subscribe to this pageLuckett explores the cultural discourse surrounding Fantasia at the time of its release, finding mixed reviews of the animated feature film. Positive reception focused on the film's master animation techniques and somewhat abstract narrative structure, while negative criticism came mainly from representatives of the music world who saw classical music and film as incompatible - the former being art and the latter being a "distraction." The author also analyzes the marketing and distribution strategies that made Fantasia a spectacle. Disney positioned the film as a "prestige picture" by releasing it as a roadshow, traveling around the country visiting large theaters in major cities. This strategy of infrequent screenings served popular as well as technical purposes, creating suspense/"buzz" but also allowing time for theaters to install the necessary equipment for the film's multi-channel audio "Fantasound" technology. However, this distribution method also kept the film from earning enough revenue to make up for its enormous budget. As a reslt, the film went on to be re-released many times over the next several decades. Luckett examines the conditions around these re-releases as well as their individual receptions, finding a "double connotation" in the contemporary United States. Some products (e.g. home video copies of the film) signal the film as a children's/family amusement, while other products (e.g. the Collector's Edition tapes, classical music soundtrack, lithograph) associate the film with art. The author concludes that contemporary (1990-91) marketing strategies for Fantasia re-releases mirror those for its original release: both focus on the rarity of the chance to see the film.
This article is important because it represents a kind of meta-analysis of the releases and receptions of Fantasia over time. The author acknowledges the hostility the film originally received from the musical community and argues that Fantasia has consistently been marketed as a rare event. My thesis uses similar information as explored in this article and expands on the author's conclusion by also taking into account how temporal distance from the original film affects its interpretation as art versus mass commercial commodity. While Luckett does mention the "double connotation" of the film in recent years regarding its relationship to art, this aspect of the article is mainly focused on the marketing techniques involved to produce such an effect. In this way the author's explanation here provides a more complete picture of how Fantasia has come to be viewed as art over the years.
Luckett, Moya. "Fantasia: Cultural Constructions of Disney's 'Masterpiece'" Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic Kingdom. Ed. Eric Smoodin. New York, NY: Routledge, 1994. 214-36. Google Books. 22 Nov. 2008 <http://http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=wpxzl1lcr30c&oi=fnd&pg=pr9&dq=fantasia+disney&ots=fdmktnkohv&sig=hx9e44_3n-ovwcn1ikbssvzu1vy#ppr6,m1>.
This article, appearing in a 1941 issue of The Musical Times, is a review of the original release of Fantasia. The author presents a somewhat biting critique of the film for failing to meet the standards put forth by the classical music pieces it features. The main criticism voiced here is that the film's visual "Disney style" is so overbearing that the character of the music is overshadowed. While the author acknowledges the creative and effective pairing of visuals with music in a few of the film's sequences, the article maintains that Fantasia still does not constitute an innovative work of art. The author argues that the film is merely a second-rate extension of the "Silly Syphonies" series of animated shorts. The article closes with the repitition of its orginial criticism: Fantasia takes on too much in terms of the music at the heart of its presentation.
This article represents the prototypical response from the music community at the time of Fantasia's orginal release. This critic conveys ambivalence at best, describing some redeeming qualities of the film but still condeming it as a failure in both the beginning and end of the article. This relates to my thesis in that it provides an example of negative criticism at the time of the film's release. The author is not able to view the film through a historical lens, so the only perspectives offered are those that relate to the aesthetics and intertextuality of the film. In this case the reviewer is predominantly concerned with the face value of how Fantasia treats classical music, and in his eyes it fails to meet its potential in this respect.
McN. "Disney's 'Fantasia'" The Musical Times sep. 82 (1941): 349-49. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 29 Nov. 2008 <http://http://www.jstor.org/stable/922891?&search=yes&term=fantasia&term=disney&list=hide&searchuri=%2faction%2fdoadvancedsearch%3fq0%3dfantasia;f0%3dall;c0%3dand;q1%3ddisney;f1%3dall;c1%3dand;q2%3d;f2%3dall;c2%3dand;q3%3d;f3%3dall;wc%3don;search%3dsearch>.
This article, written in 1946 by a professor of theater arts at the University of California at Los Angeles, weighs the merits and drawbacks of the animated cartoon as an art form. The author notes that the beauty of the form is that, at its best, individual cartoons can be watched repeatedly and still hold the viewer's interest. The article describes Walt Disney as the master of the animated cartoon, a man who brings infinite imagination to his work to produce rich details that warrant repeated viewings of his short films. However, the author does not respond as favorably to Disney's feature films, arguing that they progress only in terms of technical skill. The article mentions the shortcomings of many of Disney's early feature films, specifically describing Fantasia as an "ambitious experiment lacking over-all perfection," but still recognizes Walt Disney as a man working within the constraints of a larger industrial system that limits his art through economics. The author argues that Disney, himself, is a genius but is unable to bring true artistic innovation to his feature films because they represent "an expensive medium for far too large a public." The article closes by announcing two new Disney shorts to be released in the coming months, predicting that these cartoons will be able to "comment on life and society and still be entertainment" because they do not suffer the same burden of economic popularity as Disney's feature films.
Written just six years after the original release of Fantasia, this article is an example of negative critical reception of the film based on criteria that do not revolve around the film's "destruction" of classical music. Here the author situates his disappointment in Fantasia's execution within an overall critique of Disney's feature length films. The author's main criticism of the Disney feature length format is that it tries to cater to too large an audience and is bound by expectations of economic performance, a fact that strengthens my thesis that art is often seen as being in opposition to mass entertainment/commodities.
Macgowan, Kenneth. "Make Mine Disney: A Review." Hollywood Quarterly july 1 (1946): 376-77. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 27 Nov. 2008 .
This bulletin from 1939 reviews an exhibition of Walt Disney's art held at Harvard University's William Hayes Fogg Art Museum. The month-long event included the displaying of Disney's sketches, storyboards, drawings, color experiemnts, and final images on celluloid. The article describes the different departments of the Disney studio and notes that materials were collected from each one to represent a different phase of the animation process. It is also noted that this division of labor is no mere assembly line, and the work is never routine due to the changing nature of the techniques involved; thus the production process for each film is unique. The presentation of the materials was accompanied by a series of lectures given by Harvard Professor Robert D. Feild, a curriculum that distinguished the exhibition from other Disney art showcases of the time. Professor Feild focused on the creation of animated films as a prcoess, and materials were selected to reflect the specific stages of production ("Story, Lay-out, Animation, and Screen"). This "workshop" approach to Disney's art provided a departure from other similar events of the time that focused mainly on aesthetics.
While it is short in length, this document provides a primary source that demonstrates the view of Disney's work as art in the late 1930s. It is especially significant that this validation comes from a source as esteemed as Harvard University. This treatment of Disney's work as art would seemingly contradict my thesis. However, it is significant that this institution chose to take the animation production process as its primary focus (as opposed to the intrinsic aesthetic value of the pieces, themselves) while still classifying the presentation as an art exhibit and containing it within the university's art museum. This subtle detail actually supports my thesis because it shows that even when nominally considered as "art" by a prestigious university, Disney's work was treated differently than other forms of art by critics of the time. In this instance it was the spectacle of the technological prcoess that was the main subject of the exhibition, rather than the images themselves. The materials were included as an enhancement of the lectures regarding the production process. Fantasia was thus released one year later into an atmosphere in which the major appeal of Disney's work was really its technical rather than its artistic merit.
"The Art of Walt Disney, Exhibition and Lectures." Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum mar. 8 (1939): 58-58. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 29 Nov. 2008 <http://http://proxy.library.upenn.edu:2097/stable/4301055?&search=yes&term=animation&term=form&term=art&term=disney&list=hide&searchuri=%2faction%2fdoadvancedsearch%3fq0%3ddisney;f0%3dti;c0%3dand;q1%3dart%2bform;f1%3dall;c1%3dand;q2%3danimation;f2%3dall;c>.
This article, written by a painter and film producer, discusses the presence of avant-garde techniques within the film industry. The author argues that, in addition to documentary and fictional entertainment, a third category of film should be formally added: experimental film. The article describes the nature of the avant-garde, outlining its history from cubism to surrealism, and posits that it is not necessarily technique that defines the style, but rather disinhibition of the artist. For the author, technique without creative energy is not justified as avant-garde, a style that is dedicated to the freedom of the artist. The article mentions Fantasia as one of two examples of mainstream films that the author deems avant-garde. This qualification is given to the film because of its focus on abstract movement, a visual
The fact that this article was written almost a decade after the initial release of Fantasia supports my thesis because the 9-year period in between substantiates a retrospective analysis. The author is able to describe Disney's work as avant-garde because of the priveleged position to look back and compare it to other films of its time and to view it in the context of the artistic movement of surrealism. However, the time elapsed between the release of the film and the publication of this article is relatively short, and thus the article could also be analyzed as a "late contemporary" of Fantasia.
Richter, Hans. "The Avant-Garde Film Seen from within." Hollywood Quarterly autumn 4 (1949): 34-41. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 27 Nov. 2008 .
The author, writing in 1945, offers a lengthy critique of why musical "re-creations" do not qualify as art. The article begins by stating that the addition of images to "absolute" music qualifies as a form of corruption and that Disney is guilty of this crime in Fantasia. The author goes on to list other offenses against canonical musical pieces: betraying the original intention of the composer, disrupting the continuity of the original piece, changing the original instrumentation (including changes to volume), and the introduction of expressiveness. The author uses metaphors of paintings and other visual art forms in order to demonstrate the horrific effects of each of these sins against music. The article closes with the statement that this practice of musical re-creation is merely a passing fad that will surely die out with the "current period of hyperindividualism."
This article is significant because it presents the common opinion of those in the music world that Fantasia is a heretical misuse of classical music, but it puts forth a more methodical reasoning behind this type of disapproval. The highly structured argument is significant because it shows that there existed an organized explanation of why films like Fantasia should not be considered valuable pieces of art. The author classifies this kind of impressionistic reworking of classical music as a passing trend, a fact that relates to my thesis by providing a direct temporal dimension to definitions of art. It seems that this author refuses to accept Fantasia as art partly because it represents what the author sees as a current (at that time) practice. The style of the film did not have the historical precedence behind it to be considered art. This article is especially interesting in terms of comparisons to more recent analyses of the film because it marks as criminal the very thing that Disney is praised for by contemporary cultural critics: the re-editing of classical music pieces in order to make them accessible to a wider audience. Whereas modern critics see this democratization of high art as a positive, artistic aspect of Fantasia, this author gives a methodical explanation of why this is a crime against music.
Balet, Leo. "The Nuisance of Music "Re-Creations"" The Kenyon Review summer 7 (1945): 382-98. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 27 Nov. 2008 .
The article opens with the note that it is easy to forget that Walt Disney "was once celebrated as a great artist" for his innovations in the field of animation as well as his creative abilities. However, by the late 1940s the filmmaker's critical acclaim began to wane. Critics began to see Disney as having sold out his talent to pander to popular tastes. The author argues that Walt Disney's aesthetic evolved to reflect the contradictory intersection of Victorian sentimentalism and modernism, creating a hybrid style that helped mediate an important cultural shift in the United States during the 20th Century. The author goes as far as referring to Disney as "a kind of popular Picasso" to reflect his hybrid style that combined commercial entertainment and elements of surrealism (such as fantastic imaginary settings). In response to Disney's early modernist aesthetic, Sergei Eisenstein is quoted as having said in the early 1940s that the animator's work constituted "the greatest contribution of the American people to art." However, as Disney's efforts grew increasingly dedicated to enhancing realism in animation, his style onscreen became firmly rooted in a sunny aesthetic that reflected the sentimental idealism of the Victorian tradition. Disney was working at a time when other cartoonists had already developed a modernist aesthetic (often dark and surreal), and he curbed their style with his own anthropomorphic, fantastic-yet-optimistc idealism. The author argues that Fantasia represents the embodiment of this hybrid agenda. Abstract shapes and bizarre images set to classical music form the modernist component (especially through the juxtaposition of "high" and "low" images), while the idealistic nature scenes that form the imagery for several sequences form the counterpoint of Victorian sentimentalism. Many critics of the early 1940s likened Disney's appeals to the unconscious to the trickery and even drugging of audiences.
This article provides a retrospective analysis of Walt Disney's unique artistic style at the time leading up to and including the creation of Fantasia. It is important to note the temporal distance between the realm of the article's subject (the 1930s and 1940s) and that of its author (1995). The hindsight of this 60-year lapse enables the author to draw clear distinctions between different artistic movements in history, namely Victorian sentimentalism and modernism. While Disney's work was criticized at the time for being too "cutesy" and commercially exploitative, this modern author re-defines Disney's style as an innovative hybrid of two conflicting artistic movements. Thus it is in the context of these historical paradigm shifts that the author resurrects Disney as an artist. This article relates to my thesis because the author uses historical/retrospective insight to read Fantasia as the prime example of Disney's hybrid artistic style. While many music critics of the time condemned Fantasia for destroying the classical music at the film's center, this author uses the more than 50 years since the film was made to develop an analysis that sees the "bigger picture" of how the film fit into various definitions of art.
Watts, Steven. "Walt Disney: Art and Politics in the American Century." The Journal of American History june 82 (1995): 84-96. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 24 Nov. 2008 .
This New York Times article was written in response to the announcement of Disney's recent (2006) strategy to reintroduce animated shorts to its lineup of cinematic productions. These short programs will appear before Disney feature films in theaters. The author mentions that nearly half a century has passed since the company regularly produced short cartoons, a hiatus initially brought on by soaring production costs after World War II. According to the article, the short format is making a comeback not with the hopes of turning a profit in the short run but instead as a long-term investment. These shorts represent a relatively low-risk way of "trying out" new talent (directors, animators, especially women). A key distinction is made between the recent animated shorts that Disney has made as a "purely artistic exercise" and the new cartoons that will be more commercial in nature. The author notes that Warner Brothers tried a similar resurrection of an old commercial form (Looney Toons shorts), but they did not succeed in their attempt. According to leaders within the Disney company, this new endeavor is meant to grow the studio in the same way the shorts program grew Walt's original studio more than 70 years ago.
The article is important because it highlights the resurgence of an older form of entertainment/cultural production in modern times first as art form, then as commercial product/commodity. When the "artistic" animated shorts (''Destino,'' ''Lorenzo'' and ''The Little Match Girl'') were introduced, they utilized an antiquated format (short cartoon) to experiment with new artistic and methodological techniques. This "new wave" of shorts provided a space for the introduction of new art forms, as opposed to the upcoming variety of short cartoons that are meant to be exercises in proficiency at conventional techniques for "new talent." While the first wave of new shorts was intended to be an artistic experiment, some of the films even winning Oscars, the newer variety of shorts is designed purely as a cost-effective training ground for Disney animators. This vocational transformation supports the idea that nostalgia for old commercial formats lends them an aura of art, while the familiarity of a form in current use (even one that has recently been resurrected from an older time) makes it a prime candidate for mass commercial use. The notion that old=art and current=commodity is supported by the distinction made between the commercial plan for these two types of recent Disney shorts.
Solomon, Charles. "For Disney, Something Old (and Short) Is New Again." The New York Times 3 Dec. 2006: 22-22.
This article from a Toronto Newspaper announces the 1979 recreation of a scene from Fantasia using puppets. The Toronto-based group, The Famous Players, is comprised of severally mentally handicapped members who have been trained as puppeteers. The Famous Players' shows often use puppets to impersonate celebrities and politicians, and this upcoming interpretive performance of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" represents the group's tribute to Walt Disney. In attendance will be Jimmie Edwards, the recently retired Disney representative who worked on the original Fantasia film vocals and later went on to handle Mickey Mouse's vocals in other Disney endeavors. In addition to the group's interpretation of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," The Famous Players will also be performing other acts including a rendition of a sequence from the Puccini opera Madame Butterfly.
This brief article is important because it provides a glimpse into the treatment of Fantasia in the intermediate years between its original release and contemporary times (significantly, in between the film's original release and the release of Fantasia 2000). This adaptation using puppets is significant because it demonstrates the treatment of Fantasia as a cultural production that enables artistic interpretation. While the method of interpretation is certainly unconventional, this creative adaptation reflects onto the artistic possibilities of the film itself for creating the possibility for such interpretation. It is also significant that the group's Fantasia performance is nestled next to their interpretation of a piece as classically artistic as Madame Butterfly. This juxtaposition further substantiates an aura of art around the film. The temporal position of this group's performance reflects my thesis because it represents an intermediate view of the film as art. While the group's adaptation recognizes the film as art (and functions as a tribute to Disney), it also takes the liberty of creatively interpreting the film. Thus Fantasia was not merely viewed as an antiquated form of art but something that could still be reworked in the current time.
Johnson, Bryan. "Puppets bring a slice of Fantasia to life." The Globe and Mail 22 June 1979.
The author of this article argues that Disney's editing/reworking of canonical classical music pieces in Fantasia vignettes does not merely butcher these artistic compositions (as was the common outraged response from people in the field of music), but instead brings to them a new series of visual associations that make them accessible to "middlebrow" audiences. He claims that it was the film's "technical virtuosity" that legitimized these decisions as art. The article discusses the ideological rhetoric underlying the film, such as evolution and technological progress, and how the harmony between image and sound onscreen works to naturalize these ideological underpinnings. The author also includes a discussion of the "Centaurettes" in one sequence that embody the racist trope of the "picaninny," characters that were self-censored out of the film in later releases, and how their presence signifies a certain racist ideology that reinforces the social hierarchy of the time. Briefly tracing the appearance of Fantasia over time, the author also mentions Fantasia 2000 as a continuation of this musical democracy that highlights the "cutting edge" technology legacy of the film through its IMAX format.
This article provides a rare instance in which a cultural critic from the field of music actually praises Fantasia for its reworking of classical music. However, it is significant that this positive reaction comes more than six decades after the film's initial release. Looking back on the film as a moment in history, the modern critic is able to locate Fantasia within a particular socio-historic context. This vantage point enables the author to comment on the sociological effects of the film, effects that comprise much of this article's redemption of the film's unorthodox usage of classical music. The author marks Fantasia as art because of both its technical brilliance and the creativity it displays in the methods used to ideologically affect its audience. This retrospective appreciation of the film relates to my thesis in that it provides an example of the notion that hindsight leads to Fantasia's validation as art rather than commodity. It is also significant that this article appears after the release of the contemporary Fantasia 2000, which served to refocus attention on the film in contemporary times. This re-emergence of the film, marketed as the resurrection of a classic, may have had a direct influence on the likelihood of a reviewer to see the original as art because of its connection to a particular moment in American history.
Clague, Mark. "Playing in 'Toon: Walt Disney's "Fantasia" (1940) and the Imagineering of Classical Music." American Music spring 22 (2004): 91-109. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 24 Nov. 2008. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3592969?seq=9&Search=yes&term=fantasia&term=disney&term=2000&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfantasia%2B2000%2Bdisney;gw%3Djtx;prq%3Dfantasia%2B2000;Search%3DSearch;hp%3D25;wc%3Don&item=1&ttl=68&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle