DISNEY'S "FANTASIA"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 177, 13 November 1942, Page 10

DISNEY'S "FANTASIA"

[| HE other day my wife and I were recalling the Russian ballet and we agreed (unanimously) that, although it had seemed wanton extrava-

gance at the time, we had reason to be grateful now that we had gone to every programme of the ballet during its New Zealand tour because, as things (i.e. the war) had turned out, we would probably never have the chance again. As Noel Coward might have put it, "No, no, they can’t take that away from us." I have something of the same feeling, though in a modified form, about Disney’s Fantasia. For the special purpose (well, partly) of seeing this muchheralded film, I’ made a trip at Labour Day week-end to Christchurch, where for some reason it has had its Dominion premiere, Just as it would have been better to have seen the original Russian ballet in Moscow instead of on an inadequate Wellington stage, so it would, of course, have been better. to have seen Fantasia at its original American release, with all the benefit of that elaborate extra equipment of transmitters and amplifiers which worked, so I am assured by one who did see it then, a miracke of sourid reproduction. But we make the best of what we can get, and in the present case I have as little reason to regret my pilgrimage to Christchurch on an overcrowded ferry last week as I have to regret thosé extravagant nights at the ballet some years back. * * * ‘THE comparison with the ballet extends even further, to the picture itself. For my theory is that Disney (with Leopold Stokowski as sorcerer’s apprentice) is here trying to evolve a form of cinematic ballet for the masses. Whether the masses want it is, of course, another mattef; but Disney’s pitiless burlesque of orthodox choreography in the "Dance of the Hours" episode seems to bear out my theory It is said that many people walk out of Fantasia before the end and I’ve no doubt they do, though on the evening I. was there the only persons whom I noticed leaving the theatre were a soldier and his girl, from the row in front who obviously hadn’t gone there for the primary purpose of seeing any picture, let alone Fantasia. Apart from such amorists, and musical highbrows like the man who confessed that on seeing Fantasia he felt a little like those who prefer a book without illustrations -apart from such semi-legitimate deI imagine that the only people likely to leave before the end are those with trams to catch (the film’ takes nearly two and a-half hours to run) and those who would be likely to walk out of a ballet performance. Only in the latter ‘instance they would: probably not bother to go to ballet in the first place, knowing something of what to expect, whereas with Fantasia they might be excused for not expecting what they get. In other words, don’t go to Fantasia expecting to see a movie, as you know movies. Go expecting surprises and: anticlimaxes, delights and annoyances, beauty and ugliness, uprushes of sheer genius and swift descents into banality. You must take out the balance-sheet for yourself, because seldom has individual

taste come so much into a picture. No two persons seem to agree exactly about anything in it: on the one hand we have David Low comparing Disney’s significance with that of Leonardo; on the other we have Dorothy Thompson, straying far from world affairs, describing Fantasia as "a remarkable nightmare", "a supreme insult", and "the perverted betrayal of our best instincts." * %* * ISNEY has taken eight compositions by . widely-different composers, and with Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra providing the music, has "illustrated" them (the word is imadequate, but the only one available). In his experiments with "visual’ sound", he is perhaps most least original-when he uses the sionistic technique of puré form, and movement to illustrate Bach’s' D Minor Toccata and Fugue. I say "least original" because I remember a short film some years ago (made by the New Zealander, Len Lye, I think) in which Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 was treated with similar abstract forms and patterns in colour. Then comes 4 large part of Tchaikovski’s Nutcracker Suite, Sometimes the drawing is slightly out of character with the music, but not always. The style of this sequence is reminiscent of the "Silly Symphonies", but Disney’s draughtsmanship has probably never been more ingenious nor his imagination richer, and it is here, I think, that he reveals himself most clearly as the impresario of the New Ballet. The artist’s pen achieves a mechanical perfection of line and movement beyond the capacity of a Nijinsky or a Pavlova; the colour camera produces settings beyond Diaghilef’s wildest dreams; but is this enough? Can mechanical perfection and super-natural beauty compensate for lack of the human element? At the moment these are rhetorical questions: only experience will answer them. After a comparatively formal but amusing treatment of Dukas’s "Sorcerer’s Apprentice" (featuring Mickey Mouse) we get Stravinsky’s "Rite of Spring", which Disney visualises in terms of birth, geologic cataclyms, and prehistoric monsters. A schoolmaster whose opinion I respect says that this is a documentary masterpiece which will teach people more about the beginnings of the world than hours of lectures and text-book reading, but no section of the film has caused more controversy among the critics, especially the music critics. Some (including ") have castigated Disney for studiously avoiding Stravinsky’s own intentions. But how on earth, I would ask, could Stravinsky’s own intentions of orgiastic ritual dances have been respected on the screen? When Nijinsky tried to respect them in ballet they were too much even for a Paris audience. Music suggests many different things:to many different people-I never hear "Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring" without visualisjng a great loom weaving intricate patterns, and for some reason the Rondo Allegro from Beethoven’s Violin Concerto always makes me think of Laurel and Hardy! As for Stravinsky’s music, it might conjure up all’ manner of curious mental images, but if a tribal (Continued on next page)

DISNEY’S "FANTASIA" (Continued from previous page) orgy is out of the question, then is a portrayal of the world in birth so,very wide of the mark? * ES * ‘THEN comes Disney’s concéption of Beethoven’s "Pastoral" Symphony. Here again the professional music critics have frothed and fumed; but as a Philistine who likes good, and mot-so-good music without presuming to know exactly why, I can unly say that it didn’t upset me much to watch the inhabitants of Olympus-including Bacchus, Pegasus, Mrs. Pegasus, and the little Pegasi, and a covey of husky centaurs and provocative centaurettes-frolicking together while Beethoven’s symphony was being played. This item, I admit, doesn’t seem nearly as good as some of the earlier ones, but that may be partly because by then you are beginning to have a feeling of fullness in the intellectual breadbasket. It was even more of an effort to swallow Ponchielli’s "Dance of the Hours", a piece of heavy sarcasm in the form

of an ostrich and hippo ballet, but my appetite perked up for Moussorgsky’s "Night on Bald Mountain", a florid but exciting essay in the macabre. Unfortunately, the final: item, Schubert’s "Ave Maria", is in such poor taste that it was almost enough to make me regurgitate the whole feast. Was Disney making a last desperate effort to capture so-called "popular" audiences with this sentimental slush? If so, he almost deserves to fail. For what it is worth (and I think it’s a good deal) I pass on a friend’s suggestion that something like the Grail music from Parsifal vould have made the proper contrast to the Duvil worship in the preceding Moussorgsky item. * * Ea OOKING back over the whole film, I feel that Disney, like Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, has been showing off, has been a little too clever. He’s like a small boy who has just discovered how to ride a bicycle, and it’s perhaps not surprising that sometimes he wobbles and comes a cropper. Yet on the whole, Fantasia is a significant and supremely worthwhile experiment;