FANTASIA-THE RITE OF SPRING
FANTASIA-the right of spring
Dumbo’s pink elephants is a fantastic piece of film, if we look back a year to a film that predates Dumbo, to 1940 we can see where the inspiration for this film was found. Fantasia, one of the films I liked in my childhood, and Disney’s most experimental movie may seem a bit boring to many children expecting the usual Disney storyline and lovable characters. But to some children, filmmakers, musicians, and many adults this a spectacular piece of early animation. The thing that makes this so special, is that the music is not made to suit the film, the film is constructed around the music.
The accompanying orchestra was under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. It was originally first created to just be a short-subject cartoon picturization, but Leopold Stokowski and Disney eventually decided that marrying classical music to animation was just too much of a revolutionary idea to confine to a mere short subject.
This is a beautiful 2-hour piece of film with a visual feast of imagination coupled beautifully with Stokowski’s orchestra, the artists worked together with the animators so that each movement visually was connected to the tones and directions of the music.
The film in constructed into 15 different segments, each hosting their own intro, music and unique accompanying animation.
The introduction of the film man stands and begins to talk about Leopold Stokowski piece of music, quoting his first aim in the this opening segment of film piece of music was;
“to express primitive life, instead of creating the film in the form of a simple series of tribal dancers they had visualised it as a pageant, as the story of the growth of life, and that story as you come to see it isn’t the product of anybody’s imagination. it’s an accurate interpretation of what scientists think went on during the first few billion years of this planet existence science not artwork the scenario this picture according to science the first living things here were single celled organisms, tiny little white and green blobs of nothing in particular that lived another water and then as a just past the ocean began a swarm of all kinds of marine creatures finally after about 1 billion years fish more ambitious than the rest qualify nine and became the first amphibians”
he then goes on about dinosaurs in a very scientific manner, he spends a lot of time setting the scene and drawing the viewer in to the whole atmosphere of the film before we get a glimpse of what’s to come. As a child I found this stretched intro quite tedious, but as an adult I appreciate the way scene is being set carefully and properly before the film begins. The man then tell the viewer to imagine one back in time behind the dinosaurs behind the fish behind the organisms to where the earth was nothing but smoke and ground. He then tells you close your eyes and imagine for a around there in nothingness looking down at years. This leads onto a segment of the full film named the right of spring.
The rite of Spring uses fictional characters such as dinosaurs and sea creatures, and complements the music beautifully Reiki notes and points the music match dramatic elements in the film, the animation is done really well with most scenes fixated on a limited colour palette to create the atmosphere of each scene set. This opening segment creates way for the more nonfictional stranger and experimental segments to come.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasia_(1940_film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032455/
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fantasia/
