Fantasia
Samuel Armstrong, James Algar, William Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Hamilton Luske, Jim Handley, Ford Beebe, T. Hee, Norm Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson, Ben Sharpsteen, David Hand, USA, 1940o
Fantasia is the celebrated 1940 experiment from Disney that sets animated characters to classical music – including Mickey Mouse, who uses his magic wand to make broomsticks do his bidding in one of the film's most iconic scenes. This groundbreaking combination of animation and music is still considered a masterpiece decades later.
Walt Disney had a genuine interest in color film for obvious reasons. With Flowers and Trees in 1932 he not only released the first film ever to use Technicolor's new three-color process, but also secured exclusive Technicolor rights in the animated film genre until 1935. For his megalomaniac attempt to illustrate classical music with the means of animated film, he called on hundreds of animators, including such opposing temperaments as the German pioneer of abstract animated film, Oskar Fischinger, or the Canadian John Hubley, who would later cause a sensation with sand animation. The result is a conceivably heterogeneous body of work, ranging from experimental film to rollicking cartoons to pseudo-religious kitsch. In addition to the earworms of classical music, however, there is a second common denominator: the stupendous technical perfection.
Andreas FurlerGalleryo
