Movie 226/1001 ~ Fantasia

The third feature animated film produced by Walt Disney, Fantasia was a commercial failure. The film itself is a series of animated featurettes with no dialogue that is choreographed to famous orchestral works. In my youth, I had seen some of these segments, but never the entire film. The movie made great breakthroughs in sound recording technology because Walt Disney was very unhappy with the quality of sound that contemporary systems could provide. The film, which is over two hours in length, was just too lengthy for many and ultimately, the film wouldn't become profitable until many decades later. It also ran into some trouble because of a black centaur that was performing menial tasks and due to the reductions of several of the pieces of music. Some morons critics even went so far as to complain that because the animation didn't correspond with the composers vision for the music, the entire movie was foolish. Today, there are only two animated features on the AFI top 100 films list, and they are Fantasia and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I enjoyed this film, but really I think that it is too long for one sitting.

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Fun Fact: This film was very popular in the sixties. Why? Teenagers would see the film after partaking in various narcotic substances such as LSD and marijuana. Try it at home!