Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Mickey Magic



The Sorcerer's Apprentice from Disney's grand experimental film Fantasia remains one of my all time pieces of film making. The idea of having a cartoon character commanding the forces of the universe must have sounded crazy and over the top to the Disney staff. But Walt Disney's vision for what the animated medium could do eclipsed everyone's imagination. To him this was not merely a cute cartoon business anymore "We have worlds to conquer."
And that he did, with Fantasia and so many other films and projects that followed.









I love the fact that Disney wasn't afraid of going into dark places. A Mouse's dream that turns into a frightening nightmare. Early German expressionist films had a profound influence on the Disney artists at that time. That studio was unstoppable!

6 comments:

  1. Socerer's Apprenice is timeless, magical, haunting, and simply unfogettable. Same goes for the rest of Fantasia. I even loved Fantasia 2000.

    I often imagine how much better Fantasia wouldver been had Milt Kahl worked on the film!

    Thank you Andreas for being an unstoppable force, carrying on the spirit and creativity of traditional animation. I"very enjoyed reading & studying every post you'ver put up since you started your blog back in 2011. :)

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  2. Love Fantasia. I understand why Clair de Lune was cut, but wish it hadn't been. I have seen Fantasia in theaters dozens of times, and have it on tape, laserdisk and DVD, but still I wish it would be released Ito theaters again. So incredible seen on the big screen.

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  3. I always liked the transition from color to Bw and then back to color when the brooms reassemble themselves...a bold effect.

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  4. I always liked the transition from color to Bw and then back to color when the brooms reassemble themselves...a bold effect.

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  5. Wow thats a beautiful first image!

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