Fantasia (1991, VHS)

Fantasia was the fourth feature length animated film ever made, following Disney's own Snow White and Pinocchio, and Fleischer Studio's Gulliver's Travels. It was also the second animated feature that year for Disney's busy cartoonists, as Pinocchio had been released in February of 1940.

Snow White, Pinocchio, and Disney's next classic, Dumbo (1941) were all better than Fantasia. But Fantasia is generally the more highly regarded film today. While this assessment is not correct, it is understandable.

Fantasia does have some advantages over its fraternal Disney rivals. The score, featuring some of the most familiar classical compositions performed by one of the best orchestras, is outstanding. The concept is original, ambitious, and daring. Only a studio as successful as Disney could have attempted it without risking bankruptcy.

Fantasia began as an innovative Mickey Mouse short, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". Mickey learns how quickly one can get into trouble when assuming skills not truly possessed. Still the centerpiece and most famous sequence from the film, it was used again in the recent Fantasia 2000.

The short had cost so much money to make that Walt Disney decided he could only get his investment back if it was part of a feature film. But instead of cutting his losses, Disney extended them, and it decades would pass before Fantasia became profitable.

The problem was not initial reviews. In fact, critics who saw the film were generally pleased. The film won an honorary Oscar, and made many year end top ten lists, including that of the New York Times. The problem was that Disney would not distribute the film to theaters that lacked suitable acoustics. Many areas of the country would not see the film until 1942, if then.

Disney had, in fact, made a very good film, but one that was seemingly targeted to a narrow audience of intellectuals and art patrons. Fantasia was Art with a capital 'A'. The narration, while witty, was highbrow, as was the score.

While some of the animated sequences had appeal to children, others might be tedious for them. Or scare them out of their wits, such as when all the dinosaurs suffer extended grisly deaths from dehydration, or the evil god of the night summons the dead from their graves.

One unexpected audience for the film emerged during the 1960s: pot smokers, who rumored that the animators must have been stoned to make such a surreal film. But most of the stories had origins in famous stage operas, with Disney adding pretensions such as 'the history of the world' (which apparently ends with its destruction, without humans ever having been around).

The difficulty of the animation has to be recognized. Sometimes, the movement of every frame is synchronized to changes in the soundtrack. The vast number of directors used (sixteen are credited) demonstrates that many teams of animators were tackling different parts of the film at the same time.

All of these disparate pieces had to be tied together. This was done through the narration, which accompanies silhouetted images of conductor Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Some frames of Fantasia have been altered to suit modern political correctness. One scene allegedly had a black centaur shining the hooves of a white counterpart. You won't find it on your VHS copy.

Narrator Deems Taylor was a music critic and radio host for the New York Philharmonic. Walt Disney himself supplied the voice for Mickey Mouse. Bela Lugosi was the live action model for Tchernabog (or Chernobog), the evil god of the night in the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence.

While the ambition and originality of Fantasia is undeniable, it lacks the cohesiveness and energy of the best Disney features of the era. For example, compare "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" with the scene of Snow White dancing with Dopey while he is on another dwarf's shoulders. The latter scene is far more dynamic and colorful, with richer characters and emotions.

But Fantasia is literally a high water mark for Mickey Mouse, the only classic feature in which he plays a significant role. While Mickey has long been Disney's mascot, his fame originated from cartoon shorts in the 1920s and 1930s that most people today have never seen. "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is the best alternative to his current image as theme park greeter. (75/100)