Directors: Samuel Armstrong, James Algar and others
Writers: Joe Grant, Dick Huemer
Narrator: Deems Taylor
Starring: Leopold Stokowski, The Philadelphia Orchestra
Released: 15 November 2010
Duration: 125 minutes
Rating: PG
Fantasia, a film originally from the 1940s, is often thought of as one of Disney’s true classics from across its seven decades of animated movies. In fact this Blu-ray edition is released very near to the 70th anniversary of this film. Fantasia was only Disney's third full-length animated film. The animation may be nothing like what we are used to today. Colours are not so bright and characters are less expressive, but it is still beautiful animation, simply from an earlier time.
Fans of the recently released film staring Nicolas Cage – The Sorcerer's Apprentice – will especially enjoy a segment in Fantasia – in which the apprentice (Micky Mouse) uses magic for his own benefit, before he’s really learnt anything more than the basics, to clean up his room by using magic to bring brooms to life and mop up. Of course it all goes wrong – the moral being that he shouldn’t have looked for a quick fix, or used magic in the wrong way. It was this Mickey Mouse segment from Fantasia that inspired the live action film The Sorcerer's Apprentice. And it was an extended version of this scene that I expected made up the majority of Fantasia. I thought it was no more than an hour long. Indeed the original cut of Fantasia was simply going to be this short piece of animation alone, and nothing else. However it blossomed into a full two hour epic release featuring eight short segments, to make up one epic film.
The different sections are spilt up by the host and narrator of the film, Deems Taylor, who introduces each piece in the film and gives background on the original intent of the composer. What follows is segments of animation, that are wordless, simply set to music including Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (Johann Sebastian Bach), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Paul Dukas), the Dance of the Hours, Ave Maria, The Nutcracker Suite (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), Pastoral Symphony and Night on Bald Mountain.
Dance of the Hours is a segment featuring Madame Upanova and her ostriches and Ben Ali Gator and his troop of alligators. The finale sees the chaotic chase that ensues between all of the characters seen in the segment until they eventually decide to dance together.
The segment that covers the birth of the universe and the creation of Earth from the big bang up until the dinosaurs ruled – The Rites of Spring – is another standout section.
The Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria (Modest Mussorgsky) segment is also especially noteworthy featuring an array of eerie ghosts, skeletons, witches, harpies, and other evil creatures in Night on Bald Mountain. It pretty spooky and creepy for kids!
The restoration job done on the animation to bring this up to HD standard is very impressive. The picture is clear and sharp. It’s a very fine job and clearly this is a film that many Disney fans would want to experience on Blu-ray so credit goes to Disney for making this happen.
Over all it’s nothing like what I expected, apart from the Mickey Mouse segment, but all in all I really enjoyed watching this slice of animatic, Disney, history.
