Fantasia is an incredibly unique experience. To simply call it an animate film would not do justice to the vision Walt Disney had and brought to fruition. The amount of heart and talent that went into Fantasia is evident in every segment. Originally Walt was only going to animate The Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment as a Mickey Mouse short (to bring back public interest in Mickey who was being overshadowed by his pals Donald and Goofy) but after meeting with composer Leopold Stokowski and realizing they were both so passionate about the project, they decided to expand the short into an entire full length film featuring several classical music pieces.
Premiered: November 13, 1940 at Broadway Theatre in New York City
Directed by:
Samuel Armstrong (“Toccata & Fugue in D minor” and “The Nutcracker Suite”)
James Algar (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”)
Bill Roberts (“Rite of Spring”)
Paul Satterfield (“Rite of Spring”)
David Hand (Meet the Soundtrack)
Ben Sharpsteen (Meet the Soundtrack)
Hamilton Luske (“The Pastoral Symphony”)
Jim Handley (“The Pastoral Symphony”)
Ford Beebe (“The Pastoral Symphony”)
T. Hee (“Dance of the Hours”)
Norman Ferguson (“Dance of the Hours”)
Wilfred Jackson (“Night on Bald Mountain”/“Ava Maria”)
Produced by:
Walt Disney
Ben Sharpsteen
Sequels: Fantasia 2000 (1999)
Master of Ceremonies: Deems Taylor
Conducted by: Leopold Stokowski with the Philadelphia Orchestra
Animation Supervisors:
Fred Moore (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “The Pastoral Symphony”)
Vladimir Tytla (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “Night on Bald Mountain”/”Ava Maria”)
Joshua Meador (“Rite of Spring”)
Woolie Reitherman (“Rite of Spring”)
Art Babbitt (“The Pastoral Symphony”)
Oliver Johnston (“The Pastoral Symphony”)
Ward Kimball (“The Pastoral Symphony”)
Eric Larson (“The Pastoral Symphony”)
Don Towsley (“The Pastoral Symphony”)
Norman Ferguson (“Dance of the Hours”)
Academy Awards:
Two Honorary Awards
- “outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures”
- “unique achievement in the creation of a new form of visualized music, thereby widening the scope of the motion picture as entertainment and as an art form”
The Story:
There are no opening credits or title card for the beginning of Fantasia. The film starts out with the orchestra entering onto the stage and tuning their instruments. It is filmed to feel like the audience is actually in a concert hall. The orchestra members are only shown in coloured shadows throughout the entire film. The master of ceremonies, Deems Taylor, enters onto the stage and welcomes the viewers on behalf of Walt Disney and conductor, Leopold Stokowski. Mr. Taylor explains that there are three different types of musical program. The first has a definite story from the start, the second has no specific plot but goes on to paint a definite picture, and the third is absolute music that “exists for its own sake.” He goes on to say that the very first segment will be a piece from this third category.
“Toccata & Fugue in D minor” by Johann Sebastian Bach.
The first part of this segment presents the section that is playing the melody in superimposed, coloured shadows. It is almost a way to introduce the different sections of the orchestra before the animated portion starts. The scene transforms into animation featuring blue clouds with lines poking through. The lines turn into violin bows and the abstract animation gradually changes shapes and colours. All of the moving patterns are in sync with the music and this entire segment is almost dreamlike. “Toccata & Fugue in D minor” ends with a bold red sunset showcasing Leopold Stokowski right in the centre.
Mr. Taylor then talks about the composer of the next piece, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. “The Nutcracker Suite” was not one of Tchaikovsky’s favourite pieces of his work but it is definitely one of the most popular ballets around the world. However, Disney’s interpretation for Fantasia does not contain any actual nutcrackers.
“The Nutcracker Suite” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
This segment is a ballet of nature and opens with “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” with dancing lights that turn into spring fairies who are waking flowers into their full bloom. Next is the “Chinese Dance” where mushrooms are dancing in movements similar to a traditional Chinese fan dance. There is one little mushroom who is always a step behind, though he does catch up in time for the final bow. Flowers then fall into the water to the sounds of “Dance of the Reed Flutes” and begin to dance like graceful ballerinas. Down in the water, a school of goldfish shyly twirl around to the “Arabian Dance”. A sudden burst of energy brings the “Russian Dance” and thistles, made to look like they are wearing large fur hats, and orchids, with lovely pheasant dresses, dance resembling traditional Russian dancing. The finale is the “Waltz of the Flowers” where autumn fairies change the colours of the leaves and the leaves dance in the wind. Winter fairies arrive and bring beautiful ice, frost, and snowflakes.
Mr. Taylor introduces the next segment as music with a definite story. In fact, the story was written first and then the music was composed to accompany the story; a story that goes back almost 2000 years.
“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas
The sorcerer is practicing magic while his apprentice is bringing down buckets of water to fill a cauldron. The sorcerer gets tired and leaves, after putting his hat down on the table. The apprentice puts on the magical hat and brings the broom to life. He also gave the broom arms to carry the buckets and skipped off to show the broom where to get the water. The apprentice then relaxes in a chair while the broom continues to bring buckets of water, and eventually he falls asleep. The apprentice dreams that he is up high on a cliff and is controlling all that is around him. He can make the stars twinkle, water turn into giant waves, clouds to blow in every direction, and all of this causes a big storm.
The apprentice suddenly wakes up to a flooded room! The broom will not stop filling up the cauldron so the apprentice chops the broom up into tiny pieces. However, each piece then grows into a separate broom, complete with arms and two buckets for water. The dozens of brooms then continue their task of bringing water and the apprentice tries desperately to bail out the water. He ends up getting swept away in a whirlpool and is floating helplessly on the sorcerer’s spell book.
The sorcerer then appears and commands all the water to disappear. The apprentice sheepishly gives up the magical hat and continues his task.
After the music ends, Mickey Mouse runs up to Mr. Stokowski and congratulates him. In return, Mr. Stokowski congratulates the famous mouse.
Mr. Taylor then introduces the next segment, “Rite of Spring”, and talks about how Igor Stravinsky originally wrote this piece to represent primitive life as a ballet with tribal dances. Disney then wanted to use the piece to represent the growth of life. Science, and not only art, was the inspiration for this segment.
“Rite of Spring” by Igor Stravinsky
The “Rite of Spring” segment begins with spinning through the cosmos out in space and looking down at earth. The earth is completely filled with mountains, active volcanoes, and storms. The screen goes black. Single celled organisms are shown turning into brightly coloured marine life. The fish are growing bigger and bigger and are heading towards the land. The screen goes black. Dinosaurs then appear and are mostly shown as living in the water or flying. The screen goes black. There are more dinosaurs first living in the swamp lands and then living on solid ground. The dinosaurs are munching away on vegetation when a big and scary T-Rex appears and chases them. The T-Rex fights with a Stegosaurus (looking like they came straight out of Primeval World from Disneyland!). The T-Rex wins and dramatically kills the Stegosaurus. The screen goes black. The sun is shining brightly over a desert. There are many dinosaurs gathered but they have no food and no water. The dinosaurs migrate but are starving and dying one by one. Some of them get stuck in tar and some of them collapse. Then only bones and skeletons are shown. There is a sun eclipse and earthquake, and then all the bones are buried.
Mr. Taylor then announces a 15 minute intermission and the orchestra leaves. The curtain close and a Fantasia title screen is shown. The curtains then open and the orchestra returns and warm up. Mr. Taylor introduces a very important part of the Fantasia experience and that is the soundtrack. The soundtrack is represented by a line, a line that is given an incredible personality. The little vibrating line is shy at first but then really shows off when Mr. Taylor asks the line to demonstrate the different sounds of the instruments.
Mr. Taylor then introduces the fifth segment which is Beethoven’s sixth symphony “The Pastoral Symphony”. This piece of music gives a definite story, originally about a field. Disney has given it a mythological setting about unicorns, fauns, Pegasus, centaurs, and centaurettes.
“The Pastoral Symphony” by Ludwig van Beethoven
The segment begins with a sunrise over Mount Olympus and then pans down to where unicorns are frolicking in the meadows. The unicorns find fauns playing music and join in the fun. They tease each back and forth as a family of Pegasus fly over. A mother Pegasus is in her nest with the littlest one who is just learning how to fly. After a few failed attempts, he manages to succeed and joins the rest of his family in soaring across the clouds. They then land and play in a lake with other Pegasus families.
The scene then enters a beautiful forest where centaurettes are bathing in a stream. There are little cherubs who are helping the centaurettes put on makeup and accessories from the nature around them. A group of centaurs then gallop up to find their mate. They all pair off and go on cutesy dates but there is one lonely centaur that the cherubs notice. The cherubs are sad until they notice a lonely centaurettes and devise a plan to bring the two together.
The next scene has all of the creatures carrying baskets and large platters of grapes and flowers. They are going to have a celebration for Bacchus the god of wine. Bacchus comes in on his donkey-unicorn Jacchus and is a very jolly man. The red carpet is rolled out for him though he has a lot of trouble with his balance due to the large amount of wine he has already drunk. All the creatures dance around until dark clouds appear. It starts to storm and Zeus appears from the dark clouds. He has Vulcan make him some hefty lightning bolts and then he tries to smite Bacchus and the creatures down on earth. A bolt hits the wine reserve and a wine flood happens, making Bacchus extremely happy. Zeus soon gets tired and falls asleep in the clouds.
The sun reappears and the rain dries up. All of the creatures come out of their hiding spots and welcome the light. Iris, a personified rainbow, flies across the sky causing everyone to celebrate the beauty. Apollo is seen riding off into the sunset on his fire chariot and Morpheus (goddess of night in Fantasia but is generally known as god of dreams) sweeps her darkness over the land. All of the creatures fall asleep with their loved ones. Diana, goddess of the moon, shoots her arrow of stars across the night sky and the final shot is of a nighttime Mount Olympus.
Mr. Taylor introduces the next segment as a story about the delicate light of the morning, the rigid light of noon, the pale tones of early evening, and the somber night.
“Dance of the Hours” by Amilcare Ponchielli
The scene takes place in a beautiful courtyard and the early morning starts out with ostrich ballerina Madame Upanova rising and waking up all her fellow ballerinas. She is the only one with pink ballet shoes and a pink bow while the other ostriches are donning blue. The ostriches do their stretches and dance gracefully. Madame Upanova then feeds her troupe fruit from her cornucopia. The ostriches all fight over the last of the grapes which then drop into a fountain. The ostriches all run away out of the courtyard.
Hyacinth Hippo then rises out of the fountain in the midday sun and starts to eat the grapes. Her servant hippos, all wearing pink ballet shoes and tutus, bring her a yellow tutu and help her get ready for the spotlight. Hyacinth then dances around the courtyard until she gets tired and falls asleep on a lounge chair.
The evening light brings elephants into the courtyard. They sneak down to the fountain while Hyacinth is still asleep and blow bubbles from the water. They have a lot of fun by blowing bubbles at the sleeping hippo and make tutus out of bubbles for themselves. A heavy wind blows across the courtyard and all the elephants are blown away.
Nighttime falls on the courtyard and up in the dark shadows are alligators in flowing capes. They are all looking down at sleeping Hyacinth and slowly creep up to her. The leader, Ben Ali Gator appears and scares them off. He is completely smitten with Hyacinth and she wakes up. They dance ballet together until Hyacinth playfully runs away. Ben Ali Gator chases her around the courtyard with his fellow alligators aiding in stopping her escape. The hippos appear to help out Hyacinth and then the elephants and ostriches also return. The alligators try very hard to get all of the other animals out of the dark courtyard and it is all done through a series of ballet moves. They are unsuccessful and the ending has all the animals posed in dramatic ballet stance as the courtyard crumbles around them.
Mr. Taylor talks about how the next segment contains two pieces of music that could not be more different from each other. The two pieces are meant to complement each other and tell one complete story. In “Night on Bald Mountain”, the creatures of evil gather and dance until dawn when the church bells ring in “Ava Maria” and bring a sense of peace and hope.
“Night on Bald Mountain” by Modest Mussorgsky and “Ava Maria” by Franz Shubert
On top of Bald Mountain the Chernabog, the essence of all evil, awakes. His dark creatures rise up from the nearby village and graveyard and gather at the Chernabog’s summon. He torments them all night as they continue to dance for him on the fiery mountain top. At dawn, the church bells ring and with every sound, the Chernabog shrinks further and further into the mountain and the other evil spirits return to their graves. The sky turns to light and a processional of monks, each with their own light, journey through the forest as a symbol of hope. The film ends right there with a beautiful chorus singing “Ava Maria” and animation representing how the world is waiting for a sunrise.
Trivia:
- Walt Disney and Leopold Stokowski met by chance at a restaurant called Chasers in Hollywood. Mr. Stokowski offered to conduct for no pay because he loved Walt’s idea so much.
- Besides Walt’s and Mr. Stokowski’s enthusiasm, another reason to expand “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” project was for financial reasons. The cost of the short was so much greater than any other short Disney had done in the past that Roy Disney suggested that the only way to make back the costs was to turn the project into a full length feature film.
- Unfortunately, due to the ongoing war, the film was not a financial success during the first theatrical released. Through rereleases, Fantasia has become a success and has stood the test of time making it a beloved classic film.
- Walt Disney is quoted describing Fantasia as “Artistic success, financial failure.”
- “Toccata & Fugue in D minor” was also featured in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) as the piece Captain Nemo is playing on his organ in the Nautilus.
- The snowflakes in “The Nutcracker Suite” were animated with stop motion technology.
- Animators based the sorcerer in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” after Walt. Some of his facial features are quite similar, including his raised eyebrow when he is not impressed! His name is even Yen Sid; Disney spelt backwards.
- The working title for the film was The Concert Feature. The word fantasia is a musical term meaning freeform or to improvise.
- Fantasia opened as a roadshow attraction. Tickets were sold in advanced and included reserved seating. There was a crew, all Disney employees, that travelled around to each theatre playing Fantasia to be the greeters and ushers.
- Fantasia brought Fantasound, which was almost like a very early version of surround sound. Theatres had to completely redo their sound system in order to show Fantasia and only about 12 theatres across the United States were able to do so.
- Walt wanted to keep adding and subtracting segments to Fantasia and have it be a film that could be refreshed and released each year. The unsuccess of the initial released did not allow him to do so but some of the segments he was working on made their way into the upcoming package films. Roy E. Disney, Walt’s nephew, decided to bring that dream to a reality 60 years later with the release of Fantasia 2000.
Representation in the Disney Parks:
Fantasia has a huge presence in the Disney Parks around the world. There are many little shops, dining facilities, and garden areas just with the word Fantasia in the name. Sorcerer Mickey is also very popular in the Parks. There are so many places where Fantasia is represented that I am going to simplify things with a bullet point list.
- Fantasia Shop in the Disneyland Hotel, Disneyland Resort.
- Sorcerer’s Workshop in the Animation Building in Hollywood Land, Disney California Adventure.
- Mickey sometimes appears in his Sorcerer’s Apprentice outfit at Mickey’s Movie Barn in Mickey’s Toontown, Disneyland.
- Mickey appears in his Sorcerer’s Apprentice outfit in Fantasmic!
- The Sorcerer’s Hat appears in many locations around the world: At the Disneyland Hotel, Disneyland, the Roy E. Animation Building at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, the Art of Animation building at the Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris, and was most famously (or infamously) at Disney’s Hollywood Studios from 2001 – 2015.
- Fantasia Gardens & Fairways Miniature Golf at Walt Disney World near the Swan and Dolphin Hotels.
- Fantasia section and pool at Disney’s All-Star Movies.
- Fantasia Market at Disney’s Contemporary Resort.
- Mickey appears in his Sorcerer’s Apprentice outfit at Mickey and Minnie starring in Red Carpet Dreams at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
- The Sorcerer’s Hat is the main object of the Mickey’s PhilharMagic show in Magic Kingdom and Hong Kong Disneyland.
- There are Fantasia Suites at the Disney Ambassador Hotel at Tokyo Disney Resort.
- Fantasia Court, a garden area at Tokyo Disneyland Hotel
- Fantasia Gardens at the Disneyland Hotel, Disneyland Paris.
- Café Fantasia at the Disneyland Hotel, Disneyland Paris.
- On Le Pays des Contes de Fées there is a Chernabog scene at Disneyland Paris.
- Fantasia Gelati in Fantasyland, Disneyland Paris.
- Hyacinth Hippo sometimes appears in parades such as the Toon Circus at Disneyland Paris in 2001.
- Fantasia Carousel in Gardens of Imagination, Shanghai Disneyland.
- On Voyage to the Crystal Grotto there is a Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene at Shanghai Disneyland.
- Ballet Café is themed to Dance of the Hours at the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel.
I think I got them all! Let me know of other Fantasia references that I may have missed.
Check out the other films of Disney’s Golden Age:
Leave a Reply