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Walt Disney Fantasia 19403/27/2021
Many elements are rendered carefully and painstakingly using techniques such as dry brush and airbrush.With story direction by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer and production supervision by Ben Sharpsteen, it is the third feature in the Disney Animated Canon.The film 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 films Master of Ceremonies, who introduces each segment in live action interstitial scenes.
As production costs grew higher, he decided to make a feature-length film with other segments set to classical pieces. The soundtrack was recorded using multiple audio channels and reproduced with Fantasound, a pioneering sound reproduction system that made Fantasia the first commercial film shown in stereophonic sound. It received mixed critical reaction and was unable to make a profit. In part, this was due to World War II cutting off the profitable European market, but due as well to the films high production costs and the expense of leasing theaters and installing the Fantasound equipment for the roadshow presentations. Also, audiences who felt that Disney had suddenly gone highbrow stayed away, preferring the standard Disney cartoons. The film was subsequently reissued multiple times with its original footage and audio being deleted, modified, or restored in each version. As of 2012, Fantasia has grossed 76.4 million in domestic revenue and is the 22nd highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. Disney co-produced a sequel released in 1999 titled Fantasia 2000. There was no intent to deceive anyone into thinking that Disneys interpretation was the original intent of the composer. Of the eight pieces, four are presented virtually complete: Toccata and Fugue, The Sorcerers Apprentice, the Dance of the Hours (which is actually expanded), and the Ave Maria. Walt Disney Fantasia 1940 Cracker Suite IsThe Nutcracker Suite is shorn of its Miniature Overture and March, the twenty-five minute Rite of Spring (the longest segment in the film) is ten minutes shorter than the original 35-minute work, and the Pastoral Symphony segment is performed in a 20-minute version rather than Beethovens complete 40-minute original. There are also small internal omissions in Night on Bald Mountain. Musicians are seen ascending the stand, taking their seats, and tuning their instruments. Master of ceremonies Deems Taylor arrives and delivers an introduction to the film. Conductor Leopold Stokowski appears and begins conducting the first strains of his own orchestration of the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, by Johann Sebastian Bach (originally written for solo organ). The first few parts of the piece are played in each of the three sound channels (first left, then right, then the middle, then all of them) as a demonstration of Fantasound. The number segues into an abstract animation piecea first for the Disney studioset in time to the music. Toccata and Fugue was inspired primarily by the work of German abstract animator Oskar Fischinger, who had actually worked for a brief time on this segment. The animation segues back into the live-action footage of Stokowski as the piece concludes, setting the precedent for the rest of the musical numbers. Originally, the Philadelphia Orchestra was slated to be filmed in the introduction and interstitial segments, but the union and budgetary considerations prevented this from coming to pass. It features a variety of dances, just as in the original, but danced by animated fairies, fish, flowers, mushrooms, and leaves; no actual nutcracker is ever seen in this version.
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