Barnes & Noble

It is titles like Fantasia that make the DVD player seem essential. Unavailable for purchase on VHS for nearly a decade, one of Walt Disney's most magnificent achievements is back, and grander than ever, in this DVD-only Special 60th Anniversary Edition. For the first time on any home video format, Walt Disney's "grand experiment" -- combining animation with classical music -- is presented in its original 1940 Roadshow edition, complete with intermission and narration, which viewers have not seen since that original theatrical release. Incredibly, like It's a Wonderful Life, Fantasia was not fully appreciated at the time of its release, but with such hallucinatory sequences as "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," "The Dance of the Hours" with the tutu-clad hippos and "The Nutcracker Suite" with the dancing vegetables, it's no wonder it was embraced in the 1960s and '70s by college kids looking for the ultimate cinematic trip. This DVD is loaded with state-of-the-art supplemental features including archival interviews with Walt Disney and a segment about the making of this groundbreaking masterpiece. Donald Liebenson

All Movie Guide

Fantasia, Walt Disney's animated masterpiece of the 1940s, grew from a short-subject cartoon picturization of the Paul Dukas musical piece "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Mickey Mouse was starred in this eight-minute effort, while the orchestra was under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. Disney and Stokowski eventually decided that the notion of marrying classical music with animation was too good to confine to a mere short subject; thus the notion was expanded into a two-hour feature, incorporating seven musical selections and a bridging narration by music critic Deems Taylor. The first piece, Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," was used to underscore a series of abstract images. The next selection, Tschiakovsky's "Nutcracker Suite," is performed by dancing wood-sprites, mushrooms, flowers, goldfish, thistles, milkweeds and frost fairies. The Mickey Mouse version of "Sorcerer's Apprentice" is next, followed by Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," which serves as leitmotif for the story of the creation of the world, replete with dinosaurs and volcanoes. After a brief jam session involving the live-action musicians comes Beethoven's "Pastorale Symphony," enacted against a Greek-mythology tapestry by centaurs, unicorns, cupids and a besotted Bacchus. Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours" is performed by a Corps de Ballet consisting of hippos, ostriches and alligators. The program comes to a conclusion with a fearsome visualization of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain," dominated by the black god Tchernobog (referred to in the pencil tests as "Yensid," which is guess-what spelled backwards); this study of the "sacred and profane" segues into a reverent rendition of Schubert's "Ave Maria." Originally, Debussy's "Clair de Lune" was part of the film, but was cut from the final release print; also cut, due to budgetary considerations, was Disney's intention of issuing an annual "update" of Fantasia with new musical highlights and animated sequences. A box-office disappointment upon its first release (due partly to Disney's notion of releasing the film in an early stereophonic-sound process which few theatres could accommodate), Fantasia eventually recouped its cost in its many reissues. For one of the return engagements, the film was retitled Fantasia Will Amaze-ya, while the 1963 reissue saw the film "squashed" to conform with the Cinemascope aspect ratio. Other re-releases pruned the picture from 120 to 88 minutes, and in 1983, Disney redistributed the film with newly orchestrated music and Tim Matheson replacing Deems Taylor as narrator. Once and for all, a restored Fantasia was made available to filmgoers in 1990. A sequel, Fantasia 2000, was released in theaters in 1999. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 717951004611
• Source: WALT DISNEY VIDEO
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Pre-1954 Standard (1.33.1)
• Presentation: Pan & Scan
• Sound: Dolby Digital
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Français
• Time: 2:05:00

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