Fantasia

November 13, 2010 marks the 70th Anniversary of Fantasia. Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney with brief live-action introductions between the animated segments. The third feature-length animated film produced by Walt Disney Productions, Fantasia features eight animated segments set to classical music selections. The animated segments feature no dialogue or sound effects; the only dialogue in the film is featured in live-action introductions to each piece by host Deems Taylor, an American composer and music critic, before each segment.

The music was recorded under the direction of Leopold Stokowski, who is featured in Taylor's live-action introductions , and seven of the eight pieces were performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Animated artwork of varying degrees of abstraction or literalism was used to illustrate or accompany the concert in various ways. Fantasia was notable for featuring what were then considered avant-garde qualities, and for being the first commercial film released in multi-channel sound using a process called "Fantasound". The film is often considered Disney's magnum opus.

Fantasia was originally released by Walt Disney Productions itself rather than its then-distributor, RKO Radio Pictures, and exhibited as a two-hour and twenty minute roadshow film (including an intermission) with reserved-seat engagements. The film opened to mixed critical reaction and failed to generate a large commercial audience, which left Disney in financial straits.
Fantasia was eventually picked up by RKO for release in 1941 and edited drastically to a running time of 81 minutes in 1942. Five subsequent re-releases of Fantasia between 1946 and 1977 restored various amounts of the deleted footage, with the most common version being the 1946 re-release edit, which ran nine minutes shorter than the original 124 minute roadshow version. A 1982 reissue featured a newly recorded digital soundtrack conducted by composer Irwin Kostal, but was taken out of circulation in 1990 after a restored version of the original Stokowski-conducted soundtrack was prepared. The original version of Fantasia was never released again after 1941, and although some of the original audio elements no longer exist, a 2000 DVD release version attempted to restore as much of the original version of the film as possible.

Despite its initial commercial failure, Fantasia went on to become one of the most popular films of all-time[3] and is today considered a classic film.

Some of the works played in the film are program music; that is, instrumental music that depicts or suggests stories in sound. However, the Disney program is generally not the same as the original. This criticism was addressed in the film itself. The host and narrator of the film, Deems Taylor, introduces each piece in the program and gives background on the original intent of the composer. There is no intent to deceive anyone into thinking that the Disney visual accompaniment was the "original intent" of the composer.

Some of the musical works selected were shortened from their full length for the sake of the film's running time. Of the eight pieces, four are presented virtually complete: Toccata and Fugue, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the Dance of the Hours (which is actually expanded), and the Ave Maria. The 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 thirty-five minute work, and the Pastoral Symphony segment is performed in a twenty-minute version rather than Beethoven's complete forty-minute original. There are also small internal omissions in Night on Bald Mountain.