Fantasia is a 1940 American animated musical anthology film produced and released by Walt Disney Productions, with story direction by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer and production supervision by Walt Disneyand Ben Sharpsteen. The third Disney animated feature film, it consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Music critic and composer Deems Taylor acts as the film's Master of Ceremonies who introduces each segment in live action.
Disney settled on the film's concept in 1938 as work neared completion on The Sorcerer's Apprentice, originally an elaborate Silly Symphony cartoon designed as a comeback role for Mickey Mouse, who had declined in popularity. As production costs surpassed what the short could earn, Disney decided to include it in a feature-length film of multiple segments set to classical pieces with Stokowski and Taylor as collaborators. The soundtrack was recorded using multiple audio channels and reproduced with Fantasound, a pioneering sound system developed by Disney and RCA that made Fantasia the first commercial film shown in stereo and a precursor to surround sound.
Rating[]
Fantasia is rated G by the MPAA, making it the third Disney animated film to receive this rating, after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio.
Cast[]
- Leopold Stokowski as the Conductor
- Deems Taylor as Himself
- Walt Disney as the voice of Mickey Mouse
Programs[]
- Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
- Nutcracker Suite
- The Sorcerer's Apprentice
- Rite of Spring
- The Pastoral Symphony
- Dance of the Hours
- Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria
Credits[]
Gallery[]
United States[]
Trivia[]
- The film's copyright was renewed on January 25, 1968.[1]
- This is the first and only Disney film to have an intermission.
- Fantasia is the second Disney film out of the films in the animation canon to be preserved in the National Film Registry, having been preserved in 1990. The first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (was preserved in 1989), the third being Pinocchio (was preserved in 1994) the fourth being Beauty and the Beast (was preserved in 2002) and the fifth being Bambi (was preserved in 2011).
- This is the first appearance of Mickey Mouse in a Disney animated feature film.
- With a running time of two hours and five minutes, Fantasia is the longest of all the Disney animated features.
- The original roadshow and Blu-ray releases have no credits of any kind, and it only shows the Fantasia title at the intermission. The 50th anniversary and VHS release have the Walt Disney Pictures logo, the Fantasia title at the beginning, and full closing credits, but don't expect to see this version anywhere else.
- In the case of the 50th Anniversary and VHS versions with closing credits, when the shot of the orchestra members leaving before the doors close is restored for this release, the lighting of the orchestra stage was purple, not blue.
- In 1995, the 100th anniversary of cinema, the Vatican compiled a list of forty-five "great films", with Fantasia listed in the art category.
- Ave Maria is the only part with lyrics in the entire film. Everything else is instrumental.
- When Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971, the only featured composer still living in 1940) was contacted about the rights to use "The Rite of Spring," he offered to compose a completely new piece for Walt Disney. This was not taken, and Stravinsky hated Leopold Stokowski's re-orchestration and re-organization of the piece, the original order of the sections was jumbled, and two of them were completely left out.
- The first American film to use stereophonic sound as well as the first and only film recorded in Fantasound.
- Unless you count Kaa's scene in the 2016 live-action remake of The Jungle Book.
- This is the only musical film with the letter 'F' on its title until the 1980 American teen musical film Fame released 40 years later.