Interesting stories, profound and timeless morals, spanning time and space and language.
Premiered in 1940, Fantasia not only pioneered the use of stereo sound effects in film, creating an unparalleled viewing experience, but also combining the storytelling of animation and music.
For decades, the "sorcerer apprentice" in the film, dressed in red robes and wearing a blue magic hat, has gradually become one of Mickey's most popular characters.
fantasia
The film consists of eight chapters and eight pieces of music, including Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite, and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.
In 2000, Disney re-released the classic soundtrack of the anime Fantasia 2000, paying tribute to the previous game while not forgetting the innovation, the world's first animated feature film produced using IMAX technology.
Recently, Disney China invited the famous musician Tian Yimiao to share the musical story behind "Fantasia".
The following is the transcript of Teacher Tian's speech
Disney's Fantasia was once a primer for a generation of classical music.
Walt Disney, who started out with animation, believed that cartoons could also rise from popular culture to an art of common appreciation, and perhaps because of this, he borrowed classical music and combined solemn classical music with fantasy cartoons.
In 1940, Disney introduced the animated feature Film Fantasia, which, unlike previous works, consisted of eight classical musical works, including Bach's Touch and Fugue in D minor, Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite, Paul Duka's The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Beethoven's Sixth Pastoral Symphony, Pontieelli's Dance of the Hours, Mussorgsky's Nights in the Barren Mountains, and Schubert's Ode to the Virgin.
You can see the avant-garde boldness of Disney's selection of songs. There are children-friendly "The Nutcracker", "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", the imaginative "Pastoral Symphony", "Night on the Barren Mountain", "Dance of the Hour", the more complex Bach fugue, the religious music "Ode to the Virgin", and the rugged and discordant modern work "The Rite of Spring".
Can children understand this music? Let's see how Disney animation interprets music.
"The Nutcracker" is originally about a little girl in a Christmas Eve dream, dreaming that the Nutcracker is alive and taking her to Candy Mountain. "Fantasia" does not continue this story, but uses the picture to interpret the music itself, making the animation into a fairy garden, the fluorescent elves depict the timbre of the flashing xylophone in the music, and using animation to take us to know a timbre.
When the bass appears, the picture comes to the dark seabed, using a mollusk on the seabed to express a swaying melody, it is flexible? Is it flowing? Language is actually difficult to express thoroughly, and describing this melody as a swimming jellyfish, you can immediately find the feeling of music. When a rotating pattern appears in the melody, the picture is matched with the rotation of two leaves. These animations use a synaesthesia approach to show us how the music comes alive.
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is arguably the most representative of these episodes, starring Mickey Mouse. This is the title music, depicting such a story: Mickey followed the master to learn magic, one day the master went out, let it carry water at home, Mickey was lazy, read a magic spell, let the broom to help him carry water, lie down and fall asleep, it dreamed that his spell had increased greatly, he could direct the waves and stars, and he did not expect to wake up and find that the home was flooded. Mickey was very engaged in the performance, and after the performance, he went on stage like a concert soloist to shake hands with the conductor.
Difficult classical music, how to explain it for children?
Beethoven's "Pastoral Symphony" is full of the fragrance of plants and the singing of birds, showing people coming to the countryside, refreshed and full of joy. But Fantasia replaced the pastoral style with the jubilation of animals, probably because children prefer zoos to idyllic scenery. Unicorns, Pegasus and Cherubs fly in music, followed by a half-orc festival in which disney's various princes and princesses come to star, they are pairs of half-orcs, living a pastoral life. The sense of power in Beethoven's music, the sound of thunder and rain, how to express it, the gods in ancient Greek mythology appear in the cartoon. This plot can be said to be very imaginative.
In "Dance of Time", a group of ostriches dance, wearing ballet shoes and black and white fashion ballet skirts. Ostriches dance cute and imagely, and the slow leg extension is like a ballet action. The next stage of elephant dancing and playing bubbles, especially able to interpret the music, expressing the dreamy sense of slowness and lightness in the music, followed by a fierce dance, replaced by a double dance of hippopotamus and crocodiles, dangerous and beautiful, full of fighting passion, with animation to interpret a sufficiently violent aesthetic.
Children naturally cannot understand the sense of religion in music. Instead of the prayer scene of "Ode to the Virgin", the picture depicts a vast landscape, like a snowy day, a group of monks walking through it, they wear a round red umbrella, and there is often a light shining on the umbrella. It's like the long flow of musical lines, flashing Schubert's inspiration.
"Night on the Barren Mountain" uses dark fairy tales to show a strong orchestral color, and the gods and ghosts are at war, which is shocking.
When Fantasia premiered in 1940, it was a mixed bag, and it became a long-lasting classic that Mr. Walt Disney probably didn't expect.
In 2000, Disney launched a sequel, Fantasia 2000, using more advanced IMAX technology, and became the world's first animated feature film to be produced using IMAX technology...
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Source: Disney China