Fantasia Film Analysis

There have been many animated movies that were very popular during the 1940’s and 50’s. Some are still watched and have been recreated in today’s times: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Dumbo. Although not the first animated movie to be created, Fantasia (1940) was the first movie to connect classical music with animations. Directed by James Algar and released in 1940, this movie was the first of its kind, using classical music and creating scenes with animations around that music or vice versa. This movie contains eight musical segments all narrated by Deems Taylor with different music and animations like Mickey Mouse, fairies, flowers, dinosaurs, figures from mythology, animals, and spirits for each of the scenes. As …show more content…
It starts with a great idea and even greater producers and directors to fulfill the vision from that first idea. Fantasia was based off of one of the scenes in the movie called The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which was created to make Mickey Mouse popular after a decline in his popularity. After that short was created, Disney decided to create a film with other animated segments like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice other pieces of classical music. “Fantasia is so utterly memorable and special partly because it fundamentally could not exist today in the same form. A 2-hour film comprised of eight animated shorts, all of which are introduced by an opera commentator, with only one recognizable preexisting character making what amounts to an extended cameo appearance, cannot happen anymore.” (Spiegel). Fantasia was the first of its kind and probably the last as it was a huge failure when it was first released and did not become popular for another twenty years after the movie was released. Anything remotely similar to this film are usually just short films which get shown before a movie. The most popular segment from this film and the only scene to be put in the movie’s remake in 2000 was The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which was when Mickey Mouse tried on the Sorcerer’s hat and magically made a broom carry the water buckets back and forth. After falling asleep, the brooms had the room overflowed with water and Mickey could not find …show more content…
Filmmakers tied that classical music with these animations to bring the audience into the whimsical world of prehistoric times, nature, Heaven and Hell, and all of the other beautiful backgrounds for this choreographed animation. It is hard to believe that all of the animations for this film were hand drawn before going to the computer to bring them to life unlike how animations today are almost always done on the computer. Something else that has changed since the past is the completion of films. Nowadays, films are completed months in advance and have screenings and red carpets but for Fantasia, the film was not completed until 4 hours before the first showing. Also, instead of being shown in theaters all across the country or world, Fantasia was only shown in twelve theaters for the first release. Walt Disney was always one for pushing boundaries on just about everything he knew or met, Fantasia being one of them. “He was the first to produce a talking cartoon, the first full Technicolor cartoon, the first full length feature animated feature, and with Fantasia he would push the boundaries of sound and the overall experience of going to the theater.” (McCormick). Fantasia is not like most films, when critics tried to be critical with it but it was difficult since most movies have actors, actresses, and sets the critics can criticize but