My library is having a sale at the moment and I grabbed a copy of the Disney film Fantasia on DVD. What a great film! I first saw it in the cinema in the Eighties during a special run of a remastered version. The Night On Bald Mountain sequence near the end is the best, with flame and fire and demons running amok. It was strange to me that I didn’t already have a copy. There’s an Italian film called Allegro Non Troppo which does a fantastic satirical take on it. The Bolero sequence with its marching dinosaurs is a particular treat. It’s easy to be cynical about the Disney brand, it’s so ubiquitous. But I’m not. I’ve been to Disneyland in California, and my inner child had a ball. And I think of all the genuine happiness Disney products have brought to children and the world. Yep, it’s a multinational corp. It’s probably evil. But I don’t hate it.
I watched Disney’s Fantasia film tonight. It was about the third time now I’d seen it. Logging it on Letterboxd, as I do whenever I see a film, I downgraded it from five stars to three and a half. I like the fact that back in1940 Disney was prepared to be experimental about his films, to try new things. But seen today, it’s a very strange film. About a quarter of it is taken up with the orchestra footage, which is beautifully lit, but quite stagey. There’s also some unnecessary exposition by a fella called Deems Taylor, which was, to be fair, probably deemed necessary at the time. He even tells us, around the half-way mark, that they’re taking a fifteen minute break for intermission (cue curtain close).
The film rises or falls on its eight animated sequences, and I only found four of them enjoyable. That’s the Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence with Mickey Mouse, the Nutcracker Suite sequence featuring ice skating fairies, the ostrich/hippo/elephant/crocodile dance sequence, and the Night On Bald Mountain sequence featuring a demon and his devils running riot. They’re all funny, exciting, poetic and beautiful. The Rite of Spring section has some of the most ungainly-looking dinosaurs I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t help think of the satirical version of this from Allegro Non Troppo, which is so much more fun. I liked the opening scene of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, with bare-breasted babes coming out of a pool to reveal themselves as centaurs, but it was very cloying, with lots of boy meets girl lovey-doveyness, and the colours were quite garish. I did like the Maxfield Parrish-like structures in this one, so maybe I’ll give it a pass after all. So, very good in parts, but dated, sums it up.
The DVD also includes a commentary track from ‘Disney Scholar’ Brian Sibley. I’ve noticed his name on many of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit picture books that came out with those Peter Jackson films, so I watched it with his commentary. Remember when they were a thing back in the DVD era? Now with streaming it’s all gone, seemingly. Another reason to hang onto your DVDs! Anyway, Sibley’s commentary was informative and well-researched, if a little dry. He delivered lots of little anecdotes about ‘Walt’ and the film, the most interesting of which to me was that a stereotypical ‘negro’ servant girl was excised from the Beethoven Pastoral sequence. As expected he was full of praise and factoids about the many animators, musicians and other artists who worked on the film. He also pointed out recurring motifs and imagery in the film that I had totally missed, like the way the demon of the Night on Bald Mountain sequence conducted his demons much like Stokowsky conducted his orchestra. It was a good roundup of information about the film and deepened my appreciation for the work that went into it. Think I’ll bump up my Letterboxd rating from three and half stars to four now.