Trivia and Quotes
Quotes
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Narrator: [introducing the Nutcracker Suite] You know it`s funny how wrong an artist can be about his own work. Now the one composition of Tchaikovsky`s that he really detested was his Nutcracker Suite, which is probably the most popular thing he ever wrote. Incidentally, uh, you won`t see any nutcracker on the screen. There`s nothing left of him but the title
[Longer introduction to "The Nutcracker Suite"]
Narrator: You know, it`s funny how wrong an artist can be about his own work. The one composition of Tchaikovsky`s that he really detested was his "Nutcracker Suite", which is probably the most popular thing he ever wrote. It`s a series of dances taken out of a full-length ballet called "The Nutcracker" that he once composed for the St. Petersburg Opera House. It wasn`t much of a success and nobody performs it nowadays, but I`m pretty sure you`ll recognize the music of the suite when you hear it. Incidentally, you won`t see any nutcracker on the screen; there`s nothing left of him but the title.
[longer introduction to "The Sorcerer`s Apprentice"]
Narrator: And now we`re going to hear a piece of music that tells a very definite story. As a matter of fact, in this case, the story came first and the composer wrote the music to go with it. It`s a very old story, one that goes back almost 2,000 years: a legend about a sorcerer who had an apprentice. He was a bright young lad; very anxious to learn the business. As a matter of fact, he was a little bit too bright, because he started practicing some of the boss` best magic tricks before learning how to control them. One day, for instance, when he`d been told by his master to carry water to fill a cauldron, he had the brilliant idea of having someone do the job for him. So he brought a broomstick to life to carry the water. Well, this worked very well at first. Unfortunately, however, having forgotten the magic formula that would make the broomstick stop carrying the water, he found he`d started something he couldn`t finish.
Narrator: What you`re going to see on the screen are the designs and pictures and stories that music inspired in the minds and imaginations of a group of artists. In other words, these are not going to be the interpretations of trained musicians, which I think is all to the good.
[first lines]
Narrator: How do you do? My name is Deems Taylor, and it`s my very pleasant duty to welcome you here on behalf of Walt Disney, Leopold Stokowski, and all the other artists and musicians whose combined talents went into the creation of this new form of entertainment, "Fantasia". What you`re going to see are the designs and pictures and stories that music inspired in the minds and imaginations of a group of artists. In other words, these are not going to be the interpretations of trained musicians, which I think is all to the good. Now there are three kinds of music on this "Fantasia" program. First, there`s the kind that tells a definite story. Then there`s the kind that while it has no specific plot, it does paint a series of more or less definite pictures. And then there`s a third kind, music that exists simply for its own sake. Now, the number that opens our "Fantasia" program, the "Toccata and Fugue", is music of this third kind, what we call "absolute music". Even the title has no meaning beyond a description of the form of the music. What you will see on the screen is a picture of the various abstract images that might pass through your mind if you sat in a concert hall listening to this music. At first, you`re more or less conscious of the orchestra. So our picture opens with a series of impressions of the conductor and the players. Then the music begins to suggest other things to your imagination. They might be, oh, just masses of color or they may be cloud forms or great landscapes or vague shadows or geometrical objects floating in space. So now we present the "Toccata and Fugue In D Minor" by Johann Sebastian Bach, interpreted in pictures by Walt Disney and his associates, and in music by the Philadelphia Orchestra and its conductor, Leopold Stokowski.
[longer introduction to "Dance of the Hours"]
Narrator: Now we`re going to do one of the most famous and popular ballets ever written: the "Dance of the Hours" from Ponchielli`s opera "La Gioconda". It`s a pageant of the hours of the day. We see first a group of dancers in costumes to suggest the delicate light of dawn. Then a second group enters dressed to represent the brilliant light of noon day. As these withdraw, a third group enters in costumes that suggest the delicate tones of early evening. Then a last group, all in black, the somber hours of the night. Suddenly, the orchestra bursts into a brilliant finale in which the hours of darkness are overcome by the hours of light. All this takes place in the great hall, with its garden beyond, of the palace of Duke Alvise, a Venetian nobleman.
[longer introduction to "Night On Bald Mountain" and "Ave Maria"]
Narrator: The last number in our Fantasia program is a combination of two pieces of music so utterly different in construction and mood that they set each other off perfectly. The first is `A Night On Bald Mountain` by one of Russia`s greatest composers, Modest Mussorgsky. The second is Franz Schubert`s world-famous "Ave Maria". Musically and dramatically, we have here a picture of the struggle between the profane and the sacred. "Bald Mountain" according to tradition, is the gathering place of Satan and his followers. Here, on Walpurgnisnacht, which is the equivalent of our own Halloween, the creatures of evil gather to worship their master. Under his spell, they dance furiously until the coming of dawn and the sounds of church bells send the infernal army slinking back into their abodes of darkness. And then we hear the "Ave Maria", with its message of the triumph of hope and life over the powers of despair and death.
[last lines]
Narrator: [introducing A Night on Bald Mountain] The last number in our Fantasia program is a combination of two pieces of music so utterly different in construction and mood that they set each other off perfectly... Musically and dramatically, we have here a picture of the struggle between the profane and the sacred.
Narrator: [introducing the soundtrack] Now we`re going to introduce somebody who`s very important to Fantasia. He`s very shy and very retiring. I just happened to run across him one day at the Disney Studios. But when I did, I realized that here was not only an indispensable member of the organization, but a screen personality. And so I`m very happy to have this opportunity to introduce to you the sound track.
Mickey Mouse: [Pulling on Stokowski`s coat] Mr. Stokowski! Mr. Stokowski!
[Mickey whistles to get Stokowski`s attention]
Mickey Mouse: My congratulations, sir!
Leopold Stokowski: [shaking hands with Mickey] Congratulations to you, Mickey!
Mickey Mouse: Gee, thanks! He, he! Well, so long! I`ll be seeing ya!
Leopold Stokowski: Goodbye!
Narrator: And now we`re going to hear a piece of music that tells a very definite story. It`s a very old story, one that goes back almost 2,000 years, a legend about a sorcerer who had an apprentice. He was a bright young lad, very anxious to learn the business. As a matter of fact, he was a little bit too bright, because he started practicing some of the boss`s best magic tricks before learning how to control them.
[introduction to "The Rite of Spring"]
Narrator: When Igor Stravinsky wrote his ballet, "The Rite of Spring", his purpose was, in his own words, "to express primitive life." So Walt Disney and his fellow artists have take him at the word. Instead of presenting the ballet in its original form as a simple series of tribal dances, they have visualized it as a pageant as the story of the growth of life on Earth. And that story, as you`re going to see it, isn`t the product of anybody`s imagination. It`s a coldly accurate reproduction of what science thinks went on during the first few billion years of this planet`s existence. Science, not art, wrote the scenario of this picture. According to science, the first living things here were single-celled organisms, tiny little white or green blobs of nothing in particular that lived under the water. And then, as the ages passed, the oceans began to swarm with all kinds of marine creatures. Finally, after about a billion years, certain fish, more ambitious than the rest, crawled up on land and became the first amphibians. And then several hundred million years ago, nature went off on another task and produced the dinosaurs. Now, the name "dinosaur" comes from two Greek words meaning "terrible lizard", and they were certainly that. They came in all shapes and sizes, from little crawling horrors about the size of a chicken to hundred-ton nightmares. They were not very bright. Even the biggest of them had only the brain of a pigeon. They lived in the air and the water as well as on land. As a rule, they were vegetarians, rather amiable and easy to get along with. However, there were bullies and gangsters among them. The worst of the lot, a brute named Tyrannosaurus Rex was probably the meanest killer that ever roamed the earth. The dinosaurs were lords of creation for about 200 million years. And then... well, we don`t exactly know what happened. Some scientists think that great droughts and earthquakes turned the whole world into a gigantic dustbowl. In any case, the dinosaurs were wiped out. That is where our story ends. Where it begins is at a time infinitely far back when there was no life at all on earth, nothing but clouds of steam, boiling seas and exploding volcanoes. So now imagine yourselves out in space billions and billions of years ago looking down on this lonely, tormented little planet spinning through an empty sea of nothingness.
Narrator: [introducing "The Dance of the Hours"] Now we`re going to do one of the most famous and popular ballets ever written, from Ponchielli`s opera "La Gioconda" It`s a pageant of the hours of the day. All this takes place in the Great Hall with its garden beyond of the palace of Duke Alvisa, a Venetian nobleman.
Narrator: [introducing Bach`s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor] Things that might pass through your mind if you sat in a concert hall listening to this music. At first, you are more or less conscious of the orchestra. So our picture opens with a series of impressions of the conductor and the players. Then the music begins to suggest other things to your imagination. They might be, oh, just masses of color, or they may be cloud forms or great landscapes or vague shadows or geometrical objects floating in space. So now we present Bach`s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, as interpreted by Walt Disney`s artists, and in music by the Philadelphia Orchestra and its conductor, Leopold Stokowski.
Soloist: [Complete Ave Maria lyrics] Ave Maria! Heaven`s bride. The bells ring out in solemn praise, for you, the anguish and the pride. The living glory of our nights, of our nights and days. The prince of peace your arms embrace, while hosts of darkness fade and cower. Oh save us, mother full of grace, in life, and in our dying hour, Ave Maria!
Narrator: Now, look - will the soundtrack kindly produce a sound?
[it is silent]
Narrator: Go on, don`t be nervous - any sound.
Narrator: [It makes a brief bizarre sound much like a synthesizer, vibrating as it does so]
[laughs]
Narrator: Umm... that wasn`t *quite* what I had in mind.
Narrator: [the soundtrack plays a minor scale on bassoon, ending on a very low note] Go on. Go on; drop the other shoe, will you?
[it sounds an even deeper note, obviously the lowest]
[longer introduction to "The Pastoral Symphony"]
Narrator: The symphony that Beethoven called the "Pastoral", his sixth, is one of the few pieces of music he ever wrote that tells something like a definite story. He was a great nature lover, and in this symphony, he paints a musical picture of a day in the country. Of course, the country that Beethoven described was the countryside with which he was familiar. But his music covers a much wider field than that, and so Walt Disney has given the "Pastoral Symphony" a mythological setting, and the setting is of Mount Olympus, the abode of the gods. And here, first of all, we meet a group of fabulous creatures of the field and forest: unicorns, fawns, Pegasus the flying horse and his entire family, the centaurs, those strange creatures that are half man and half horse, and their girlfriends, the centaurettes. Later on, we meet our old friend Bacchus, the god of wine, presiding over a bacchanal. The party is interrupted by a storm, and now we see Vulcan forging thunderbolts and handing them over to the king of all the gods, Zeus, who plays darts with them. As the storm clears, we see Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, and Apollo, driving his sun chariot across the sky. And then Morpheus, the god of sleep, covers everything with his cloak of night as Diana, using the new moon as a bow, shoots an arrow of fire that spangles the sky with stars.
Trivia
[June 2008] Ranked #5 on the American Film Institute`s list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Animation".
Walt Disney himself related the story of a chance meeting with Leopold Stokowski at Chasen`s. They agreed to have dinner together. As they talked, Disney told of his plans to do "The Sorcerer`s Apprentice" and other possible projects using classical music with animation. Disney said that he was stunned when Stokowski, then one of the two most famous conductors in the country (the other being Arturo Toscanini), responded by saying, "I would like to conduct that for you." It was an offer he couldn`t pass up.
The first feature film to be shown in multichannel sound. The original prints featured soundtracks that were recorded in a process known as Fantasound, a four-track directional stereophonic system that was invented especially to record the soundtrack for the film by RCA and the Walt Disney Studios technical team, led by William E. Garity. The Leopold Stokowski-conducted orchestra audio was recorded onto eight separate soundtracks (six channels recorded individual sections of the orchestra, the seventh recorded a mix of the first six channels and the eighth recorded a distant pickup of the entire orchestra), which were then mixed down to three tracks (left, center and right). The three music tracks were optically matted with a fourth control track (containing signal tones that varied the speaker dynamics) onto a filmstrip separate from the projector print. Over 90 speakers were used for the playback of the Fantasound audio during the premiere of the film on 12 November 1940. A more typical Fantasound setup used three speakers behind the screen and 65 others placed around the other three walls of the theater. However, Fantasound was discontinued due to the amount of sound equipment required and the time necessary to make the installation. The advent of wartime conditions also precluded the possibility of developing mobile units that could have lessened installation time and costs. Therefore, only 12 venues ever played the original Fantasound version of the film, and only 16 Fantasound-equipped prints were ever created. When RKO took over distribution for the roadshow version in January 1941, the film was shipped with a conventional monaural track. Disney technicians recreated Fantasound for the 50th Anniversary release in 1990 using modern digital technology and the original sound cues from the Disney archives, and this mix was encoded into the subsequent VHS and laserdisc releases. This mix is active, and even aggressive at times, with music swirling or jumping around the room. However, the DVD`s mix sounds considerably different. While no official verification can be found that it was changed, the DVD`s surround mix is more passive, with the music in the front channels and only concert-hall reverb in the rear channels. The sound is cleaner, but it is not Fantasound as it was described in 1940 and as it appeared in 1990.
The orchestra that appears in the interstitial segments of the film is not the actual The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, but rather a collection of local Hollywood musicians and Disney studio employees such as Paul J. Smith and James MacDonald.
At the beginning of the Chinese Dance segment of "The Nutcracker Suite," Hop Low, the little mushroom, does a little jump while criss-crossing his legs. Animator Art Babbitt got the idea from The Three Stooges - it`s one of Curly Howard`s signature moves.
The music for "The Sorcerer`s Apprentice" was the only piece that was not recorded by The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. It was recorded by a hand-picked orchestra on a shooting stage that had been configured as a recording stage at the Pathé Studios in Culver City (later the RKO Pathé Studios, Desilu Studios, and now the Culver Studios, part of Sony Pictures Entertainment), sometime around 1938-1939. The rest of the music was recorded in Philadelphia by The Philadelphia Orchestra.
When Igor Stravinsky was contacted about the rights to use "The Rite of Spring," he offered to compose a completely new piece for Walt Disney.
In "The Nutcracker Suite," considerable live-action footage was shot of Joyce Coles and Marge Champion (who, as Marjorie Belcher, had modeled for Snow White), in long ballet skirts to simulate the movements of the blossoms for "The Dance of the Reed Flutes." For the same segment, Walt insisted that his effects technicians devised a way of transferring Elmer Plummer`s (an art teacher at the Chouinard Art Institute) preliminary drawings into animation. After various attempts were rejected, they finally came up with stippled cels, on which the painted characters had a delicate pastel-like look.
The primeval Earth scene was filmed using a mixture of porridge, mud, and other ingredients and was enhanced by animation; apart from the orchestra sequences, it is the only live-action sequence in the whole movie.
The movie was named as one of the 20 Most Overrated Movies of All Time by Premiere Magazine.
When the Ostrich slips and falls on her rump, there is an added drum beat to the score. It was omitted (possibly overlooked) in the 1982 digital re-master since it was not part of the original score. It has since been restored.
The name of the dancing Ostrich is Mlle. Upanova.
Early story treatments for the "Rite of Spring" extended the time line to the appearance of humankind and the discovery of fire. It was decided to end the segment with the extinction of the dinosaurs to avoid controversy with fundamentalist groups.
The name of the dancing hippo in the "Dance of the Hours" segment is Hyacinth.
After initially considering and then rejecting the suggestion that Dopey would be the star of what he saw as the ultimate Silly Symphony, Walt Disney decided that his favorite, Mickey Mouse (a character whose future on the silver screen was a prime concern for Walt), should play the key role in an animated special featuring the music "L`Apprenti Sorcie" (The Sorcerer`s Apprentice) by French composer Paul Dukas instead.
The images of dinosaurs from the "Rite of Spring" segment went on to inspire the "Primeival World" diorama following the "Grand Canyon" diorama on the Disneyland Railroad.
The soundtrack album, a 3-LP set of all the music used in the film, was not released until 1957. In 1990, in conjunction with the film`s 50th Anniversary restoration, it was released on CD. (The soundtrack for the 1982 version, newly recorded in digital sound, and conducted by Irwin Kostal instead of Leopold Stokowski, had already been released on CD but was soon deleted in favor of the Stokowski version.)
A character named Sunflower was edited out before the film`s 1990 re-release. Sunflower was a Black centaur who appeared to be a handmaiden or assistant to another centaur, who had a very stereotypical look: big, red lips and wild messy hair.
Unused cell-prints exist of the "Pastoral Symphony" sequence during the bathing scene in the brook, which show the female centaurs as bare-busted while they wash themselves.
Nigel De Brulier was used as the model for the sorcerer.
Early on, Walt Disney and Leopold Stokowski considered having fragrances dispersed into the theater at certain points in the movie to heighten the experience. Suggestions included cereus for "Claire de Lune," jasmine for the "Waltz of the Flowers" segment of "The Nutcracker Suite," incense for "Ave Maria," and gunpowder for "The Sorcerer`s Apprentice." Disney dropped the idea because of the difficulty of clearing one scent from the theater before spraying in the next one.
The initial wide release was a dismal box office failure. In later years, some theater chains, which would normally run any Disney release, would not book the reissues of this film. However, by the 1970 reissue, the film attracted considerable interest for its supposedly psychedelic imagery and Disney marketed the film according to take advantage of it. The reissue was successful and the film`s reputation and popular appeal grew from that point to where its first home video release in 1991 broke records for sales.
Bill Tytla, the artist responsible for creating Chernabog, also created Sugar Bear, who was used to promote Post Cereal`s Super Sugar Crisp (later called Super Golden Crisp).
James Wong Howe served as cinematographer for the live-action segments uncredited.
This is thought to be the first American film to be released with no credits at all shown on-screen (not even the customary "Walt Disney presents") other than the film`s title, the words "Color by Technicolor," and the words "Distributed by RKO Pictures." The written credits at the end of the film are only present in the 1990 50th anniversary edition.
The 1947 re-release was distributed with Peter and the Wolf (1946), which was originally a segment in Make Mine Music (1946), shown as a featurette, much the way the first two or three Disney "Winnie the Pooh" shorts were shown before the main feature in theaters. This was the closest Walt Disney ever got to continuously updating Fantasia with new segments, although the "Peter and the Wolf" cartoon was not actually incorporated into "Fantasia."
Walt Disney originally wanted to re-release the film each year with new music segments, but this proved over-ambitious. Among the pieces that were at least storyboarded for insertion were Jean Sibelius`s "Swan of Tuonela," Richard Wagner`s "Ride of the Valkyries," Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov`s "Flight of the Bumblebee," and Carl Maria von Weber`s "Invitation to the Waltz" (a new concept that would have starred Peter Pegasus from the "Pastoral" segment). Some of these ideas, however, were incorporated into Fantasia/2000 (1999).
For "The Sorcerer`s Apprentice", Mickey Mouse was redesigned by Fred Moore to give him a more modern look and eyes with pupils for the first time. By the time the movie was finally released (two years after "The Sorcerer`s Apprentice" was supposed to be finished as a stand-alone short), four regular Mickey Mouse films (starting with The Pointer (1939) and the promotional short Mickey`s Surprise Party (1939)) had been completed and released using the new Mickey design.
In the "Pastoral Symphony" segment there was originally a scene showing stereotyped Black centaurs shining the hooves of white centaurs. It was not until the 1969 re-release that this was thought to be objectionable, and all subsequent releases until 1980 had an abrupt cut at this point. Every subsequent release after 1990 includes the scene, but with the section blown up so that it only shows the faces of the white female centaurs.
A segment featuring Claude Debussy`s "Clair de Lune" was animated and intended as part of the original release but cut due to the film`s already excessive length. "Clair de Lune" was reworked and rescored as the "Blue Bayou" sequence in Make Mine Music (1946). A restored version of the original "Clair de Lune" sequence, released in the 1990s as a stand-alone short, can be found on the "Fantasia Legacy" supplemental DVD.
The demon in "Night on Bald Mountain" is named Chernobog, after the god of evil in Slavonic mythology.
The animators secretly modeled elements of the Sorcerer in "The Sorcerer`s Apprentice" on their boss, Walt Disney. The raised eyebrow was regarded as a dead giveaway.
The Sorcerer (in "The Sorcerer`s Apprentice" segment) was nicknamed Yen Sid by the artists, which is "Disney" spelled backwards.
Bela Lugosi served as a live-action model for Chernabog, the demon in "Night on Bald Mountain." Lugosi spent several days at the Disney studios, where he was filmed doing evil, demon-like poses for the animators to use as a reference. However, Bill Tytla, the animator in charge of Chernobog, was dissatisfied with Lugosi`s performance, and had sequence director Wilfred Jackson pose for the cameras. Thus it was Jackson, not Lugosi, who appeared on-screen as Chernobog.
The filming of the final "Ave Maria" sequence was plagued by mishaps. To achieve the effect of moving through the scene, several panes of painted glass were used. The whole setup was over 200 feet long, and had to be redone three times. The first time the wrong lens was placed on the camera, and the subsequent film showed not only the artwork but the workers scurrying around it. The second time around, an earthquake struck the studio, and the shot was once again scrapped. The next morning, the shot was redone, the film was shipped to the lab, processed, and couriered to the premiere in New York where it was spliced into the final print with only four hours to spare.
On the 1982 digital re-recording of the soundtrack, Irwin Kostal decided to use Modest Mussorgsky`s original orchestration (which was previously unpublished until 1968) of "Night on Bald Mountain," which is said to be much fiercer than the version orchestrated by Leopold Stokowski that was used on the original.
Originally, Pierne`s "Cydalise" was to have been the musical choice for the Greek mythology setting, but Walt Disney decided it wasn`t expressive enough for the story, so Ludwig van Beethoven`s "Pastoral Symphony" was chosen instead.
During production, the animators were given no instructions for coloring. Walt Disney instructed them to use any colors they wanted, a first.
All prints made between 1941 and 1956 were re-mixed in monaural sound. The stereo was not restored until the 1956 re-release.
The first American film to use stereophonic sound as well as the first and only film recorded in Fantasound.
The 2000 restoration was the first time the longer, so-called roadshow version of the film was seen after the initial release. This version contains much longer interstitials from Deems Taylor explaining what will be seen. The picture of these segments was easy to find and was cleaned up, since most of them were used in the 1990 restoration, but the soundtrack for the segments that had not been seen since the 1940s either could not be found or was in terrible shape. After much debate, actor Corey Burton was called in to dub all of Taylor`s speeches, including the "Sound Track" sequence halfway through the picture.
Disney digitally re-recorded the soundtrack for the 1982 re-release because the original Leopold Stokowski soundtrack from 1940 sounded dated and very limited in fidelity. But for the 1990 50th Anniversary release, Disney reverted to the original soundtrack from 1940, which they cleaned up as best as possible (although the limited fidelity could not be corrected) and this is the soundtrack the film has today.
Igor Stravinsky, the composer of the "Rite of Spring" (who, until 1971, was the only one of the composers still living whose music was featured in the film) hated Leopold Stokowski`s re-orchestration and re-organization of the piece (the original order of the sections was jumbled, and two of them were completely left out of the Disney version).
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