Fantasia
Originally published on social media on April 13th, 2022
This will always be one of the most underrated works of Walt Disney to me. Is every performance equally entertaining or enjoyable? No, but Walt did multiple innovative things here: He brought the symphony to the big screen during a time when people didn’t have access to many performances, and concerts themselves were limited because of WW2. The success of it doesn’t matter as much as what he tried to do! He combined classical music with animation in a way that was both educational and entrancing.
Everyone has their favorite performances in this (mine is the Nutcracker Suite), and others we fast forward, yet in the midst of it all, it’s still magical. For me, without Fantasia, there would have never been a Fantasia 2000, and without that, there is a good chance I would have never studied music. So Walt, thank you for Fantasia and being part of what sparked my love for music.
Here are some facts provided by IMDB:
- The filming of the "Ave Maria" sequence was plagued by mishaps. To achieve the effect of moving through the scene, several panes of painted glass were used. The whole setup was over 200 feet long and had to be redone three times. The first time the wrong lens was placed on the camera, and the subsequent film showed not only the artwork but the workers scurrying around it. The second time around an earthquake struck the studio, and the shot was once again scrapped. The next morning the shot was redone, the film was shipped to the lab, and was spliced into the final print with only 4 hours to spare.
- Walt considered having fragrances dispersed into the theater at certain points in the movie to heighten the experience. Suggestions included jasmine for the "Waltz of the Flowers" segment of "The Nutcracker Suite," incense for "Ave Maria," and gunpowder for "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Disney dropped the idea because of the difficulty of clearing one scent from the theater before spraying in the next one.
- The animators secretly modeled elements of the Sorcerer in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" on Walt Disney. The raised eyebrow was regarded as a dead giveaway. The name Yen Sid is "Disney" spelled backwards.