Fantasia (Disney)
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Fantasia |
| Abbreviation(s): | |
| Creator: | Walt Disney |
| Date(s): | 1940; 1999 |
| Medium: | Animated film |
| Country of Origin: | United States |
| External Links: | |
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Fantasia was a 1940 animated movie by Walt Disney Productions. It shows a series of animated shorts set to classical music. There was a 1999 follow-up called Fantasia 2000.
Fantasia is generally among Disney's best-received movies, with some criticism for anti-Black racism in the centaur section of the film. It was popular in early science fiction fandom, which considered stories with fantastical elements very relevant to their efforts to get all forms of unrealistic fiction taken more seriously.
Contemporary Responses
We have just seen Walt Disney's Fantasia for the second time, and have not as yet recovered from it. (Donald, Johnny Michel, and we saw it for the firstime last week.) With the exception of one little sour note (the un-necessary display of racial prejudice in the Pastoral Symphony continuity (which shows the various personages in and about Mt. Olympus -- we'll never forget our first glimpse of Mrs Pegauses in the nest) it was a masterpiece from beginning to end -- in both scene and sound.For fans, the continuity to Igor Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring" is alone worth the price of admission... It deals with the evolution of life on earth, up to the passing of the dinosaurs, and, as the commentator, Deems Taylor, says, it is in accord with scientific facts as far as they gave been discovered to date. So despite the fact that we won't be getting free tickets out of this, we still say put Fantasia on your "must" list.
Robert A. W. Lowndes : City Desk. Fantasy Fiction Field #23 pg 6. (March 28, 1941)
Yesterday I went to see Fantasia. This is positively terrific. I don't know if you will get it up there yet or whether you have already had it, but don't miss it. I disagree with most of the critics who seem to have approached it veiled with a mask of intellectual snobbery. You have, of course, got to accept a certain amount of sophistication and Hollywood-Disney vulgarity, but that, like the poor, is always with us. Granted that you accept that then you should be able to enjoy it with an untrammled mind. I could not greatly connect the pictures with the music of the Bach Prelude & Fugue in D Minor but apart from this the abstract designs represent one of the finest surrealist efforts I have ever seen. The other piece which impressed me immensely is Disney's effort on evolution to the accompaniment of Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps. I found this almost overwhelming and the way he manages to convey the vast illimitable distances of space is astounding, so is his picture of the earth as a flaming mass of volcanos and spouting lava. I don't want to see any more of DeMille's "impressive" spectacles after this. In my opinion Disney has put all these people on the spot and opened up entirely new vistas in the entertainment world. For instance there is little doubt that this is the proper medium for the ballet because things can be done which could not be attempted on the stage, or if attempted would merely appear ridiculous.John C. Craig (as Zeus Craig): letter printed in The Fantast #11 pg. 20 (Nov 1941)
Re Craig & "Fantasia" I've yet to find a fan who (like me) thought more of the Casse-Noisette sequence than any other. This satisfyingly demonstrates my superior aesthetic discrimination, & that I was not obsessed with "Sacre du Printemps" merely because it was fantasy.Maurice K. Hanson: letter printed in The Fantast #12 pg. 31 (Dec 1941)