Fantasia
| Year: | 1940 |
| Production Co: | Walt Disney Pictures |
| Studio: | Walt Disney Pictures |
| Director: | James Algar/Samuel Armstrong/Ford Beebe/Norm Ferguson/Jim Handley/T. Hee/Wilfred Jackson/Hamilton Lu |
| Producer: | Walt Disney |
| Cast: | Leopold Stikowski, Walt Disney |
One of the view things Disney's done right in a long, maligned and auspicious presence in the entertainment industry.
This is Uncle Walt as his public image; a dreamer, an imagineer, a happy man who wanted to show kids of all ages a world of wonder rather than the iron-fisted businessman, supposed Nazi sympathiser and Hollywood player.
Fantasia was the Star Wars of its day, setting new benchmarks in technical innovation, using the medium of animation and the untouchable whimsy and wonder of classical music as both a self-referential wonder and a method for telling stories we could all dream about but real-world effects at the time could never realise.
That makes it a timeless piece of art rather than a curio from a bygone era. The structure was new and different (and still is), the stories it tells and the imagery it evokes is what cinema is all about half a century later. An epic and a classic in every sense of both words.
This is Uncle Walt as his public image; a dreamer, an imagineer, a happy man who wanted to show kids of all ages a world of wonder rather than the iron-fisted businessman, supposed Nazi sympathiser and Hollywood player.
Fantasia was the Star Wars of its day, setting new benchmarks in technical innovation, using the medium of animation and the untouchable whimsy and wonder of classical music as both a self-referential wonder and a method for telling stories we could all dream about but real-world effects at the time could never realise.
That makes it a timeless piece of art rather than a curio from a bygone era. The structure was new and different (and still is), the stories it tells and the imagery it evokes is what cinema is all about half a century later. An epic and a classic in every sense of both words.