle drums or doing whatever it is they do to their cellos. Soon enough, the literal images are replaced with animated abstracts, beginning with a bunch of lines that become violin bows. Next, we see a bunch of randomly shifting colors and shapes: clouds; rolling hills; wavy lines; flying circles. It’s like you’re seeing the music right there on the screen, and you don’t have to drop any acid at all! (Still, I’ve heard stories about people having bad Fantasia flashbacks, even years after they watch it.) The crazy images keep coming, explosions of color in time with the music, some waddling green coffin thing, a bunch of light…it’s pure imagination. The piece closes with what appears to be the sun setting directly onto Leopold Stokowski. I hope he had at least SPF 30 sunscreen! Ha ha!

The Nutcracker Suite (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky)
The interesting decision here on the part of the animators was not to include any nutcracker in their interpretation of the Nutcracker Suite. “There’s nothing left of him but the title,” as narrator Deems Taylor (Deems?) says. Instead, Tchaikovsky’s music inspired a sort of natural ballet, stretching from spring to winter and encompassing animals, plants and fairies (the pixie kind, not Charles Nelson Reilly). The fairies bookend the piece by bringing the dew on a spring morning in the beginning and ushering the transition through fall into winter at the end. In between, various aspects of the natural world have their chance to shimmy and shake. A flirty goldfish (a coy koi, perhaps?) does a sultry “Dance of the Seven Veils” type routine to the Arabian Dance portion of the music. Several sections are devoted to the way flowers get their groove thangs on. Some skim gracefully atop a smooth body of water, acting almost like ballroom dancers, while others twist and gyrate at a million miles an hour, acting almost like like complete floral maniacs hepped up on goofballs. And let’s not forget the mushrooms! Their scene is over almost as soon as it’s begun, but the Chinese Dance performed by mushrooms–and in particular the wee little mushroom that can never quite seem to stay in step but keeps his self-assured attitude nonetheless–is one of the best remembered highlights of the film.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Paul Dukas)
This is definitely the keystone segment in Fantasia because it’s got that lovable cad Mickey Mouse. The music of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is inspired by a pre-existing story, as Deems Taylor (DEEMS?) is quick to tell us. That being the case, the Disney animators stuck to the traditional story associated with the piece, save for the fact that the apprentice is now a gigantic mouse. Instead of the cheerful, lovable character we know him to be, it turns out here that Mickey is a lazy bum who’ll do anything to get out of the simple chore of hauling gallons upon gallons of water for no clearly defined reason. To avoid having to do the work himself, Mickey whips up a little magic and brings a broom to life, intending it to be his slave forever. “Let the broom carry my water” has always been Mickey Mouse’s philosophy. So he makes a broom and it does just that. Unfortunately, Mickey gets a little more than he bargained for MWAHAHAHAHA! As you might expect, things quickly spiral out of control, with anthropomorphic brooms and water everywhere, and the Sorceror is forced to save Mickey’s bacon. Mickey learns a valuable lesson about meddling with powers he doesn’t understand and can’t control, get’s a whack in the ass, and we’re off to the next bit.

The Rite of Spring (Igor Stravinsky)
As originally composed, The Rite of Spring was a series of primitive, tribal dances. The animators decided to go even more primitive than that and depict the creation of the Earth up through the time of the dinosaurs, the science of which is explained to us in a quick lecture by Deems Taylor (DEEMS?!?!?). Stravinsky’s piece is often very atonal and dissonant, but this style of music works very well with the imagery of volcanoes exploding and the ground splitting in twain and gigantic thunder lizards eating each other. Everyone’s favorite dinosaurs are here, unless your favorite dinosaur is a velociraptor or pachycephalosaur, in which case you are screwed. Also, everyone’s favorite thing-that-isn’t-a-dinosaur-but-everyone-thinks-it-is, the dimetrodon, is here too. But I won’t complain about that innacuracy and give a science lecture, because you might get the impression that I’m a nerd. Which I certainly am not. In any case, the animation on these creatures is really spectacular. Long before Jurassic Park told us exactly what we should think dinosaurs looked like, these animals were just as believable. All the dinosaurs have real weight and move in ways you would expect of beasts of such magnitude. Unfortunately, even animated dinosaurs must eventually become extinct. Fantasia isn’t going to sit here and misrepresent history. Except, of course, when it completely does misrepresent history, which it does by having the dinosaurs die out due to it suddenly getting really hot and dry. Granted, this film is more than sixty years old, and at that time there was far more speculation as to what led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, but still: I’m smarter than a bunch of cartoonists!! Neener Neener!

Symphony No. 6 - “Pastoral” (Ludwig Van Beethoven)
This is the best place I know to see the boobs of really, really hot centaur chicks. I’m not kidding when I tell you that these centaur babes are smokin’ fine. This segment of the movie, inspired by the very natural, countryside feel of Beethoven’s music, is set in the fields of mythological ancient Greece, and it’s just riddled with every cute thing imaginable. Little baby unicorns. Little fawns dancing around and playing their panpipes. Said unicorns poking said fawns in their butts. It’s nothin’ but cute. There’s Pegasus and his family flying about and having adventures. Oh, and did I mention that there are hot centaur chicks? Taking baths? Naked baths? Plus, they’re surrounded by a bunch of bare naked cupids, making this the most pornographic thing Disney ever made. Until, that is, they started producing actual soft-core porn. I guess you’d call this their trial run. Unfortunately, the centaur ladies put on their bras all too soon and the time for centaur sex is over. Various gods of yesteryear such as Bacchus, Zeus and Apollo come out to have their fun before the segment finishes, but nothing is gonna top those centaur teats, so let’s just move ahead.

Dance of the Hours (Amilcare Ponchielli)
At last, somebody’s made ballet interesting! If they could somehow train real hippos, ostriches, elephants and alligators to dance and jump on each other, I would go to a ballet every night of the week and twice on Sundays! These dancing animals make up one of the funniest sequences in all of animation. First a bunch of gangly ostriches do a sweet, slow dance, representing the gentle light of the dawn. And if you aren’t into ostriches, just wait because soon enough it is noon, the brilliant light of which is perfectly represented by: hippopotamuses! They’ve got enormous butts, but they’re dancing on tippy-toe, all petite like! If that doesn’t make you laugh, then I hate you. While the hippos dance about, the day wanes, and now the eerie colors of early evening are represented by dancing elephants. In this as in every cartoon, elephants are capable of blowing bubbles with their trunks, yet you never see them do this in real life. I say it’s time we show the elephants who’s boss and tell them they can’t do their bubble-blowing in secret any longer. What are elephants here for if not to amuse us? It’s not like they’d make good chauffeurs or fry cooks. Finally comes the dark of night, represented by a bunch of alligators who come in, chase everyone around, and bring the piece to its conclusion.

A Night on Bald Mountain (Modest Mussorgsky) and Ave Maria (Franz Schubert)
Fantasia’s finale is a two-for-one sale of music and of EVIL!!! The completely creepy music of A Night on Bald Mountain is complemented by the completely creepy bat-monster and his legion of dancing hell beasts. Ghosts, skeletons, monsters, demons…every kind of nightmare is eerily brought to life by Disney animators and a Russian composer. All these hell spawn are doing an evil dance amid fire, brimstone and everything scary. Admittedly, it is hard to be frightened by a cartoon; this sequence, however, manages to create a genuinely chilling, eerie atmosphere. Dancing devils are turned into animals, then into scrawny slovenly monsters, by the giant spirit of the mountain. A bunch of scary flying ladies zoom in front of the camera, screaming to beat the band. It’s all very spooky. But just as all the fiery monsters think they’ve won the day, the church bells ring and Schubert’s Ave Maria begins. Honestly, you didn’t think they’d end it with a celebration of evil, did you? This is a Disney cartoon, for crying out loud; Disney didn’t become evil until Michael Eisner took over (ZING!). Fantasia concludes (in a multiplane camera sequence so complicated it wasn’t completed until four hours before the film’s premiere) with a procession of the faithful carrying candles as a beautiful sun rises, proving once again that the powers of good and hope can overcome all. What better possible way is there to end the movie? (Answer: More dancing hippos)

Well, that’s Fantasia for you. The movie runs in excess of two hours, which is utterly amazing for an animated feature. It’s doubly amazing when you remember that this was produced at a time when every single frame, twenty-four in every second, had to be hand drawn. The animation was ground-breaking, experimental, and excellent. Stereophonic sound, a concept we now take for granted, originated here. And let’s not forget the music itself, which is culled from the best in the world. Yup; this is a pretty fantastic movie.

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